Into the City

Today has even another wonderful day in Paris. It started with espresso at Terasse de Maubeauge. We have already been there three or four times; we try to hit the owner with a new French phrase every time we go. He really appreciates the effort we make, and it's fun for us too.

After coffee we took the metro into the center of Paris. We saw a flyer for a free tour and education session through CultureFish. We managed to take the right metro and got to the meeting point with no problems. Our tour guide, Pierre, is a dual citizen of America and France so he spoke very good English. He was telling us that himself and his two siblings hadn't been living in the same country for years; they were always traveling about and would scarcely see one another. So, in 2009 they decided to drop everything, all three move to Paris and open up a company. Now they have a service called CultureFish where they run tours everyday rain or shine by donation only. So far it's been a success for them.

It turned out that four other people from our hostel went to the same tour that we did. We met two really nice guys from Florida who are actually leaving for Amsterdam tomorrow too. So we plan to meet up with them in the Netherlands as well. We also met four others, two from New Zealand and two from Australia.

We got to learn a lot about the history of Paris and how it came to be what it is today. Today while we were at the river, Pierre was telling us about Paris Beach. Every year for a few weeks the mayor closes down the road that runs right next to the river and has massive amounts of sand dumped on the road, they bring in palm trees and have a great number of bands and musicians perform. He says they do it to give the Parisians who don't have time to get out of the city and go to the beach to feel like they are in the tropics for a bit. The whole thing is free and open to the public.

After walking through the center of the city we visited the Louvre which is the largest museum in the world. It is where the Monalisa is displayed. We didn't go inside, we just visited the courtyard. Afterwards, we walked down to the end of the lawn where we could see the Eiffel Tower in distance but we didn't get too close to it. Shelby and I are planning to go to the tower when we come back to Paris at the end of our trip. We took the metro back with our new friend from Latvia.

After walking all day we still had more walking to do because we had to find Gare du Nord--the major train station to make reservations for our train to Amsterdam tomorrow. Turns out the direct trains already filled up so we have to take a train to Brussels, Belgium first. We figure we might as well stay for a few hours, so we plan to arrive around noon and get lunch and explore Brussels and Belgium a bit before hopping the train Amsterdam tomorrow evening.

We spent the afternoon in our part of the city. We went back to our favorite cafe for a glass of Rosé and walked around and ate baguettes. We are finally back at the hostel.We hung out and wrote in our room for a bit. We then went downstairs and met a man from outside of Verona. He helped us decide where we want to go during our time left in Europe. So far our route consists of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, and Spain.

We have talked to many people that we have met about where to go and have taken their advice. We plan to get to bed at a reasonable hour, wake up early and go get our last espresso from Terasse de Maubeague and say Au revoir, then take the train to Belgium around 11AM.

I will blog from The Netherlands tomorrow!

Hope all is well at home.

Ciao