Backpacking In Paris... Literally

I must first preface this post by giving due credit to Crystal Schmidt for the title (thanks to your super creative mind!).

Goofing it up at the Louvre

And so I will begin trying to chronicle my crazy busy weekend in Paris (though please forgive me if I fail miserably; it’s hard to remember so much three days later). Friday started with an early wake-up call of 3:30 am, to get on our 5:30 Eurostar train to Paris. And now I know where all of the air-conditioning in Europe is—it’s all on the Eurostar! I froze into an icicle, and had to be thawed out on the Metro. Not pleasant.

We arrived at 8:30 in Paris and began a crazy, hectic, all-over-the-place schedule. Two hours at the Louvre was followed by a quick lunch-on-the-go on top of a double-decker tour bus. A photo stop in front of the Eiffel Tower, and then a boat trip on the river Seine. Another photo stop, this time in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral, then some touristy shopping, and finally dinner. And all of this with our luggage (a.k.a. backpacks) on us the entire time. In other words, a hell of a first day in France!

Sante! on our river boat tour

Yet there are a lot of things we missed, things that seem to be essential in any person’s Paris list: for instance, we didn’t have enough time to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We also missed out on going inside Notre Dame. And yet it was the untypical events of the day that really made Paris special. Our FSU Multimedia group uncorked two bottles of peach champagne on the river boat, and made all the other tourists jealous as we sipped from our plastic wine glasses and yelled “Santé” to each other. And our dinner was absolutely epic; delicious French cuisine coupled with feisty musicians (a guitarist and accordion player) and a never-ending pitcher of wine made for a great celebration.

Our party ended with me being dragged to the middle the restaurant and made to dance the Macarena; all in all, a terrific day J