Paris and Metz (week 3)

So this last week and a half has been really busy!! Last week I had a ton of work plus planning for my Paris trip with Emily!!
Thursday morning I got done with class at 10 and ran back to my room threw everything into my bag and dashed off to the train station. I took a train from Met-Nancy which is about 45 minutes south of Metz (and no closer to Paris) and then a larger (yet somehow slower) train from Nancy to Paris which took about 3 hours. Once in Paris I took the metro(subway system) (which I am now the master at navigating) to meet Emily at the hostel. That night we explored our neighborhood and went to bed early so we could see more of Paris the next day. The next morning Emily wakes me up at 6AM to go explore the city!! We got to the Louvre just before it opened and there was only a short line. Since neither Emily nor myself are really big on art, we did the whirl-wind tour of the Louvre, we saw the basics: the mona lisa, madonna on the rocks, the venus-di-milo, etc etc. Interesting that there is much Italian art in a French museum. After that we walked through the gardens by the Louvre, to the place de la concorde and then down the Champs Elysee to the Arc du Triomphe where we climbed the 287 stairs to get to the top where there is a beautiful panoramic of the city. After that we ate at a cute little cafe on the champs elysee and went back to the hostel and went to bed. After waking up from a short nap we went to dinner at a nice little italian restaurant where the food was delicious, they treated us right and even gave us a free after dinner drink!! After that dinner we were stuffed and sleepy so we went off to sleep.
We got up early again and trucked off to Notre Dame!! After finding Notre Dame and taking all of its glory in we went to the hotel de ville and saw the architecture. After seeing the classic architecture of the Hotel de Ville it was off to the Centre Pompidou to see the "modern" architecture. There we were lured into getting drawings done of us by some artists. They were pretty neat looking so we paid them. After that I was hell-bent on finding this amazing ice-cream place we had when I was in Paris last time. After about 20 minutes of wandering the ile-de-la-cite we managed to find it and it was just as amazing as I remembered. After our ice cream I sent us out on a voyage, this was no simple voyage more like a journey like that from the "Odyssey" we walked through the Quartier Latin and we saw 2 Starbucks across the street from each other!!! In Paris!! Continuing this epic journey we walked to the Luxembourg Gardens where we saw the parisiens in their natural habitat (taking naps, smoking, floating little boats in the fountains, letting their dogs poop and not cleaning it up, writing existensialist poetry, etc) but this was no time for us to brush up on our Jean Paul Sartre, we had to continue our space odyssey. We headed to the Hotel des Invalids which is where napoleon is buried and there is an army museum, but our voyage to the Eiffel Tower would not afford such luxuries as to see the body of our beloved leader, we had to continue on, some men being left behind! We finally stumbled upon the champs de mars which is the park that leads up to the Eiffel Tower. After trying to track down somebody to take our picture we walked up to the beast. We waited in line for about an hour and a half to buy our tickets then another 1/2 hour to take the elevator to the second floor (there are three floors and 2 elevators one takes you to the 1st and 2nd floors and the 2nd takes you to the top floor) after taking a quick look on the second floor we jumped in ANOTHER line to wait for the next elevator to the top floor for another 1/2 hour or so. When we finally got to the top, the weather had turned bad and we only took a short look around before heading back down (and waiting in another 45 minutes of lines) to head back to the hotel. That night we just had kebabs and went to bed!!
The next morning we got up and checked out of our hostel. They let us keep our bags there while we walked around that day which was perfect. We jumped on the metro to the Sacre Coeur and the district of Montemartre it was wet and rainy so we just took some pictures, had some lunch, saw the "moulin rouge" (the place the film is based off of) and headed to the train station back to metz.

During the week, I showed Emily around Metz while still staying on top of my work. Until thursday when we took off for Marseille...