AU REVOIR PARIS

Yesterday was a bit hectic so I didn't get the chance to blog about our last day of Paris.. here's as much as I can remember...

[TUES 13.10.09] Our last day of Paris we did much more sight seeing than we've done our whole time there. We finished washing our last load of laundry early in the morning to get more done throughout the day. As I was walking back up the hill towards our apartment, I got to see the sunrise peeking through the tall elegant buildings.. it was so pretty. I definitely know I want to come back to Montmartre, it's such a cute place. If I had more time in Paris I'd be content staying in that neighborhood only.

Our first stop was to see the last scenes Montmartre had to offer. We left our apartment at about 1000ish to find the "I love you" wall that apparently we passed by so many times before. It was hidden in a park across from the Abbesses metropolitain station. The wall is a black wall with "I love you" written all over it in different types of script in various languages in white. I was disappointed because they had so many but no Tagalog =( Sadness. Nonetheless, I still liked it. The park where the wall stood was very small but so peaceful. Down the street and parallel to Rue de Abbesses lies Moulin Rouge in the red light district aka Boulevard de Clichy. I've never been to Vegas but it was kind of what I imagined Vegas to be like. Left and right there were dirty stores everywhere. Sex this and that and boobs and man junk in all the store windows. I felt a little awkward and paranoid (since it was pretty busy... aka pickpocketer central) so I walked really fast and made the group catch up with me lol. We finally found it and took our pictures. It was one of those things where you just take the picture and go.. not much else to see. On our way to Moulin Rouge we saw a few shops that were actually open, though, and I got the chance to buy some souvenirs and buy my last goodies from a patisserie. I ate a chocolate croissant (1,60E) for my late breakfast, a sammich (4,50E) for real food when I got hungry again later and some doughnuts (1,50E for 5) to snack on later... just living it up in Paris hahah...

The rest of our day we planned to take our time to see the Eiffel Tower and see Notre Dame then walk around to shop or whatever we decided to do. The metro took us to the Eiffel tower and it crossed the Siene River to get there. It was a good view from the metro but when we finally got to the tower ourselves, part of it was under construction and we were too close to get a good shot. We decided to enjoy the view and I ate half of my sammich while the others snacked on glace (ice cream). I also took my favorite picture EVER of our trip in front of le tour de eiffel.. has something to do with a Ling and turtles hahaahha. After a bazillion shots with the tower and its surroundings we took the RER to the Notre Dame. Notre Dame was so beautiful and detailed. Its amazing how much detail is in the building's outer structure. The inside was also extremely detailed as well. I wasn't sure if there was an actual service going on but we got to walk around it while a choir sang. It was so peaceful despite everyone having mini side conversations. From there we did some shopping and walked around til our feet could no longer take it anymore. At the apartment I got to see the sun set in Montmartre on the Sacre Coeur for the last time... one of the best moments in Paris.

[WED 14.10.09] This morning I awoke early enough to do all my last minute packing and getting ready. I literally finished everything at about 605 when our landlord arrived at 610. The taxi picked us up at 615 to take us to the airport to catch our flight to Prague. We bought our plane tickets via smartwings.net but our itinerary didn't mention the airlines we were riding nor did it have a contact number listed for the airline. Our taxi cab driver kept asking us which CDG terminal and we had to stop by the first terminal to find out we were supposed to get to terminal 3. We made Pui get out since she was closest but she disappeared for a good 3 minutes or so.. but enough to freak Soapy out (she saw a bunch of army dudes around) and make me bite my nails as I watched the meter price increase. Terminal 3 seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere for all the little airlines. Right when we got out of our taxi at the destination (he pulled into a parking lot in front of terminal 3) the price on the meters was about 59 euros so we gave him 60 euros when we got our luggage out. Then apparently that wasn't the real price and our total price ended up being 66 euros because it included the ticket to park when he was in the lot for less than 5 minutes (it said 0-10min = gratuit). Something tells me we ended up getting ripped off but we didn’t analyze it until we were already in Prague. Sadness.

Our check-in for the flight went smooth other than me forgetting to take out a knife and fork out of a set for my godchild (that was super expensive and cute *tear*). The flight was only an hr and twenty minutes to Prague but we still got a free ham sammich and cup of juice.

PRAGUE

When we arrived in Prague, it was frrrreeeezing. “Welcome to Prague, the current temperature is 2 degrees.” We took a taxi, who didn’t rip us off, to our little hotel. The driving here is really unorganized. Our taxi took forever to take a left and we were stopped on a tram railway. Soapy freaked out bc she saw a tram heading our way and then realized that it would stop hahah. At the intersection there is no right of way, people go if they can or let others go to be polite. You either have to hope someone will let you in or be an aggressive driver. Once we arrived at our place it was so cute.. the buildings are medieval so we enter through the street via a large and tall doorway then in the alley there are other restaurants and doors that are very narrow. Our room, though, is like an apartment that’s probably 2xs as big as our Paris apartment. I’m getting a little tired but I’ll write about these tomorrow:
- Boudet
- Becherovka
- Lunch
- Towels & money

Good night <3