Oh, It's Lovely Being Home!

What I Did Last Weekend

Outfit change.
Dress: Missguided, Blazer: H&M
Scarf, Shoes & Bag: Primark
Bracelet: Italian market, Sorrento

A snap of The Eiffel Tower

So, as you all know, for my 21st birthday (which is tomorrow: 10th April) my fiance and I took a long weekend off in Paris, France and as promised, I am now going to give you a little post on some of the things that we got up to!
To start of with, we stayed at The Hotel Derby Eiffel which is just a short 5 minute walk from The Eiffel Tower and The Seine river, which was obviously a plus. When we arrived in CDG airport on Thursday morning at 11:30am, we were driven to our hotel via shuttle transfer which only took around 20 or so minutes. Once we had checked into the hotel, settled in a little bit, and I made a quick outfit change (much to the apparent inconvenience of my fiance - I don't take that long getting changed: he just tends to over-exaggerate!) we then headed out to make the most of the day. We decided that we would see the Eiffel Tower first of all, so we headed in that direction, down the the park and arrived at the foot of the tower within minutes. Of course there were a few photos taken along the way - seeing the tower in person is so surreal when you're used to seeing it in photographs! It's quite overwhelming actually. So, yeah, we then saw that the lines for tickets to the top of the tower were so long it was estimated to be a 3 hour wait, so we decided against waiting (and wasting 3 hours) and crossed over the to Seine river side where we bought two day passes for the boat. It worked out pretty good actually, because you could hop on and off at 8 stops along the river for the two days. The stops included: The Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Saint-Germain-Des-Pres, The Notre Dame, Jardin de Plantes, Hotel DeVille, The Louvre and The Champs-Elysees. It only cost 18 euro for the two days, but if you had a student card (and had it with you, rather than leave it in your other bag like I did) you get it for 12 euro which is a pretty good deal. The boat comes every twenty minutes, with the last boat leaving at 9:45pm, so you don't need to worry about planning your activities around transport and getting back to the hotel. Once on the boat we decided that for the first day we should just take the boat all the way round the circuit, just to get the grips with it all, plus, a little boat ride is always nice! Later on in the evening, as we were walking back to the hotel we passed a little vendor selling crepes and decided that we would get one seeing as we hadn't really eaten since landing that morning. We ordered two with nutella and oh. my. god - absolutely amazing. I don't know if it was just because we were hungry or what, but they really were delicious - albeit a little messy to be eating in public. It was one of those foods that you need to eat in the comfort of your own home so that you're not constantly paranoid at having nutella all over your face.  

Heading out for Day Two
Leather Jacket: Muubaa, Jeans + Tee: H&M
Shoes: Primark with DIY studs

Moving on to day two and we got up a little early so that we could fit in all of the different stops. First up was Saint-Germain-Des-Pres. Saint Germain is known for it's galleries, street artists and cafes, so I immediately loved it there being quite creative myself. As soon as you get off the boat, there is a bridge up ahead covered in padlocks. The superstition is that if you attach a padlock with your name and anothers close to you (a boy/girlfriend, best friend, husband, wife etc), lock it, reach up high and throw the key into the river, then that relationship can never be broken and you will always have one another. A lovely, sentimental thought until you find out that every month the government hires someone to come along with a pair of pliers and cuts the padlocks off so that other tourists can attach theirs! - With that piece of knowledge now known to us, my fiance and I didn't bother putting our own padlock on the bridge and instead decided to leave the future of our relationship squarely in the hands of fate. 

Saint-Germain-Des-Pres: In photos

After another two or so hours walking around, gaping at designer shop windows and turning green with envy after seeing some women walk into work at the Louis Vuitton HQ, we decided to head back to the boat and go see The Notre Dame. All I can say about the cathedral is that it's simply awe-inspiring. Seriously, the architecture alone is breath-taking. Gorgeous, purple stained glass windows, every inch of the building having some sort of carved image, statue or word - the whole thing is just so interesting that even if you aren't at all religious, you would want to go in just to see what the interiors had to offer. The admission is free and there are queues to stand in until you can get inside, but surprisingly we only had to stand in line for about 5 - 10 minutes until we were inside. You can take photos, but flashes are strictly prohibited (which was a shame because it was quite dark and shadowy inside), as is speaking in tones louder than a whisper, seeing as there was a service on it's generally disrespectful to speak when the priest is saying mass. I managed to get some half decent photos without a flash, but they're only so good as an LG mobile phone camera will allow really, so I won't put them up here. 

(left) Me infront of The Notre Dame (right) The front of The Notre Dame

The Louvre - Pyramid Main Entrance

By the time we got back outside, time was getting on a bit so after a bloody great plate of spaghetti bolognese and mango ice cream we got back on the boat and headed to The Louvre - seeing as it was getting later and later, we cut out some stops and chose The Louvre as the one place that we both wanted to visit the most. When we got there, I managed to get only a couple of photos before my camera decided to cut off - it was only later that I realised that it didn't actually run out of charge, it just hit an error and switched off when I was viewing the playback. Silly me. So, unfortunately I didn't get to take any photos inside the museum. This fact was only made worse when I saw the Mona Lisa painting - a painting in which I set out wanting to take a photo of in the beginning! Anyway, tickets for the museum were 10 euro which was pretty decent considering how big the museum really is and how much of it you get to see. The court yard that the museum sits in is actually a really nice place to just sit with a croissant and coffee and watch the world go by. Perhaps if it weren't so chilly and I had another day to just sit and relax, I would have probably gone back and done just that. After a couple of hours walking around, admiring the amazing painting, sculptures and artifacts, we headed back to our hotel. Just as we got off the boat, an artist approached us and did a caricature of us both - All I can say is, thank god they didn't give me a huge forehead, chin or other enlarged body part!
Day 3 and 4 (4 being the day we came home) were spent in the hotel room due to unfortunate weather: It was dull, cold and kept raining sporadically throughout the day, so we didn't risk going outside without any proper jackets or an umbrella. Plus, from 8+ hours of sightseeing the day before, my feet felt close to falling off. Overall, the trip was good and I'm glad that I can cross it off my bucket list, but simultaneously I can't help but feel that I could have spent the money in a much better way. It's like I had a set of expectations for what the trip was going to be like and it just didn't meet any of them at all, which is quite sad. Never mind though, I'm still happy that I can say I've "done it and bought the t-shirt".