Again we decided to walk. Although my feet were objecting to this this idea, i was excited cause i wanted to take pictures of the pretty fountains and gardens :)
After a while Ellie and Emily started to feel pressed for time and suggested that we take the Metro... We all agreed. We would never have time for everything if we walked all day again. So together we bought the ten ticket metro pass. PERFECT there are five of us so that was our trip to central Paris and our trip back to our hotel :)
We were still very nervous about the pick-pocketers though.... Before we headed underground (Metro is very similar to the underground in London it just has more shady people...) we made sure we are all situated. Camera's out of sight. Everything sipped tight. We started a little code system: flashing red=intense high security... stay close together, do not take your hand off your bag, and be very aware of your surroundings! steady red= high security and streaming yellow= relaxed security... stay aware of people around you! There was really no need for any other levels... we were mostly on flashing red the whole time :) haha we had fun changing colors and discussing our safety in code. lol We probably looked ridiculous too. As soon as we got on the train we all circled around one central pole with our purses in the middle like babies. No way anyone was gonna steal from us! muhahah!
First stop of the day was Pompidou
we did not go inside the museum because we had a few other things we wanted to do and didn't have as much time the day before. but it was still realllly cool to see this building in person!
it's inside out.. kind of. All of the stairs and escalators are outside of the building instead of inside of it....
little me in front of pompidou!
Next up: Notre-Dame!
wow this place was gorgeous!!!!!
This place was also a Flashing red security place :)
Notre-Dame is where the most gypsies hang out. I wish i could tell you that the gypsies were dressed like they are in the Disney movie hunchback of Notre-dame, but they are not :(
Gypsies here basically walk around asking you if you speak english, if you say yes they had you a card and as you to read it. while your doing so they steal from you. or have others steal from you. Sometimes they will carry babies and pretend to drop them... so when you go to catch the baby they steal from you while you are holding it.... how horrible! This is their way of life... when the children are old enough they are taught ways to steal... I bet if they spent and much time and effort in school they could be making a lot of money somewhere...
I gave the whole pick pockter thing a test drive once in London. Lorrie was standing right in front of my on the escalator In the Underground and her purse was dangling in my face. I was curious as to how easy it was so i opened her clasp dug around for a while an then closed it again... Lorrie didn't feel a thing! It made me think if it was that easy for me to do.... how fast and sneaky are people who live there life doing it!? scary... This experience gave Lorrie a bit of a wake up call too. haha.
We didn't have any problems with the gypsies.. we just ignored the ones that we saw or tried to talk to us.
Inside Notre-dame was unbelievable!!!!!!!
I do not have words to describe this place....
After we were done there we walked to the Panthéon
Krista and I wanted to see this because we studied it briefly in Art history last semester.
By this point we were all hungry and we still hadn't eaten any crepes!!!! so we looked for a place to get some.
Again we got lucky with the American talking waiter... He was very nice and made us attempt to say everything in French before we resorted to english :) haha
And needless to say our crepes were outstanding! YUM!
After eating we continued our walk to the skyscraper!!!!!!
I was soooo excited about this! I really wanted to see all of Paris from a bird's eye view!
However when we got there the building was closed :( so we didn't get to go up.
After all of the walking I was relieved that we had Metro passes to get back to the hotel. This time on the Metro was a lot more crowded than the first time! so we upped our security to urgent flashing red! we even waited for a few trains to pass on until we were able to find one with less people on it. haha.
We had some time to spare so we headed to an English pub nearby and watched the England football game before we had to leave.
Security getting back to London was a lot better than going to Paris. our train tickets were actually checked this time and customs was definitely more strict. This made me feel better knowing we were at least going back to a safer place.
We arrived back in London around 10 pm.
It was funny how i was so relieve to be back in London. I can understand people here, and i feel safer here. I know my way around and I am comfortable being on my own.
It was great to be back.... I definitely want to live here someday :)
