It was waiting in line when I met two people who would be good friends of mine on the bus! Bryan from USA- San Francisco I think? And Camilla from Mexico! Going up the elevator was strangely exciting and I honestly can't tell you why but people were cheering and filming videos and it was so squished! We bypassed the first floor and went straight to the second. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't nice at all. We are just lucky it didn't rain. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more in the sun shine with some heat but it was just miserable and freezing. I got some really beautiful pictures of the city though and there were a lot of group pictures too.
Bryan found the booth where you could buy tickets to go right to the top. I remember one friend telling me that when she went up the Eiffel Tower, they couldn't to go to the top because it was too expensive, so I was preparing myself to say no until Bryan said it was only 5E! That's what happens when you travel in low season :) Of course I bought the ticket and so did most other people too! Bryan, Camilla and I decided we wanted to take the stairs up to the top but after circling the middle level about 5 times without any luck in finding them, we settled for the elevator. Going to the top was.... well now I can say I've been there! In all honesty, I was a little underwhelmed although I think the weather contributed about 40% or 50% to that. It was freezing! I'm so happy I smuggled my Canadian gloves to the top (they confiscated all the flags before we could enter the elevator.... Nationalists these days!)
Hey Mum! I had a growth spurt :D
I can't even remember what I did at the top. Not unfamiliar to the second level, the clouds covered a lot of the city and the city itself was a little tinier. Also there was more railing and netting for protection and because I'm so short I had a little bit of a more difficult time seeing. I imagine it would be so much more beautiful though, even from my point of sight, in the sunshine!
I spent not long outside on the balcony of the Eiffel Tower. It was really cold! And so me, and most other people then went into the interior. I didn't see the house or apartment that's supposedly at the top and where Gustave Eiffel (who's company designed and built the tower and whom the tower is named after) lived. But on the inside, there is this panel or board that circles the ceiling and has the names of cities with their flags and a small picture of their tallest tower and it's height. The idea is that when you stand in front of the name of the place, you are facing in it's direction. The only Canadian city was Calgary.
On the inside, I'm really not sure why but I guess while we were waiting for the elevator to come up, everyone decided to dance. Bryan taught me the waltz! Well he tried to. I can't dance :( and everyone was doing this weird twisty thing with their feet and the latinos were going crazy with Latino dances!
When the elevator came, Bryan, Camilla and I got out at the second floor to buy a couple of Eiffel tower souvenirs, then we went right down to the bottom to go find a place to eat. We circled the block before choosing a restaurant. It was really nice i remember. We poked our heads into and out of souvenir shops, I almost bought a Paris hoodie and I didn't and I really regret it! And we found French burees and played with them in the store but we didn't buy those either. You see I love souvenir shopping! The cheesy little things and all that. Most other people on the other hand think it's stupid and a waste of money and they are probably right. So I tried self control, and didn't buy all my tacky little souvenirs. Mistake every time!
We ended up eating lunch in a restaurant called Gustave's and it was really really good! It wasn't too expensive and I would take people back there again! The pasta was so amazing, I had to take a picture.My first Parisian food!
Next stop: The Louvre. It was my second time going. We all filed into the centre and people went crazy taking pictures then Camilla asked me if I would go with her to the bathroom quickly. We looked around, people were getting into groups for seeing the different sections. We assumed that once everyone was in a group, then they would go and buy the tickets. So we asked one of the group leaders if it was okay to run to the lou quickly. She said yes, but hurry. We ran there and to our surprise we saw a HUGE line. Shivani was already there and some other girls on the bus too. They assured us it was moving quickly and she was going to let us cut in front with her until an older woman had a hissy fit and so we settled for the back. But the line wasn't moving quickly. At all. I really don't know for how long Camilla and I waited but it was too long. We should have just left but for some reason we didn't and assumed the group would wait for us or come to find us if they were going to leave. To our disappointment, they didn't! After our toilet run, there was no one in our group there.
We went up to one of the gates and explained that our group had already gone in and we'd been left behind (we even had our group stickers) but the woman said she couldn't let us in. So we called one of our leaders and she came out with the group pass to get us. She was really mad. Giving us hell for leaving the group, not listening to instructions, saying we were lucky she came for us at all. We felt pretty bad and a little angry since she had given us permission to leave in the first place. It's not our fault they screwed up the counting. Although I understand entirely why they were upset. Lesson learned for sure.
Camilla and I got in finally and took our own tour away from the group through the gallery of paintings. You see, that was our group to begin with, and the supervisor who came to get us was with the Egyptian section. I'd already seen it in Paris the last time, and Camilla was this kind of art freak and so the woman said we could go to the paintings to look for our group. We never found our group. Nor were we able to find the Mona Lisa! After exploring the realistic paintings and loosing interest in them quickly, we found ourselves in Napoleon's apartment! And I have no idea how! It was exquisite though. Golden walls, chandeliers, ceiling paintings, just the extravagance of it all.
After one tour through, we decided to move on. Then we turned a couple corners and found ourselves at the entrance again. Okay, no biggy. Let's walk through it again. At the end, we said Alright, let's pay attention and not go the same way as last time. We've got to get out of here. Guess where we found ourselves. At the entrance again. We contemplated going through a third time before Camilla got a call from Bryan asking where we were and if we wanted to meet up. Then I noticed a corner that I hadn't seen before. How we missed it, I'm not sure. We told Bryan that we would meet him under the huge pyramid and then started to conduct our way out of the maze. It was awful. Well lovely, the Louvre has some beautiful exhibits. But every time we turned a corner following the exit sign, we found ourselves in another room or the beginning of another exhibit!!! I don't know where we went! We walked through some rooms of statues. Up stairs, down stairs, back into the same room of statues! At one point Bryan was calling to ask us where we are and Camilla had just turned the corner into the statue room for the third or fourth time! Finally we found the real exit and we exited. Stupid idea.
When we met Bryan, he was going to show us the Mona Lisa but we couldn't get back in. Same thing as what happened at the beginning. We had the ingenious idea that maybe if we couldn't convince one security person to let us in, we could convince another. And we tried each of the 3 buildings. Didn't work. To our "delight" there were other people who accidentally got locked out as well. With a group of 8 people or so, we had another one of our group supervisors come to get us. She went in with one group but Bryan asked if we could first go outside to get some pictures in front of the Pyramid. The supervisor gave us something that looked like a group ticket and said that the ticket would let us back in. So in the end, a small group of us went outside and got pictures in front of the Louvre!
Once we had our pictures, we went to go back inside. Guess what wasn't really a ticket or a pass. Turns out that was the card to prove that someone was a group supervisor. It couldn't get us in. We tried at each of the 3 doors. And so with almost 2 hours of free time to kill, and locked out of the Louvre, my group of 3 hit up the gift shops, (I bought a poster of a le chat noir) and we found the rest of the group in Starbucks. I wanted to buy a frappachino. I miss those so much! But I wasn't hungry, nor was I thirsty and Starbucks in France is much more expensive than in North America. Bryan convinced me it wasn't a good idea. I guess I don't regret not buying it. After that, we pretty much hung around until everyone else showed up and we finally went back to our hotel for the night.
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