When I was in London the first time I checked my email to find two worried parents and several worried grandparents checking in on me, and asking me to maybe reconsider my trip to Paris, which was to be the next day (Thursday the 1st). As all normal people my age, I ignored the warnings about the protests from my parents and got on the train. (Mind you, to get on the train, I had to wake up at 3 am and leave my hotel in London at 3:30. Someone told us it was a 45 minute cab ride to Waterloo, where it actually was 15 minutes, and check-in for the Eurostar didn't even start until 4:45.)

The seven of us (five other girls and one guy) arrived in Paris at 9:30 and attempted to hail a van to our hotel, which, we found, was not on a map. The van driver struggled with his English while we struggled with our French, and somehow, eventually, we found it: the Hotel Amarys Simart (read: worst hotel ever.) We threw our stuff in the baggage room and headed off to the Louvre.

All of the sightseeing parts of Paris were amazing; as were all the shopping parts. I tried to get as much done in two days as possible. I climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower:

I saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, I looked in the window at Cartier, which, excitingly enough, is across the street from the Arc de Triomph:

and ventured out to Versailles:

The most exciting parts, however, were the glitches.

We didn't have hot water in our hotel for the first 36 hours. We lost a friend at the Eiffel Tower; luckily she (somehow) found the hotel after about three hours. We crammed our way into the smallest hotel rooms in Paris and bickered a little, as six girls often do. However, we ate the best crepes and pastries, saw the greatest sights, enjoyed the most beautiful weather, and now I can say I saw Paris in the springtime.