Get it? Louvre? Love? Louvre = love? Alright, moving on.
With three months down, and one month left to go of my ridiculous time abroad, I really wanted to see Paris. Like actually see Paris. If you didn’t know, the first time I went to Paris was my third weekend in Luxembourg and my second trip overall. It was to see Beyonce’s final concert and it was amazing and ridiculous and perhaps one of the most exhausting weekends of my life.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it back to Paris (even though we were only a two-hour train ride away), so I made it my mission to see as many landmarks as possible, which led to me being on my feet for literally the entire day and walking around basically the entire city. Not an easy feat. I managed to walk around and see the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but I didn’t really get to experience them. It was more of a here’s-the-outside-take-a-picture kinda thing.
When my good friend Victoria mentioned that she wanted to see Paris, I jumped at the chance. At this point, I was tired of the half-day traveling across Europe, and I wanted something close and safe. We made plans to actually experience Paris, and I was just the most excited.
[Hilarious] American(s) In Paris
The entire train ride into Paris was one of the best experiences ever. Victoria and I are the type of friends where you’re like “obviously our past selves were best friends” because we can communicate literally by just mumbling and grumbling our way through a conversation. We go off on the weirdest tangents and if you’re not following our conversations closely, it’s very easy to get lost. So hey, why not throw us onto a train with about a billion American-detesting Europeans and see what happens. Anyway, it was obvious that we were bothering some of the other people with our blatant happiness, but it was a two hour ride so we weren’t holding back.
We arrived at Gare de l’Est and tried to find our hostel, but we just couldn’t even find it on the map, and we were too worried about spending time holding a map like a mega-tourist for pickpocketing reasons. Eventually this gypsy-looking man came up to us and tried to help, but he was giving off some major creepy vibes and we just nodded and agreed and walked as fast as we could in the opposite direction. And then even on the street our hostel was located it was difficult to find because in Paris every building looks the exact same and it’s hard to differentiate between them. But alas, we were there and settled in. 
I used this picture in my post about the first time I visited Paris. I’m not ashamed about using it a second time. I am ashamed that I still haven’t found a way to recover my pictures.
We were with our other friend, Jordan, and she was staying at a separate hostel not too far away from ours. We all got settled in and met back up to go explore Sacré Cœur!
Sacré Cœur + That Time I Had To Fight A French Guy
The famed basilica was only a short walk from our hostel and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the monstrous church and started the trek to the top. There were so many stairs. Like too many stairs, ya feel me? Paris, if you’re reading this: escalators. Thanks.
Halfway up we were accosted by some French salesmen trying to pawn their crappy string bracelets on poor unsuspecting tourists, so we politely declined and continued walking. Apparently “no, thank you” is French for “please, come closer and touch us because we love strangers.” They closed in on the three of us, and I’m not going to lie my blood started pumping from the fear/adrenaline and I physically had to push one of the guys away from us because he was far too close for comfort. Luckily there was a crowd and this man didn’t want me to absolutely humiliate him in front of everyone with my huge muscles and advanced fighting skills.
Other than that, our trip up to Sacré Cœur was uneventful (except for the stairs, my god) and we were rewarded with one of the most absolutely beautiful views of Paris, which I would happily show you if my computer hadn’t decided to take the ultimate dump on me before I could download my pictures elsewhere. After exploring the inside of the basilica, we walked back down to the bottom and decided to make our way to Notre Dame via the metro!
Paris La Nuit
Every minute that I spent with Victoria and Jordan was absolutely hysterical, and being on a sketchy Parisian subway was no exception. We finally got to Notre Dame and took some pictures of the cathedral and were blown away by its beauty. That was my first time seeing it, and I was like actually pretty impressed. Good job, France. 
Notre Dame at sunset!
After having an unfortunate experience with a group of nuns outside of Notre Dame (for full details, feel free to message me privately and we’ll set up a meeting place because there is no way I’m saying what happened on record), we placed some locks on one of the many love-lock bridges around Paris! Which I’m still mad that they decided to cut all the locks off, but I’m not sure if they cut them off the one I put my lock on because it wasn’t one of the official ones? I don’t want to talk about it.
We then made our way to the Eiffel Tower around dusk and spent a wonderful amount of time taking too many pictures and enjoying one of the finest landmarks in the whole damn world. After having our fill of the Eiffel tower – we would return the next day to actually climb it – we started walking back to the metro. As we walked towards the Trocadéro, we noticed something odd reflecting off of the buildings in front of us. We looked behind us and realized that the Eiffel Tower had started sparkling.
SO SURREAL.
I had no idea that the Eiffel Tower sparkled regularly, I just sort of imagined it as this kind of random special event that I would never be able to witness. But nevertheless, at 6:00pm the lights came on for a full five minutes and we stood there, dumbfounded, the entire time. We returned back to our hostel, gathered ourselves, then made our way to this sorta-American restaurant near our hostel. I had like a bacon cheeseburger and fries and they served it to me on a weird wooden block, but it was delicious so I don’t care.
The Most Horrifying Thing To Ever Happen
Victoria and I stayed in a four-person dorm both nights that we were in Paris. When we dropped our stuff off earlier, there wasn’t anyone in the room. After our night of drinks and card-playing, we returned to find that the person in the bed above mine was already there. Still awake, we made small talk (what’s your name, where are you from, no all American’s don’t exclusively use the word “awesome”), until the man who would be sleeping below Victoria arrived.
He promptly stripped down to his boxers (we were both certain at the time that he was not going to stop at the boxers) and climbed into bed, and asked if we could shut the lights off. For a while, Victoria and I both couldn’t sleep, so thanks to the power of technology, we messaged each other on Facebook instead of talking and waking up our hostel roommates. Here’s a couple screenshots of how our night went.
A couple times the man above me moaned, like maybe sexually, but we can’t be sure.
I distinctly remember biting my tongue so hard that I got sores and started bleeding. But that was better than laughing my ass off to myself.
Shortly after I said goodnight we actually went to bed.
Because we had been drinking, my bladder was incredibly full and in the middle of the night I woke up to use the bathroom, which we were lucky to have found a room with an ensuite bathroom. I went in, did my business, and went back into the room.
Here’s the problem though: the bathroom was situated at the foot of my bed, meaning that when I swung the door open I could easily see my bed and subsequently the bed above my own.
Here’s another problem: the light from the bathroom filled our hostel room with light until I had a chance to switch it off.
Here’s yet another problem: the man in the bed above me decided to wear nothing at all. Just absolutely 100% nude. I completely expected this to happen at least once during my time abroad, and I tried my best to look past my preconceived American notions of modesty. Which would have been fine, except for…
The actual problem: this man apparently loved sleeping in the fetal position. If you’re like me, and terrible at math and putting two and two together, let me just put it bluntly. I went to the bathroom and opened the door only to be greeted by this man’s bootyhole staring straight at me. It was pointing right at me like his ass was a compass and I was the north pole.
At first, I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe an incredibly hairy rat had found its way into his bed. It wasn’t until he slightly shifted that I realized that for the past five seconds I was looking into the anus of this Australian man. So now I’m 100% positive that the noises we both heard earlier were purely sexual. And I don’t know how to feel. After that, I dug some wine out of my bag, had a nice big drink, and went back to bed trying to forget everything that had just happened.
Also he had nasty feet. News flash: it’s called socks. If you have gross feet, use them. If you have normal feet, still use them because all feet are gross.
An Adventurous Day In Paris
When we woke up, we decided to go and visit the Louvre! Mostly because we were terrible at planning and wouldn’t have enough time to go to Versailles. I’m actually still bummed we didn’t get to visit Versailles. Which, fun fact, is pronounced “Vur-sales” in Ohio.
I’ll never be able to get over just how big the entire museum was. We spent over four hours here and managed to only see a fraction of it all.
We had one goal inside the Louvre: to see the Mona Lisa. Because literally why else do people go to this world-famous museum? Certainly not for the various antiquities from all over the world spanning thousands and thousands of years.
We still took our time, though, and I really actually enjoyed walking through the humungous rooms filled with statues and paintings and ancient artifacts. Eventually we found ourselves at the Mona Lisa and like, okay… Why? I’m sorry but I just do not understand why this one (extremely small, by the way) painting is one of the most visited pieces of art. I was much more impressed by the massive painting directly across from the Mona Lisa that literally took up an entire wall and by the statues that must’ve taken years to complete. I’ll never understand art. But that’s okay, because I appreciate people who appreciate art.
After the Louvre we walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe! From there, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower for the second time, this time with our friend Ryan in hopes of climbing the tower. We stood in line, and after quite a long time of waiting we began ascending. We arrived at the first level, took a short break, and continued on to the second level.
The group from the second-level of the Eiffel Tower as the light washes over Paris.
As we recovered from the journey up the tower, the lights began sparkling again, and it’s almost more surreal to actually be on the Eiffel Tower as it sparkles over Paris than it is to be watching it from afar. The City of Love definitely earned its name in good faith.
Instead of waiting forever and taking the elevator to the very top, we settled for some food at the restaurant on the second-level. After an eventful day of the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and Eiffel Tower, we were exhausted and immediately returned to our hostels. Instead of going out and clubbing like literally every other twenty-something American in Europe, we played some Euchre and used beers as hands because we’re adults, dammit.
The Last Moments In Paris
Luckily that night the two random scantily clad men were replaced by a couple of really nice girls, Liisa and Ingrida! They were so sweet and a complete 180 from the night before. Victoria and I stayed up and chatted with them for a while and eventually went to bed, ready to finish off the weekend in Paris the next day.
We really wanted to visit the Musée d’Orsay, so we made plans to get a bite to eat and then finish off our time in Paris at another famous museum. We found a Chipotle, which was very similar to finding the Holy Grail, I presume. It had been a long three months (plus some, probably) since I had the American staple, and my hunger combined with my homesickness would only settle for some of those amazing nachos. It was funny though, because in the entire city of Paris and the places that anyone could have gone, we ran into other members of MUDEC as we ate our burrito bowls and the only other people who walked through those doors were Americans. Glad to see us Yankees have our priorities straight.
We found ourselves at the Musée d’Orsay with all our gear (one backpack each) in hand. It was a museum, and it was cool and all. I mostly enjoyed people watching and sitting on the comfortable chairs they had in the clock room.
At the Musée d’Orsay overlooking Paris.
From there we headed back to the train station and found ourselves on a train back to our homes in sweet ol’ Luxembourg.
I’m so happy that I decided to go to Paris a second time. A bunch of people questioned my reasoning for going again, but the first time I really didn’t get to experience the Paris the way that most people get to, what with the trips up the Eiffel Tower or visit to the Louvre. I went with such an amazing group of people, and this time around really proved that who you surround yourself with can really make or break an adventure, no matter the destination.
Au revoir,
Andrew
P.S. Get ready for my next blog post. It’s gonna be a doozy (in a good way).
AndrewOClock 