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My first trip to Paris
Tonight was "La nuit blanche" in Paris, which means that all the museums and churches are open basically all night and you can walk around and see whatever you want for free.
There were heaps of us, including a whole stack of hispanophones, which meant that decision making was practically impossible, and we spent much of the night wandering around Paris (which was not terribly unpleasant, to be honest!).
I caught the train to Gare du Nord at about 2:30 in the afternoon with Eufemia and met up with lots of people there. I was really happy to see Gulliver (yeah, he's from England...) and while the others were working out what to do, we decided to walk from the Gare du Nord to the Eiffel Tower and meet them there. So we set off walking through the streets of Paris, marvelling at the weird and wonderful things there were and complaining about how things were always under construction when it was your first time somewhere that's "usually really beautiful". We walked and walked, and completely randomly bumped into Ian the Canadian from the stage (I know, crazy huh? how many people were in Paris that day?), who spent most of the rest of the day with us.
We walked over the Seine and past a whole stack of monuments, including the Musée d'Orsay (mental note to go back), looking at the artists painting by the river (purely for tourists, but the art really was lovely). We came across a garden in the middle of Paris (can't remember the name, must look it up) and arrived at the Eiffel Tower about 2 hours after we left the Gare du Nord (oh, it was far... but we were wandering and it was a beautiful day - a beautiful way to experience the city... just wear good shoes). We quickly realised the benefits of having a mobile as the crowds were crazy and we had no really good way to contact the others.
After a few attempts from the phonebooth, we decided to find a café (but not too close to the Eiffel Tower, it would be too expensive) so we walked back the way we had come, but on the other side of the river. Eventually we struck gold, stumbling upon the French equivalent to Starbucks (will continue this entry later as need to go to class
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