Flight and connection at Heathrow went well with no problems thank god, except for an incident at the Charles de Gaule airport in Paris. I was sitting on a bench with the luggage waiting for my mom while she was in the washroom, when these 3 soldiers start walking towards me with giant machine guns IN THE AIRPORT. They were just casually strolling by and seemed to stop around the bench I was at and looking at me. Of course I started wondering what I was doing wrong and I became so scared since there were 3 giant machine guns around me. Thankfully they continued walking down the hall casually and my fear was alleviated. My mom knew something had happened when she came out and saw the look on my face. I’m definitely not used to seeing soldiers casually strolling around, usually just police officers. Later on we learned that there had been a bomb threat at the airport which was why the soldiers were there and looking at me suspiciously.
Shortly after we met up with our tour company. They took us to our hotel, and gave us literally only 20 min to “freshen up” and unpack a little before our welcome meeting with our tour group. Of course 20 minutes was not enough time since our safe was not working, and we had just arrived on only a couple hours of sleep MAYBE in the past 24 hours and was constantly on the go. Shortly after the meeting we went on a Seine cruise and Paris by night tour. The Eiffel tower was GORGEOUS, especially when we saw it twinkle on the hour. The giant roundabout around the Arc de Triumphe was pure insanity. This roundabout has 12 streets coming out from it and there are NO LANES. It literally involves cars randomly driving and honking their horns at people and they’re free to drive wherever. If you could make lanes it would probably be about 6 lanes wide. And THAT is why we’re not driving in France! To top it off, we even saw a car crash while we were walking around the round about. Sigh.
The Champs Elysee was GORGEOUS. There were neon lights in all the trees for Christmas and many Christmas decorations. At the end of the road was a giant Ferris wheel all lit up, which you could see through the Arc de Triumphe. We went in and quickly out of some shops on the Champs Elysee since we soon discovered that they were a tad pricey. The whole area was very touristy and made me wish we had a place like that in Toronto. After we met back up with the tour bus we then went on a cruise up and down the Seine River to see all the great monuments Paris has to offer. Even though it was very cold outside on the boat, seeing everything was well worth it. Right when I saw the Eiffel Tower up close it hit me that I was ACTUALLY in Paris, a place I’ve always wanted to go. During the cruise we saw the Eiffel Tower of course, the Louvre, the dome where Napoleon’s grave is buried, the big ferris wheel all lit up, many gorgeous bridges we went under, the Statue of Liberty (very small compared to the real thing), and other gorgeous buildings along the river. All the architecture in Paris is so unique. After the cruise we went on a bus tour of Paris and it occurred to me that Paris is a well laid out city. All the main buildings are symmetrical. We saw the Louvre and the famous pyramid within the square after squeezing our coach bus into an arch that JUST let us fit through – we all applauded the bus driver because it really made me nervous driving through it! Afterwards we drove by the Ritz hotel where a large pillar with Napoleon on top of it is within the square. Seeing the cobblestone narrow streets with Christmas decorations and lights was beautiful. After a long 2 days we finally went back to the hotel, organized and FINALLY had a well deserved sleep, but sadly had to wake up at 6am the next day to go to Annecy.
