Passport to Paris

So, this weekend we headed to Paris... Friday was a long day, knowing that at 5am I would be departing, meaning I needed to get up at 4. But I knew it'd be worth it: 2 days in Paris with my host brothers and Sarah and Larae. Bringing boys, especially these two, along was one of the best decisions we could have made. Not only did we have personal driving and tour guides, but we had men to do all the things we couldn't, and by "we"  I mostly mean "me," being the dependent person I am. Soon to come is a list of things my semester in Europe has taught me I will probably need to depend on someone else on later in life...

Meanwhile, enjoy the tale of our trip to Paris.
5 am departure from the Van Der Krieke residence. If you want to know details of the car ride, don't ask me; I was fast asleep in the "bitch" seat of our rental car as the brothers jammed to dub-step, club music, and who knows what else was playing on that 5 hour road trip. When we arrived in Paris, we first checked out the Notre Dame and the Louvre. Since the boys had already seen the Mona Lisa (much smaller than one would expect), they walked back and got the car as we explored the Louvre... and by "explored" I actually mean asked the info desk where the Mona Lisa was, waited in line for half an hour for tickets we didn't even need because we had our visas, and sprinting up the several sets of stairs to find her. Naturally they put her at the top of the building... this wouldn't have been as big of a deal if I weren't planning on saving all my energy for a solo hike up the Eiffel Tower later that evening. After the Louvre, our personal driver and tour guides took us to the top of a hill to view one of the most beautiful churches I have seen, followed immediately after by the Mulon Rouge. Ironic don't you think? We then found a place to get crepes, or as pronounced by my host brothers and the French, "Craps." They were so good, possibly the best (food) I've tasted in Europe...

After that we decided to find our campsite for the night. Yes, I did say camping. We rented a mobile home for the night and would be kicking it ghetto style for the night. We went grocery shopping for dinner and breakfast foods and then checked in. LaRae and I produced a mass meal for the family while Sarah prepared a meal of her own. After dinner we went to the Eiffel Tower. When we got there we were amazed by two things. First, its beauty. Second, there were swarms of military and policemen running around. We assumed is was a protest of some sort. We approached the Eiffel Tower and got in line. However, we all got in the same line and soon realized why it was the shorter one: it was the stairs line. So, Larae and Sarah got out of line and into the twice as long lift line. Meanwhile, my host brothers decided to make the trek up the stairs with me: over 700 of them! We climbed to the 2nd (actually the 3rd in America standards) floor and then had to take the lift the rest of the way. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad and being able to say I climbed that beauty to see that view is so worth every second of it. Plus, I was the first (of the girls... it's hard to beat 2 boys with such long legs in a stair climbing race) to the top! We then made our way down, ran into LaRae and Sarah on the 2nd (3rd) floor and then raced down the stairs to the bottom. This time I was actually the first, but only because IJsbrand's exit was jammed... we then watched the light show of the Eiffel Tower and then headed back to our humble abode to catch some shut eye before the rest of our tour of Paris.
We all joked about what would happen if our beds broke again (the wood panels had fallen apart earlier in the evening) while we were sleeping, but no one thought it would actually happen... of course it did though. At 7:20 am, Sarah and I woke up and checked the time, I went to roll over, and suddenly my bed was slipping away beneath me. Sarah, who was sleeping half on my bed and  half on LaRae's, rolled completely onto LaRae's. I decided to leave my bed for the last hour and a half of my slumber, but then suddenly as Sarah got up to use the bathroom, LaRae's bed became a giant taco as well. So, we fixed our beds and hopped back in... only to be greeted seconds later by my bed collapsing beneath me again. I left it and slept the rest of my time on a lopsided bed.

In the morning, we ate breakfast, checked out, and headed to the Arc de Triumph. There we witnessed a music video being made, saw the largest Abercrombie and Fitch and Starbucks on earth, and rode around the giant rotunde a few times to get a feel of the true insanity behind Paris drivers. After that, we sent our driver on a wild crepe chase through Paris and then headed home... on the ride home I didn't nap as much because we were  having quality family bonding time... what a great way to end the trip!