Dreaming of Paris

First of all, let me just tell you: No movie does Paris justice! They just don't! Paris is one of those indescribable cities. Especially the Eiffel tower! I grew up always wanting to see the Eiffel Tower in real life. Call me cliche, but it's on my bucket list and everything. Well, was, it is now crossed off!!! :) But it truly was amazing to see in person. I hope everybody at some point gets to go to Paris!
We left for Paris early Saturday morning, July 5th. And by early, I mean early. Morgan and I left our house at 5 in order to get a bus to take us into the city center of Bad Godesburg where we walked to the train station and waited for a train to take us into Bonn. There we met up with the two boys and got on a 30 minute train ride to Cologne. Which is called Koln here. Then from Cologne, we took a 3 hour train ride to Paris. It took some dedication to get to Paris, but it was 100% worth it! After getting into Paris we decided to tackle Notre Dame first. Figuring out the train system took a little while but after not too long, we were all pros! Another tourist told us that as soon as we got off the train we should see Notre Dame in front of us. Well as soon as we got off we immediately saw this gorgeous building! We all started taking pictures in front of it, as were many other people. In the back of my mind I wondered if this was actually Notre Dame, seeing as I thought it was going to be bigger. After a couple minutes, and much to our embarrassment... we figured out it was not Notre Dame. Oops. Awkward. We got out our map and actually found out Notre Dame was a couple streets over. On the walk over, we found this fountain I thought looked quite famous, later found out it was Fountaine Saint-Michel. Once we finally found Notre Dame I definitely recognized it as MUCH bigger but at least we all got a good laugh at ourselves!

We accomplished seeing many places on our two days in Paris. After Notre Dame we headed to Montmarte, saw inside Sacre-Coeur, wandered around the shops surrounding it, went to the Arc de Triomphe, walked down Champs-Elysees, stayed in a hostel for the first time, stood in awe at the Eiffel tower, got crepes, went to the Louvre and Tuileries gardens, got gelato in the shape of a flower, went to the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens, splurged on lunch at a French cafe, had a picnic and saw the Eiffel tower lit up at night, got lost many many times, and found beauty everywhere we went.

Paris is magical. There truly is beauty everywhere you look. I hope everybody has the chance to go one day <3