Our flight on Norwegian Air to Paris was at 6am therefore, since we needed to check in like earlier, plus we had to first take the metro from Kringsja to Oslo S, then take a bus to the airport, we figured that sleeping in the airport the night before would be the best plan and so off we went and I had my first ever sleep in the airport. Boy oh boy. I really hated sleeping in the airport. First, I couldn't sleep at all. I'm constantly in some uncomfortable position. Secondly, I'm constantly worried about all our belongings and valuables. Thirdly, I keep getting woken up by some kids that were camping in the airport with their parents. Bah! No fun.
Us sleeping at the airport and the lack of sleep me
Finally, on to Paris. The first thing that comes to my mind. HOT! It's so freaking hot in Paris! The sun was shining so brightly and there weren't many clouds! Sweats. Our hotel, was relatively easy to find. Took a metro from the airport down and we walked there. The guy at the counter actually spoke not bad English. I kinda expected the French people to have like atrocious English that we will not understand, but it was surprising. And he knew his directions well.
The bus ride from Paris Orly Airport to the Metro station
The reception of the hotel.
Must I mention that the hotel room had such an open concept that I slightly shocked. Take a look at the pictures.
Luckily for me, we figured that that wasn't the toilet bowl. Haha. Probably a washing basin or something. If it was a toilet bowl, I'll probably cry. In front of the window and right in front of the bed! Gah! But the bad news is, the toilets are shared, so we have to get out of our rooms and use the toilet near the staircase. The toilets have no sink anyway. The shower is worse, it's on the first floor! And we stay on the 4th. Bah. Climb more stairs.
The winding stairs we have to climb just to shower. :(
Settling down into our hotel, we headed out for French lunch. Recommended by the guy at the counter. Think the place was called Tante Chante Alice or something. The food was good! And compared to Norway, the food is considered cheap. But in Singapore terms, nah! It cost us like 14.50 euros for the meal and added up to bout 16euros including water. But it was 3 course. Great food.
Entree. The third one was mine.
The main course. The third one is mine again.
The dessert. Again, the third one.
I loved my dessert the most. The entree was great, but I preferred the qwiche the most (the first one). The main course was not that bad. Minus that disgusting mush of vegetable. I mean, even though I hate vegetable, but that mush was really gross and I couldn't even bear to take a picture of it, so I cropped most of it away. My dessert was heavenly! Chocolate Mousse! It's so chocolaty that I flew to heaven with my first mouth! Woot!!!
And that was lunch. So after our really really really filling lunch, we decided to walk down to the Notre Dame. While walking down, we passed this Cathedral called the Saint-Merry Cathedral. It's dubbed as the little Notre Dame. It's a really really nice place. Nice and solemn and it felt like the Silent-Night Cathedral (as known by the TJChoir people ;) ). Bought a candle there and really felt at peace. In contrast, when we got to the Notre Dame, it was packed with people and though it was stated that there shouldn't be any flash photography, you can still see thousands of flashes going off. It was really quite irritating. Lost the whole solemn feel and I got quite disappointed. Made me feel like the Notre Dame didn't live up to it's reputation. But I still insisted on going up the Notre Dame, so Bernice and I got into queue while James and Karen sat in some cafe by the Notre Dame to wait for us. Seriously, I think I almost killed myself. Haha. More stairs to climb! More than 400 flights of winding steps. Gosh. But I was proud of myself. Haha. An unfit person like me managed to climb! Wootz! The view from the Notre Dame was great but if you don't appreciate views, then forget about the climb up the Notre Dame. Cause there is nothing else there.
Saint-Merry Cathedral
Notre Dame and stairs and view
After the Notre Dame, we decided to head down to the Eiffel Tower since they wanted to see the night view of Paris. Mind you, the sun sets at like 10pm. :/ So ambitious us decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. Oh boy was it a long walk! We walked along the Seine River and luckily, we could at least still see some stuff while we were walking. Just that the weather was so hot! While walking, I passed by the bridge which I suspected was the place where Jaejoong and Yunho were at in the Paris Photobook shoot. Hehe. The bridge where Jaejoong was waving to all the people on boats and buses. Hehe.
Here it is.
Ok, back to the Eiffel. The queue at the Eiffel was scary! They were like really long!! But I felt that we went at a great time, cause we could have a great day view, sunset view and night view. Great timing! Oh, something to mention. They decided to climb the Eiffel Tower. :O
Climb up till the 2nd viewing gallery before taking the lift up to the top. Can you imagine how much I had to climb? I'm really so unfit! But, it was an experience. The view from the Eiffel was breath-taking and at night the Eiffel was shooting out lights. Super cool. Will post the video up. Really beautiful. I shall let the pictures do the talking.
Eiffel Tower
Video of the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful!
By the time we finished the Eiffel, all of us were so tired that we just stoned our way back to the hotel. And that's like almost 12am already. Climbed to many stairs for the day.
That's it for Paris Day 1. Wanted to finish Paris in one post, but I'm just too tired now. Spent hours on this post. So Paris Part 2 the next time! :)
PS. I tried to put as much photos as my fingers will let me. :)
