Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 - Swiss Alps to Paris

Last stop on the trip: PAris!

It took us all day to get to Paris - 7+ hours on the coach. When we arrived we started a driving tour of some of the major monuments. At 6:00 P.M. we headed to our campground just outside of town. Had dinner at 7:30 P.M. of delicious pasta salad and bread.

Then at 8:30 P.M. we all met and Josh took us via the bus and then the metro to the Eiffel Tower. It was stunning at night, all lit up by lights. On the hour, all the lights blink for 5 minutes and it looks like it is sparkling. We quickly headed up the elevator to the second floor, then switched elevators, stood in another long line, to head to the top. We could only spend about 15 minutes at the top before we needed to get back in line to catch the elevator to the bottom. We were so high up! Once back on the second floor we decided to take the stairs the rest of the way down because the line for the elevator was so long. There were so many steps!

Once at the bottom we rushed to meet Josh by 11:30 P.M. Everyone arrived at the meeting point on time except Yoshi (Japan). We had to leave without him. We all rushed to the metro station and caught one of the last trains out of the city. Just as we were leaving we saw Yoshi running up the stairs on the opposite platform. We had just missed him.

At the point where we needed to change trains, we had to run to our platform to catch the very last train of the night. We almost got on the wrong one, but some nice French dude helped us out (all 50, tired, screaming English-only speaking of us). Again just as our proper train was pulling out of the station, we saw Yoshi running up the stairs. Again, we had just missed him.

Josh gave the South African boys directions and stayed behind to and find Yoshi. Once at our stop we needed to walk for about 30 minutes to the campground. We did finally make our way home and my head hit the pillow by 1:00 A.M.