Paris - Day 1

I took my first Ryanair flight on Thursday. It was fine, it was kind of nice to be able to sit wherever I wanted, so that as long as I managed to get in line fairly early I am pretty much guaranteed a window-seat. The flight I got had about 20 or 30 teenage girls on it that was heading to Disneyland that were all really noisy... Which is annoying it itself, but at 6am it's REALLY annoying! They did get told off by the flight attendants a few times though, which I though was good, especially when they were too noisy during the safety procedures and stood up in their seat while the plane was taxiing during landing.

When I got to Paris I landed at Beauvais, I got in line to get the bus ticket to the city when I realized I didn't have any Euros yet and I had to change terminals to get some (I had emptied my card so there was no point in bringing it with me anyway), luckily the terminals are really small and close together so it was okay.

My friend J met me by the metro stop close to the hostel we were staying at, Mije. It was really nice to see her again, we met on our first day in Sydney, we were staying in the same hostel dorm. Since I got there so early we couldn't check in yet, but we could store our luggage there for free, so we did that and headed out. J had already been in Paris for a few days so she was nice to have to avoid getting lost.

First we headed to the Louvre as I wanted to see the glass pyramids. I would like to go inside one day as well and see the Mona Lisa and all the other beautiful paintings, but I prefer to go to museums and art galleries on my own as I always get a bit stressed when walking with someone because I get worried that they're bored.

We then walked to Galeries Lafayette, which is a famous department store in Paris. We wandered around and then went up to the roof terrace and got a nice view of Paris.

After Galeries Lafayette we walked back to the St. Paul metro stop and met up with a couple of people that's starting Harvard with J in a few weeks. we all had some lunch together.

A few hours later J, one of the Harvard people and I bought a bottle of wine, some bread and cheese and walked to the Eiffel tower. We sat down amongst all the other people that had the same idea as us and watched the Eiffel tower lights being turned on. I thought the twinkles was nice as well, but I'm glad they were only on for a few minutes as I think it could be "tacky" if they're on too long.

J and I decided to walk back to the hostel, Paris by night was really lovely, it's nice to see people out drinking in parks and not getting rowdy and destructive. We stopped by the glass pyramids again so that I could see them lit up as well.

It was nice to finally get to check in at the hostel when we got back and be able to go right to bed, since we got a room for two it was also nice not having to be quiet and do unpack and find everything with the lights off.