A Scottie in Spain: SEMANA SANTA

Firstly, I must say that 7 AM flights are an abomination against man. Now that that's out, I was super excited for Paris. After being cold and wet for the last 3 days, I was really looking forward to springtime and sunshine. Paris definitely had that to offer.

Day 1

Technically, this day begins in Sevilla, where we had to wake up at 4 AM to catch the 5 AM bus to our 7 AM flight (those times just should not even exist). After a bit of worry that the bus wasn't coming (Spanish style), we finally got on the bus, made our flight, and landed in Paris. This is where the fun begins. We're already a little grumpy due to our lack of sufficient sleep and our extreme lack of knowing how to get where we need to go only made things slightly worse. A well-meaning tries to ask for help in Spanish first (why, who knows), but then switches to French (although she's only had one semester of French class). The rest of us get a little impatient and go to another woman to ask for help in English. She tells us what we need and we end up paying like 40 euros for a 3-day unlimited metro/bus/train pass. We get on the train and finally make it to our hotel, so everything should be okay now, right? Wrong. The hotel canceled our reservations because our friend's card had been frozen by her bank (she's had trouble with them since day 1 in Spain). The worker was super nice though and called another hotel to find us rooms for the same price we would have paid there. The new hotel is a few blocks away, but it's a 2 minute walk from the metro station and it was super cute, so all is well. We drop our things off and head right out again. We walk past a little shop and buy some delicious food stuffs (I got a mini spinach quiche). We headed for the Eiffel Tower, where we sat and ate lunch. It was one of those amazingly surreal moments where you just stop and think I'm eating lunch under the Eiffel Tower right now. The weather was perfect and the quiche was superb, so everything is going as well as it should be right now. A few friends decide to take the stairs so they can go to the middle level, but a friend and I take the elevator so we can go all the way to the top. The lines had to be some of the most ridiculous lines in the history of lines. There were so many I didn't even know which one to stand in, not to mention as soon as I got behind the metal barricade I had to use the bathroom. Ugh. Anyway, we get to the top and the view is AMAZING. Well worth the ticket and the lines. I never realized how big the Eiffel Tower is. There are whole floors with shops and restaurants inside. And all this time I just thought it was a tiny little metal statue.

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed straight to Notre Dame (which I recently had an epiphany that notre dame means "our lady" in French). We took pictures outside and were about to go in, when a friend realized that we were standing next to Hotel Dieu. She was super excited to say the least. It was one of the first hospitals in Europe (oldest in Paris) and is well known for lots of super innovative discoveries. We sat inside for a while, being respectful as possible seeing as how there are still patients there. By the time we came out Notre Dame had closed and we couldn't go inside. Super bummer, but I was just glad to see it.

We head across the street to get some dinner before planning what we want to do later that night. Directly across from Notre Dame is a cute little restaurant where we sit and eat. I ordered Tandoori chicken (I know, it's not very French) and it was amazingly delicious. We met a super nice old French guy who taught us some French and practiced his English on us. My friend, as usual was hit on by our waiter (I think her bright red hair attracts men of all nationalities) and the old guy taught us some phrase (I can't remember/I would never be able to spell it anyway) that meant "hands all over the world" for men who get too touchy feely with you. We decide that after dinner we're going to go back to the Eiffel Tower to see the lights at night. And before we know it, the whole thing is sparkling like a disco ball. Apparently, it has a light show that none of us knew about so we got super excited and felt pretty special.