Paris

Thursday morning we woke up at 8, after a small sleep in. We went through the normal routine of showering, eating and dressing, then began our walk of just under a kilometre to the train station. Driving in Paris is crazy - Dad'Thursday morning we wok, so we went by train instead. After getting our tickets, from the not-so-helpful-information man, we weren't sure which station or platform to go to. So Mum asked a guy who had just hopped off a train. He told us where to go and was very helpful. We had to go up some stairs to get up to our platform. At the bottom however, was a lady with her daughters and all their suitcases. Dad, being such a gentleman, offered to carry one of the lady's bags since she was struggling. She was very happy that he offered, and he also grabbed one the daughter's suitcases on his way up the stairs since she was also struggling. At the top she thanked him profusely. Mum used this chance (since she was a local) to ask her about the trains and where to go. After only 5 minutes of waiting, our train came. Believe it or not, it was a double-decker train. You could choose to sit on the top or the bottom. We arrived in Paris Montaparnasse after about half an hour. Then we took the underground to the Eiffel tower. The train didn't stop right outside it so we did have to walk a little bit to get to it of course.... :)

As we walked, men with lots of small model Eiffel Towers tried to sell their products to us and the other people walking along.It reminded us of the people selling things in Rome near the Collosseum. Between the trees we caught glimpses of the Eiffel Tower as we walked till finally we arrived at the structure itself. The first thing we noticed was that there were SO MANY PEOPLE! The lines for going up lifts were very long. Luckily, that's not what we wanted to do... else we could've been there for hours i'm sure. Instead, we lined up at the line for walking up the stairs. It wasn't too long luckily, so after getting our tickets and going through a security check, we began our ascent to the first floor. At first we were all fine, but getting up to half-way, we were pretty tired already. So far on our trip we've done a lot of climbing up and down stairs so by then we were very sick of stairs :) However, we kept trundling up the stairs, stopping now and then to catch our breath. But we made it and the view was good. We stayed there for a little while, rested our legs on the bench, and then began our ascent up to the second floor via the stairs again. On the way up, we met some fellow Aussies - a man and his wife who were also making their way up. Dad had a bit of a chat to them and told them a bit about our trip :) When we reached the second stage, the view was even better. From there, we could see the Arc de Triumphe, Notre Dam and a church - Mont Martre. Above us still was the third floor - the summit which you couldn't walk up but could only be accessed by the lift. Dad and Mum didn't really want to go up again, because they've already been there, and Steven also didn't want to go up, so Emily and I got tickets and then waited in a long line. The line was for the lifts to the top and of course, there's a limited of people that can go up at a time. Since it was nearing lunchtime, our stomach's were growling a bit, so our amazing Dad bought us each a croissant.Heil lekker!! :)

Well, when finally we did reach the top, there was a great view. Around the top the walls, where wall met ceiling, there was a display all around which showed the direction of different capitals around the world and the distance to them. We found some that we recognized - Sydney, 16900km away! Amsterdam - about 400km away. We wandered around the room, squeezing between people now and then. There was also a few stairs that led up to the place where it was more open, surrounded by wire. Em and I were taking a selfie, when a man asked us if we wanted him to take the photo. So we let him, and Em offered to take a picture of him and his wife too. We enjoyed the view for a while then went downstairs again to find a longish line for taking the lift down again. :( So we waited...and waited... till we could finally come down again. Dad, Mum, and Steven were waiting for us and were very happy to see that we'd come back. :) We made our way down again via a lift. At the bottom again, we were in need of food since it was already at least half past 1. So we walked away from the Eiffel tower to find a supermarket. However, before leaving we took some photos of the massive structure of metal and ourselves, since one does not simply leave the Eiffel Tower without taking photos! :)

We ate some lunch next to a small pond in front of a museum then began to walk in the direction of Napoleon's tomb and the war museum. It was a fair walk, and by the time we arrived, some of us desparately wanted to visit the restrooms. We eventually found them. However, they were actually inside the museum itself, so we could've acutally walked around the museum without tickets! But we didn't of course.. the honest people we are :) We walked to the building where Napoleon's tomb rested. In past history, this building was open to anyone for free, as Dad and Mum have been inside before. Unfortuantely, it has now been made a building which you must pay to enter. We looked through the door but we couldn't really see anything. We weren't really desperate to pay money to go in, so after looking at a map, we made our way to the nearest metro and travelled to Notre Dam.

The first thing we noticed was how many people were there. You can definitely notice that June-August are the most popular tourist months! We went to sit down on benches arrayed like a section of a footy stadium and gazed at the impressive building. It had so many ornate engravings, many stone statues, patterns and details. As we sat there, resting our legs, we saw a guy put on a mask. He was a bit of a stand-up comedian you could say, but he made us laugh by his actions. He crept up to people, tapped them on the shoulder or held their hand so that when they turned around, they immediately saw his scary mask. One lady gave a loud shriek as she saw his mask, and made many of us laugh. We soon had to leave again - we didn't go inside since the line was SO long. (Long lines sound familiar?) We stopped at a little shop, bought some postcards and paintings, then made our way to Arc de Triumphe via the metro again :). We had such tired legs then, but we perservered. After taking a few photos, we walked under the road through a tunnel which led to the middle of the roundabout (the actual Arch is in the middle of a roundabout), and then to the other side. However, these people wanted to pay to go up in the centre of the roundabout. Oh this annoyed us. It's like they have to find ways to earn more and more money by making people pay to see things. Instead, we walked to the other side, took some photos and then went back to the metro to Lafyette. Lafyette is a bit like Harrods in London. We arrived on the floor of shoes....wow. We hardly realized there were so many designs, styles, colours and different types of shoes!!! :) We had a bit of an exploration through the buidling, but soon felt like going home for food and rest. We caught the train home again, feeling tired and hungry however, we had seen much and walked a lot. We hopped in the car when we got home, and drove to the restaurant we had ate dinner at the day before, since it was easy enough and lacked too much effort to find. We ate, then drove home, rested and slept well. God is good and continues to bless us with good weather and our plans too are blessed.
Love from Hanna.