back from france!

Paris is what happens when cobblestones meet fashion designers; where the sight of glazed and powdered pastries is equal to the amount of cigarettes around you, and where you can duck underground from the Arc de Triomph and come up across the Seine at the square of Charles-Michel on a single purple metro ticket. I hold Paris in high regard.

We started out in the city for three nights. It took that long to get use to the time difference... They're 9 hours ahead of us. But we took it slow the first night, eating only what we could find from their Monoprix (the local Albertsons, but much better). The second day was everything from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre, and the third day we decided to spend in Montmartre, a quirky area but beautiful on top of the hill. The temple is magnificent to look at. And looking down from the big white building you can see where they filmed Amelie!
The next day we took the TGV train down to Nice, in the south of France. I think the train goes almost 250 miles an hour. I loved the ride. The weather was very different in the south compared to Paris; when it had been crisp and foggy in Paris's mornings and humid and muggy in the afternoon, in Nice it felt like 75 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course, because we're silly Americans) all day long. From 9 in the morning to 11 pm, when it was still light out. We spent three nights in Nice. I had been there before and really enjoyed Old Town, the part of the city that dates back to the 1500s or something like that...and the buildings from then are still being used! Cool food and flower markets take place there, and a flea market happens on Sundays, when most everything else is closed except ice cream places. Ice cream...Yeah...we had lots of ice cream.
The next four nights we stayed in Ville-Franch-Sur-Mer, an adorable but sleepy little town. To me it seemed like it was trying to be touristy but it wasn't there yet. There were not many people there, but it was a good chance to slow down and take a breath. Actually, ironically, we were often out of breath because we had to walk down and up a long sloping hill from our hotel to downtown. We went on a whale-watching boat on our second-to-last day there and saw lots and lots of dolphins! No whales, though.
We headed back up to Paris by airplane for our last three nights. I enjoyed Paris more this time because I think I was more conscious--no jet lag to deal with! We understood the metro system better (a great system) and we were in a better location too, I think. On our last day Mom and I got out early and took a ticket to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. It was so high up there! But when we got down again and looked up it didn't seem so high. If you're going soon, remember that it's higher than it looks if you want to go all the way up!
The last leg of our journey is now over. Though we're still a little jet-laggy (it's 4am there!), we've pretty much accepted that our time in France is over. Back to our lives!