Caught a cab to Heathrow, hopped on a plane to Paris. It was all of us but Sarah, who had some meeting for school, but she got on a train later and joined us. It was overbooked and she sat on a seat between trains by the toilet. But by the time we got off the plane, got to the hotel, the Cervantes, unloaded our stuff and got some food and did a little sightseeing, Sarah was just about there.
Finding food wasn’t much of a problem, as every street near our hotel seemed to have a ton of them. We finally walked into one and got bigger meals than any of us intended to. They were all good though.
Amanda wanted to see the Moulin Rouge, so we headed over that way. She wasn’t too keen to go to the Exotic Museum of Paris right down the street from it, or any of the other related shops either. We saw that we weren’t too far off from the Sacre Coure, a church on a high hill in Paris. It had an awesome view of the entire city, though it was a bit of a climb.
Most attractions here (and in Britain too) close around 5:00, so there wasn’t really time to do much else. All five of us had dinner at a little cafe near the hotel then went back.
My overall first impression of Paris is that there’s a lot of graffiti and the subways aren’t as nice as the ones in London (though as Amanda noted while I’m writing this, they are quicker and shorter). The tap water is surprisingly good though.
The hotel isn’t the fanciest, but it does what we need- stores our stuff and gives us a place to sleep without fearing for our well being. The staff is nice though. Would be nice if the brackets for the bathroom mirror weren’t broken though. At least the mirror itself is available- if we want to sit on the floor in front of the bed. Amanda and I have a quaint view down the narrow Rue de Something, though the other rooms are on the other side and have nice views of the Eiffel Tower. It’s lit up at night and sparkles for five minutes on every hour.
There’s also a feature I’ve never seen in a hotel before that is apparently becoming popular where you put your key card (or anything that will fit, really) to activate the power in the room.
Zach Dotsey
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