Prague and Paris!!!

WOW!!! Sorry it has been so long since I last updated this thing! I kept telling myself that I needed to write another blog post but I just got SO busy that I didn’t realize how fast time was flying by! I have been having a wonderful time though! And I will tell you all about it!

At the beginning of May, I went to Prague! It was so beautiful! I went with a youth group from my family’s church. It was super great. They were all really nice and I was so grateful that I had the chance to go with them. I made some new friends and it was really awesome. We went Saturday and Sunday. The bus ride there took about 5 hours which wasn’t that bad at all. I slept the whole time as we left at 6 in the morning… and the night before I only got like 4 hours of sleep so I was really tired. When we got there we all tried to check into our hotel but the rooms weren’t ready for us so we had to wait. We just left our luggage with them and then we went to explore Prague. They left it up to us with what we wanted to do, but the four people that had organized the trip were kind of group leaders which was really nice. I stayed with a girl named Shirley. She was absolutely wonderful. I really liked her. We went to the Prague castle and we climbed up the tower which was super hard. It was nothing compared to what I did in Paris a couple of weeks later, but it was definitely harder than Paris. Which is weird. We also went to the mini Eiffel Tower that they have. That was about 400 steps up. It was really pretty at the top. We had real authentic Czech food that night for dinner and it was super yummy. I had honey chicken. We went on the really famous bridge, which we don’t know why it was famous… still don’t. It was pretty cold on Saturday but Sunday was a lot warmer. Which was nice. We basically just walked around and saw Prague. It is a really beautiful city. I would definitely recommend going for a visit. =) So that was my trip to Prague. Short and simple but worth it.

After Prague I had to switch my mindset over to Paris. Before I went to Paris it really just felt like I was just saying that I was going but that it wasn’t ever really going to happen. And then it happened, and it was AMAZING. You should ALL go to Paris once in your lifetime. It was absolutely worth it. I went Wednesday through Sunday. Wednesday morning my plane was leaving at 7:15 in the morning. I was worried about how late I was getting to the airport. It is recommended that you get there 2 hours early in case of delays and what not. But I was taking the train and the earliest train was leaving at 5:10am. And it takes about an hour to get to the airport on the train. So I was really worried about not getting there in time. But I had nothing to worry about. Everything went really smoothly. My train got there at 6:15 and because I had checked in online the night before, I just had to figure out where my plane was leaving from. So I just asked one of the nice ladies at the information desk and they told me where to go. I got to my gate 45 minutes before and just relaxed. It worked out perfectly. And then the next thing I knew I was in Paris! I called the couple that I was meeting up with and they were just getting their luggage and then they would meet me at my gate. So it worked out perfectly. Once we met up, we went to their hotel first and checked them in. And then we went to my hotel and checked in but I couldn’t take my stuff to my room yet as it wasn’t ready. So I just left my luggage with them. We went to St. Michel’s church very first. That was absolutely beautiful. It was full of stained glass windows. I loved it. Then we went to a castle type thing. Don’t really know what it was. But it was super pretty! And then we went to the Louvre!!! And as soon as we got inside we went directly to the Mona Lisa! That was super cool to see. It was a lot smaller than I was thinking it would be. But it was awesome none the less! So now I can see that I have seen the Mona Lisa. Woohoo! After we saw the Mona Lisa we went to some other exhibits in the Louvre. And then we went to dinner and headed to bed because the couple I was with were so tired as they had flown over from Washington. So they went to sleep and I went and people watched off my balcony. I had the most beautiful view. I loved it.

And now we are on day 2!!! We were planning on going to Versailles and we got to the train station to buy our tickets and they told us that they were on strike. Haha so we went to the EIFFEL TOWER!!!! And took tons of pictures. That was WONDERFUL!!!! I LOVED being there. It was so sunny and just beautiful! And then we went and looked around the Army Museum. That was cool too. After the Army Museum we went and just walked around some other museums. And then we went and met up with Daniel’s parents. They were nice. I really liked them a lot. We went to Notre Dame after we ate some lunch. We didn’t go inside but we got pictures all around the outside. It was absolutely stunning. After Notre Dame we just walked around and found this random church and went inside. Then we went to dinner. Super yummy food. It was funny though because every place we ate at had almost the exact same things on the menu. So we were eating and we were taking our time because we wanted to go see the Eiffel Tower when it got dark. But let me just warn you all… it doesn’t get dark until like 10:30pm!!! It was dark by the time we got there. And it was SO PRETTY!!!! I loved it! We tried taking pictures but it was too dark to see your face so we just got some good pictures of the Tower. Gorgeous.

And then another adventure began… We left the tower around midnight. And we went to get on the train to take us to our hotels and we saw that it was closed. So then we looked to see if the Metro was open and online it said it closed at 11:30. Great. So we started our journey walking to our hotels. We were all so exhausted from walking all day and we were just completely worn out. But it was still fun. It was interesting to see Paris at night time. By the time we were about 7 minutes away from my hotel we ran into a Metro station stop and… we heard it going! We were all kind of REALLY angry. Because it took us 45 MINUTES to walk back to our hotels from the Tower. But to be honest I just thought it was funny. I think it was because it was 1 in the morning and I was so exhausted. I just thought it was hilarious.

Day 3 was even more exciting! We made the plan to meet really early, 7:45am so that we could get to Versailles. It was so, so amazing! I loved it! The line to go inside was HUGE so we decided to hit the gardens first. The gardens are so big. It is crazy how big they are. We didn’t even see a fourth of it, maybe even an eighth. It was insane. But we decided that we were really exhausted from walking so we rented a golf cart and went around the gardens for an hour on that. It was a lot of fun. And then we went and waited in line for an hour to get inside. And boy I was so glad that I waited! Inside is incredible. My favorite room was the ‘Hall of Mirrors’. Absolutely stunning. There were these great big crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. And on the walls there were mirrors and then the other wall were windows. So the sun shone in through the windows, hit the chandeliers and the mirrors and it was just beautiful. I loved it.

 Hall of Mirrors. <3

After Versailles we went and met up with Daniel’s step sister and her husband. So we had Carla and Daniel’s dad, Leslie, John, Daniel, Deon and me…. The odd non family member tag along.  And then came one of my favorite things. We climbed the 720 stairs up the Eiffel Tower! You are only allowed to go up to the second level on the stairs and then you have to take the elevator to the top. And that is what we did. And even though it was challenging, especially since I am slightly really scared of heights, I am so glad I did it. It was amazing.

 First level up!

 Second level!!!

Wheels that control the elevators!

Elevator window looking up to show how far we have left.

TOP OF THE TOWER!!!!!

And now we are onto day 4. Daniel, Deon and I got up early so that we could go into Notre Dame. Man oh man that was amazing!!! The stained glass in there is absolutely incredible. I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. It was kind of dark inside though but it was still beautiful. After we went inside we met up with the rest of the group and we headed to the CATACOMBS!!!!! I was really nervous about going in because I was thinking it was going to be SUPER dark and scary. But when we got down it wasn’t as bad as I was thinking it would be. It was really cool to see but at the same time I am still slightly grossed out because all of those 6 million bones that are down there were real humans. And that kind of creeped me out. But now I can say that I have been in the Catacombs of Paris! This is crazy to think about as well… the mile long part that we went in was only 1/800^th of all the tunnels underneath France. So insane. After we came back up into the sun, we went back over to the Eiffel Tower to get more pictures and then we went to Arc de Triomphe. I was kind of bummed because they were doing construction on the top and we weren’t allowed to go up. But at least we were able to go over by it. And by the time we got there they were doing the ceremony for the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. So we were able to watch that a little.

After we went there, we all split up into our separate groups and did our own things. Daniel, Deon and I went souvenir shopping for me… haha and then we went and headed to our hotel at the airport because our planes were leaving really early. And we had another adventure!

By the time we got onto the train to the airport it was around I think 9:30. And we started going and all of a sudden the train driver came on the intercom and said a bunch of things in French and then stopped the train and a whole bunch of people got off. But we didn’t know what he said we just stayed on. He kept going but then he said more things in French that we didn’t understand. Thankfully there was a guy on the train with us that spoke French and a little English so he told us that we were going to stop for a while and wait for another train that would take us to the airport. So we were just chilling in the train. There was another couple and we started talking to them. We found out that they are from Utah and that they were here because the woman was on a business trip. So that was fun to talk to them. And then while we were talking all of a sudden the Police get on the train and tell everyone to get off. We were very confused. So we all got off and asked what was going on. But they told us that we needed to go outside of the train station and wait there for about 15 minutes while they did their thing. So we went outside with everyone else and waited. There we found out that there were some kids who were messing around and decided to go on the tracks. And so since they did that the police came, arrested them, stopped the entire train system and had to check for who knows what. So annoying. (So this should be a lesson to all of you… BE TRAIN SMART!!!!)

After about 20 minutes we finally got back on the train and about 45 minutes later we were at the airport. By now it is around 11:30pm. So then we wanted to see if we could check in right then but everything was closed. So we went to find the shuttle to our hotel. After calling our hotel we found out that the shuttle came around every 30 minutes. So we found where it would come and sat down to wait….. 50 minutes later the shuttle came. We were SO tired. We got on and we finally arrived at our hotel at about 12:45am. We check in and make a plan to meet at 5:40 in the morning and that we would get a taxi. So that was the plan. I went and set my alarm, talked to my mom for a few minutes and fell asleep. The next thing I know my hotel phone is ringing. I answer it and am so confused. The hotel man is telling me that it is 5:43am but my phone says that it is 5:10am. CONFUSION to the max. Especially that early in the morning… so I jump out of bed, throw my clothes on and throw my stuff in my suit case. I go out and was literally just so confused. And then our taxi driver tries to make us pay 20 more Euros than what it really was. But we eventually got into the airport and I made it home safely.

So all in all, Paris was FULL of adventures but I loved every second of it. Even though it exhausted me to the max. I am so grateful that I was invited to go with this couple. They were so great the whole time and I loved meeting their family. I can’t believe that my 5 month mark is almost here. That is absolutely crazy. My dad bought my plane ticket home the other day so I officially have my date home and it is just so weird to think that it is in 7 months. My time is going to fast here, I am enjoying it as much as I can and I know that I am going to miss it like crazy when I leave. I love you all and sorry this post is so long!!!! Haha. I know you all just wanted to know every detail about my trip! =P

Keep being amazing and keeping your head held high!

I love you all!!!

Kasey J