Day 3 in Paris: Tuesday

Our day began with a very early wake-up call (4am!!!), a sack breakfast, and a coach bus ride to the trains station. Apparently, the train station we were taking the Eurostar from was used to film the exterior train station shots for the Harry Potter films.

It was quite a logistical feat, but we got all 56 travelers and their luggage on the train and off the train without a hitch. The Chunnel was an exciting thought but a rather boring experience. Since the Chunnel is essentially just a tunnel, even if is does run under the ocean floor of the English Channel, in the end, it is just a tunnel. And a tunnel, once you're in it, is not very exciting. Your ears pop and when you look out the window, everything is dark. Ho hum.

But the train, known as the Eurostar, is a very high-speed train and once it hits an excess of 200 miles per hour, the countryside just whirs by, but in the train you don;t really feel like you are going so fast after all.

We arrived at the Gare du Nord (Paris' North train station) and made a bus transfer to our Paris hotel with all our luggage. Since it was early in the day, our rooms weren't ready, so we stored our luggage in a safe room at the hotel and headed out to get cash in Euros at an ATM and buy some lunch. Most of us had pizza at a very authentic pizzeria. It was delicious! (Madame loves pizza in France.)

After lunch, we went to the Sacré Coeur Basilica in a part of Paris called Montmartre. From there, we say amazing views of Paris and found great shops for buying souvenirs.

There were musicians playing on the steps to the basilica and the students loved the artsy atmosphere.

L to R: Sarah, a street performer, Jaci, and Thaïs

Thaïs enjoys the view of Paris from the base of Sacré Coeur

Alexa and Jordan on the steps of Sacré Coeur

We ate a dinner of quiche which everyone loved. After dinner, we went to ride a bateau parisien down the Seine. The sun had set and the night views of Paris with all its important buildings illuminated and its city lights was really beautiful. We got to see the Eiffel Tower by night. At the top of the hour, it lit up with sparkling and flashing lights for a full ten minutes --- a joyful and exciting sight to behold!

After this, we returned to our hotel by way of the Paris Métro for what will forever be known as The Long Night of the Hotel Crazies. Here's all I have to say about that: I'm glad it was solved efficiently and thoroughly. Long story short: We changed to a new and better hotel (a Mercure hotel) the next day.

It's great to be in Paris!