Paris, London and Celebrities!

I think you can all guess what we did when we were in Paris for four days. Basically be tourists (just for a change) and walk around the city taking in all the sights! I'd been before but Adele hadn't so there were a lot of things she had to see!

It only took us 9and a half hours to get there from London, because we decided to save money and get the coach, but it wasnt as bad as you might think! I pretty much slept the whole way, and when I wasn't sleeping I was using the free wifi! By the time we arrived in Paris we were both knackered and hungry, so we checked into out hostel (again, saving money..) and wandered up to the Sacre Coeur to look out over the city, and what a view it was! On the way back we stopped in a restaurant for dinner, and it was then that I realised how bad my french had become. Turns out three years of my life was wasted taking french at college because apparently everyone in Paris speaks english, except for the guy who took our orders that night.

Now I could go into a mass of detail about what we did every day, but to be honest I can't really be bothered, and I took enough photos (albeit average ones) to document what we did. So here's the somewhat shortened version..
Basically we caught the metro into the city, and then walked everywhere from there to save money (are you noticing a trend yet?) In the three full days we had there we saw The Eiffel tower (obviously), the louvre pyramids, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame cathedral, Moulin Rouge and the Champs Élysées.

The inner Classics/Art History geek in me had a fantastic time pointing out all the architectural styles. Only thing I learnt in school that I actually use in life!

In between seeing all the sights, there were multiple trips to McDonalds and Burger King to use their wifi and get a cheap lunch. Adele ate snails – I ate one last time and didn't feel the desire to eat them again...

We had a middle-aged Russian man cook our pasta for us in the hostel kitchen because apparently we weren't doing it right. We made friends with some of the people staying in the hostel, and heard all about their stories and experiences about their travelling. We got pestered by people trying to get us to buy various souvenirs as soon as they heard us speaking english (5 for 1euro!!!), so Adele started speaking German around them, and it worked! The only problem was that I don't speak German so I just nodded along and said the odd “nein” or “ja”. On our last night we sat on the stairs opposite the Eiffel tower and watched the sun set over the city. We watched the tower light up, and then we witnessed a proposal! It was the cutest thing ever! Paris was amazing, as you would imagine, but after three days of non-stop walking and spending a bit too much money on souvenirs and food, I was ready to head back to an english speaking country!

Saturday was perhaps the best day ever! Even though we were back in London and not Paris.. But we met up with our gappie friends after a quick run to Oxford street. We decided to head to Notting Hill and try and find the blue door from the movie “Notting Hill”. Turns out that door is near Portobello Road so we had a look at the markets while we walked to the door. We found it eventually, and then on the way back, we met an absolute legend. Just casually walking through the markets was Bill Nighy!! He was such a nice man and stopped to have a photo and a chat! It's safe to say that meeting him made our day!

After that we went to a pub and watched a game of football- I was the only one that wasn't massively enthusiastic about that! Then, to end the half term holidays on a high note, we walked up Primrose Hill in Camden and looked out over London at night. The view was amazing and you could see the skyline, including St. Paul’s, the eye, the shard and even over to Canary wharf!
Sunday, as usual was spent travelling back to school. Four train rides and a cab – with the coolest driver ever who spent the whole time talking about rugby and how the All Blacks' Haka is “bloody terrifying”
By 3.30 I was back in my room, unpacked and back to reality.. Thankfully Monday is my day off so technically I'm still on holiday, so Netflix and updating all of you is all I have done today!

Bill Nighy is as awesome as you'd imagine!