[I was in Paris from July 13th to 15th]

The night before I left for Paris, I decided to buy the deluxe verion of the Before You Know It program in French. I somehow convinced myself I could master French during the five-hour train ride from Zurich to Paris.

False.

When I rolled into Paris, I realized I didn’t write down the name or address of the hotel I was staying at, so I spent the better half of three hours looking for the Louvre (I knew my hotel was near there), hoping to see the hotel’s name and jog my memory.

Well, I knew I’d recognize the Louvre by the giant glass pyramid I’ve seen in the movies.   The movies failed to tell me that the giant glass pyramid was inside the courtyard and is not visible AT ALL from the street.

I finally popped into a Starbucks to steal some Wifi, which was not working.  The baristas guided me to an Apple Store in the Louvre (which I realized I had been walking around the entire time).  I went in there, stole their internet, and found my hotel.

Then!  I used my professional tourist skills to hit up the exterior of the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eifel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe (I spent like two hours here journaling and writing postcards), Avenue des Champs-Élysées,  and the Jardin des Tuileries in a couple hours.  I figured I could see everything else the next day.

When I returned to my hotel, the receptionist informed me that everything would be closed the next day because it was Bastille Day.  Yes, I was accidentally in Paris on Bastille Day.

So, since everything was closed, I decided to do another free New Europe tour.  It was POURING outside, to the point where after an hour and a half of doing a walking tour and hoping the rain would let up, we collectively decided to cancel the rest of the tour.  It was still really fun, and my guide was such a trooper.  She even gave her umbrella to someone on the tour who didn’t have one.  I spent the majority of the remainder of the day in my hotel room wishing my only pair of jeans and my only pair of shoes would dry faster.

The weather cleared up in time for the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eifel Tower.  I went out and watched them from Champ de Mars.  After a month of going going going, I looking forward to my one good night of sleep and decided to leave at 11:30 to beat the crowds to the metro.

The fireworks ended at 11:35.  The armed cops promptly shut down the metro to prevent the 2,000,000 attendees from causing riots below ground.  I was forced to walk from the Eifel Tower all the way to my hotel which was on the opposite side of the Louvre.  It took exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes to walk from the Eifel Tower to my bed, and it was miserable.  I then had to pack and wake up at 5:45 to catch my plane to Dublin in the morning.

Well, in the meantime, please enjoy my ten thousand pictures of Paris including a wonderful Bastille Day Fireworks montage.

So, I have, without fail, managed to get the time wrong for almost every tour I’ve tried to do.  Haha but that’s not a problem!!  Sometimes I get there early

Yesterday I did another New Europe free walking tour.  I will never cease to be amazed at how great these tours are.  I’ve been recommending them to everyone.  All of my guides have been extremely knowledgeable and nice and just genuinely love the cities they’re working in.

My guide, Michael, was great, and an Irishman!  Although those qualities usually go hand-in-hand.  The tour ended up being almost four hours, but it was so interesting that I didn’t even notice.  I got to see all of the “old” buildings (Munich was heavily bombed during WWII and most of the buildings you see now are concrete reconstructions of what the city looked like before the war) and Michael pointed out a bunch of really interesting memorials that I otherwise wouldn’t have even noticed.  I can’t get over how great the tour was.

I also did New Europe’s Beer Challenge last night!  No, it’s not what you’re thinking.  It was nothing like Beer Fest.  We went around to a bunch of different beer gardens and the beer museum and learned a lot about the history of beer in Munich, and we sampled all of the different kinds of beer brewed in Munich.  Everyone there was just there to have a good time, unlike pubcrawls where most people just want to get sloppy and embarrassingly drunk.  The challenge part of the Beer Challenge was actually to be the most knowledgeable person there.  I didn’t win, obviously, but I met some really great people, including some kilt-wearing Scotsmen and a Gaelic-speaking Irishman from Tipperary.

I’d like to apologize for the lack of photos lately.  The internet here takes freaking forever and a half, but I think I’m going to set aside some time tonight to upload my pictures from Salzburg and what I’ve seen so far in Munich.

Also, I’m thinking about reformatting the layout of my blog.  My posts are getting wayyy too long for the front page.  Expect changes in the near future!

On my last day in Prague, I decided to go see the Bone Chapel in Kutna Hora.  Since I really only spent like $10 a day here, including beer, I decided to splurge on a tour of the chapel.  We also got to see St. Barbora’s Cathedral, which was unbelievably beautiful.

After the tour, a group of us decided to go out to this beer garden (Letenské sady) overlooking the entire city.  It was so beautiful.  We sat down with two other backpackers and ended up spending the rest of the night with them.  It was awesome!  We talked about absolutely everything:  our travels, our lives, our bread…  It was perfect hahaha

I loved Prague.  Please enjoy my pictures: