Paris

Our trip to Paris started off pretty good. We planned on taking an overnight train but didn't make reservations because we were told we didn't have to. Once we boarded the train we found out we had been lied to. In the end everthing worked out. The train man gave up beds to sleep in for half the price! Upon arriving to Paris we were well rested and ready to explore the city. Unfortunately Paris didn't live up to my expectations. Maybe it is because I had such high expectations after years of people raving over it's beauty and uniqueness. While I did enjoy touring Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, and the Louvre Paris just wasn't what I had invisioned. I would prefer to go in the summer when I could actually go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The second level of the Eiffel Tower was still breathtaking despite the bitter cold. I was amazed by the Louvre and want to go back one day when I can spend several days touring it. The statues and paintings fascinated me. Seeing a piece of art always makes me wonder what the history of it is and what inspired the artist to create such a time consuming masterpiece.

Our hostel in Paris was much nicer than the one in Prague. We ended up having three roommates from Brazil. At first I ws a little uneasy about the situation but they endd up being very nice girls. One major problem with the hostel was that the showers had only cold water and I enjoy steaming hot showers so I ended up not showering for three days! Needless to say I wasn't very happy.

Heading home from Paris was an entirely different story from arriving. We ended up paying 75 extra Euros because they said our Eurail pass would not work. This really made all of us mad because we paid over 350 dollars for the pass. We arrived at the Paris train station around 1:00 p.m. but didn't arrive in Hannover until 8:05 a.m. that next morning. As one could imagine 19 hours of traveling by train durring the night making 5 different change overs was NOT pleasant. I was very thankful to be back in Germany after the Paris experience.

Tomorrow we leave for Vienna. I've been told great things. I can only hope tha tI am not disappointed once again!