Global Gauthier's: How Paris stole our hearts... and by hearts I mean backpacks.

We arrived in Paris ready to hit the ground running as we only had 2 days and 2 nights there to see as much as we could. We found our way to our hostel from the metro station after the hour long 'airport shuttle' from Paris Beauvais Airport.

FYI: when you fly into the 'Paris' Beauvais airport,

it's not Paris. It would be like calling the Weyburn Airport 'Regina Weyburn Airport' to trick people into using it for Regina. Anyways, while this hostel was very nice, it wasn't really our favourite because they only had a boys dorm and girls dorm! So we had to sleep in separate rooms! Sad day. But not before we ran around Paris seeing everything we could! First we had to manage the massive, though fairly simple metro system. Second, we had to get used to hearing French everywhere. Milessa did fairly well

somehow and kept pulling out random French words and things to say to people because of stuff she learned years ago while I sat back mumbling bonjour every few encounters feeling proud.After dropping our bags off we hopped on a metro to The Palace of Versailles outside the city. It is a massive palace with museums inside and lots of beautiful and ornate architecture and artwork inside. We stayed until sunset when we went

At the Palace of Versailles

to visit the huge gardens out behind the palace. We wandered around them for a couple of hours.On our way back into Paris we stopped at the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up amongst the hundreds of tourists and merchants.

The next morning we were up fairly early to make it to the Louvre (but not early enough, the place was packed when we arrived.) With some reading online, we found a backdoor to buying tickets and entering one of the most famous museums in the world and skipped waiting hours in line! First things first was seeing Mona Lisa. This was a huge highlight for me; but not because of the art. Rather it was the

atmosphere surrounding the artwork! This huge room is filled with people clamouring to see this little painting, people pushing and shoving every which way, cameras flying high flashing like a concert. Total chaos. Somehow, we squeaked our way to the very front within about 20 seconds, I really don't know how. So we enjoyed the view of this famous painting, snapped a few photos both of the painting and the surrounding crowd loving the chaotic energy and how badly everyone craved to see Mona Lisa's face. From there we wandered around for a couple hours taking a whirlwind tour of a museum that should be enjoyed over 2-3 days. Classic.

After the Louvre we

went the Eiffel Tower and walked the stairs the first 115 meters to the second level and had to take an elevator from there to the top. Considering the Eiffel Tower is probably the most visited and well known monument in the world and they have millions of visitors every year, it was poorly organized. Nobody seemed to know where the line was or where to buy tickets, and people got pretty pushy without rules!The view from the top was truly incredible and we were rewarded with clear skies for photos from the top and the bottom afterwards.We then made our way to l'arc du triumphe and the surrounding hilarious 10 lane traffic circle. We sat enjoying

that for some time admiring the hectic chaos of a totally backwards traffic circle (~8 lanes, no dividing lines, 12 roads entering the circle, the right-of-way goes to anyone entering the circle- google a video of it, you won't regret it). Afterwards we went to The Notre Dame Cathedral and then Pont Neuf, mostly because that's where Jason Bourne made that Treadstone guy meet up with him. We walked around that area finding several locations from the Bourne Identity series,

including the Hotel Regina. After sunset, we went one last time to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show at 10 o'clock and have a quick crepe! The next morning we were up super early to catch an airport shuttle around 0630. We walked up to the bus attempting to bring our larger bags onboard and the driver shushed us away and made us place our bags under the bus, so we did and got on the bus, waiting for the rest of the passengers to get on. And as we sat down in our seats, we breathed a sigh of relief because we hadn't had anything stolen while in Paris! We've known several people and heard and read countless stories of people having wallets, money, cameras, passports, etc stolen from their pockets, so we were somewhat proud of the care we'd taken the whole time to not allow that to happen. Too bad we spoke too soon! As we went to get our bags an hour later at the airport, they were gone. Someone had stolen both of our backpacks from under the bus before we

even left Paris! I really can't express how mad we were and how frustrated we were with everything. The driver really didn't care and didn't even attempt to speak slowly for us to help us out after. And we felt cheated since we tried to keep our bags with us and drivers didn't allow us, than also don't watch it. So what were we to do? They insist its our responsibility while not allowing you to watch your bag, and not watching it themselves. If everyone watched their bags the whole time noone would ever get on the bus. So that's my rant! It's been over a month and we're pretty over it, but it was very tough at the time. I'm very sure, based on talking to another driver and another employee that the driver was in on it.

The last photo of Justin's pack

Fortunately, nothing of real value was in the bags. Our passports, wallets, credit cards, cash, phone, camera, and spin pin were all in our small bags with us, thank goodness.On one hand that was good, but on the other, it makes it seem even more useless since the guy is simply going to throw out most of what he stole! Except the backpacks and hiking boots. Also Malaria pills, maybe he'll use them for hallucination parties! I was hoping he'd catch the staph infection I had from a pair of my socks or something :) So without more than the clothes we were wearing and some small valuables, we boarded the plane to Dublin, Ireland, with very grumpy faces. I distinctly remember that part because I developed a real bad headache pretty quickly from all of my frowning! Luckily, we had some great friends waiting to greet us in Dublin and that was such a great source of encouragement as we flew 10000 km above our beloved backpacks!

Many amazing things to see at Le Louvre

More neat things at Le Louvre. Paid special attention to these sorts of things thanks to Brooke who learned about them in her University Ed & recommended we check them out:) thanks Bro!