20th Birthday in Paris!

After the Canaries, I only had a few days to unpack, repack, and rest up before leaving for Paris on Thursday night, April 12, to celebrate my birthday! Emma and Madison took an earlier trip, so they were already there waiting for Drea, Kelsey, and me to get there Friday morning. We made our way to the bus station to catch our 12:30am 6-hour bus on Thursday night to the Madrid airport. Drea and I fell asleep for the whole ride until we started making stops in Madrid. While Drea and I were chatting, I realized I had forgotten a towel for the hostel, and as we kept talking, I realized I forgot my camera charger. :( We were about five minutes away from our terminal when I turned to her once again and said, “Drea…I forgot my passport.” OOPS. She told me to search my stuff and make sure I didn’t have it, but I knew exactly where it was in my room in Oviedo.

Trying to remain calm, the three of us went around asking multiple airlines about other available flights to Paris, but eventually I was too upset and since I knew staying in Madrid not being able to fly anywhere would get me nowhere, Kelsey and Drea walked me to the metro, which I took to the bus station and bought the first bus back to Oviedo while Kels and Drea flew off to Paris without me:( The only positive about this was that I got to ride a first class bus with free meals and super comfy seats. Immediately after stepping into my apartment, I found my passport, exactly where I knew I’d left it. I put it in my bag and began searching for flights.

That night I flew out of Oviedo to Barcelona at 11pm and had to sleep in the Barca airport until my flight to Paris at 7:30am. Let’s just say I was slightly delusional while attempting to sleep in an airport for my first time ever, and I didn’t get much real sleep in, but I made it to Paris! Navigating the bus, trains, and metro in the huge city by myself was very intimidating, but all my research I had done after buying my tickets paid off when I FINALLY made it to my hostel and found my friends – it was such a relief. Luckily, the only thing that they had done without me was go to the Louvre, which is okay with me…I’ve never been much of a museum girl and art just doesn’t do it for me.

With no time to spare, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower, and I fell in love. The tower is AMAZING. I almost cried when I saw it. We took many pictures with it, and then made our way under it, where we bought and ate strawberry and nutella crepes that were DELCIOUS! We had a picnic under the Tower, and then went to the Arc de Triumph. We didn’t go up into the Eiffel Tower or Arc because the lines were waaay too long on this Saturday afternoon. I am a little sad that I never went up the Eiffel, but maybe later in my life. :) The Arc was very pretty and we hung out there for a little while, and then walked the Champs-Élysées, most famous and expensive shopping street in the world. We walked though Picasso’s neighborhood, then to the Basílica del Sacré Cœur, and ended our tour at Moulin Rouge! After all of this, we were all exhausted and ready to go back to the hostel. We stopped at the supermarket for some dinner, and went back to the hostel to nap. We woke up a little later ready to bring in my 20^th birthday. We went out on the town for the night and had a great time :)

 CREPE! Yummm :)

 Eating the crepe under the Eiffel...so cheesey!

 Arc de Triumph

 Basillica

 Holding the Eiffel :)

 Jumping!

Moulin Rouge!

We slept in on Sunday morning until around 12 – of course I choose to sleep in on my birthday :) – then went to Notre Dame which was gorgeous, inside and out. While we were wandering around the Notre Dame, we stumbled upon the Lovers Bridge, which Kelsey and I especially loved. For anyone that doesn’t know the story behind the bridge, two lovers go to this bridge with a lock that usually has their names or something special on it, lock it to the bridge, and throw the key into the river! SO CUTE! In order to escape the cold, we decided to go to a café to eat more crepes. Then, with nothing left on our to-do list for the daytime, we went back to the hostel and got ready for my birthday dinner. We found restaurant with a great deal for a 3-course meal, got some free drinks for my birthday, and ate a very yummy meal! Salad, steak, fries, and ice cream…YUMM! Our waiters were weird, but they loved us, and we had so much fun. The last thing that I wanted to do before leaving Paris was see the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour while lit up at dark, so we left the restaurant with 50 minutes to spare…and after some misread metro signs, ended up lost on the outskirts of the city, and missed the sparkling:( Granted, it was still beautiful lit up, but I had myself very excited to see the sparkles, and it was too cold to wait. So we went back to the hostel and went to sleep. Overall, it was a WONDERFUL day and I love that I hit my 20s in Paris!

 Lovers Bridge :)

 Lovers Bridge with Notre Dame in the background.

 Second crepe!

Free drinks for my birthday dinner!

Freezing cold by the tower all lit up!

The next morning, we went to see the Hunger Games on Champs-Élysées. We had a free morning before our flights, and since they don’t have the English version in Spain and we’re all obsessed with the books, we decided to all go see the movie. GREAT DECISION. It was so good! And when it was over, it left us the perfect amount of time to grab our luggage and catch our plane back to Oviedo.

I LOVED Paris. The passport oopsie was not fun, but it was worth every euro to still make the trip for a slightly shorter weekend!

Well, I’m down to one more trip to post about :) that will be coming soon! I hope everyone is keeping up with all of my new posts! I miss everyone back home and can’t believe I only have a few days left…ah! Thanks for reading!