TacoCat’s Travels #60 (Paris): Locked in the City of Love

Hey Hive!

So if you didn't catch the last few posts, this series is about our trip to Paris way back in June 2016 when we went there for summer school! Both of us enrolled in a Luxury Management course at a college called HEC Paris.

And in the last post, we moved out of our hostel at the college campus and into our new Airbnb! At least, for a day or two until we return to Singapore. We also went mall-crawling at the famous Galeries Lafayette, where we found a secret rooftop with an amazing view!

This was definitely one of my favourite spots in the city

26 June 2016. Sunday.

It was our last full day in Paris! We were gonna be meeting our friend, Ho Kit, at the bridge, Pont des Arts, at around 1pm. So we left our Airbnb at around 11ish. Just to refresh, our Airbnb was technically the attic of this big suburban house that looked like this:

We had to take a bus to get to the city from our place and we walked around for a bit upon arriving. I think we might've gotten a little lost.

The sucky thing was that we didn't have wifi at the time either, since our router was only activated for a week or so, and that ended while we were still in school. So, we were basically going off memory where the bridge was and how to get there. Welp.

Eventually, we came to a bridge, but this one had padlocks on them! It wasn't the right bridge, but it was still nice to see anyway, since it's quite unique to Paris I think.?

There was a gachapon machine that dispensed padlocks that we didn't buy because there were so many locks on there already, and the locks were ridiculously expensive. We did take a lot of pictures though.

I believe this bridge was the Pont Neuf; the oldest standing bridge across the River Seine. Which was good for us, since Pont des Arts was just the next bridge down.

Eventually we made it to the bridge and met our friend at Pont des Arts. We also saw a couple of scammers there, conning tourists out of some money with some weird game.

The guys in the background were the scammers. Shh.

Seeing the tourists get scammed irl reminded me of the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode where Toph scammed some scammers out of money using her earthbending. But she was being smart, the tourists were just really naive, or maybe just dumb. We were looking and admittedly judging them for playing multiple times after losing so much already. Maybe they felt pressured or threatened by the dudes or something? But it looked like they didn't have weapons and were just talking/persuading them. Man, just speak a foreign language and walk away. Here's a lesson: do not show your wallets/purses to strangers, ever. And ignore people who come up to you on the street asking for money!

Anyway, after the scammers walked away, we just took some pictures while deciding where to go next.

Eventually, we settled on heading to the Lourve to check it out. We predicted that there would be quite a crowd since it was Sunday, but we started heading towards there anyway.

Soon, the sun came out and it got considerably warmer than the past couple of days, which was unfortunate since I decided to wear a long-sleeve shirt that day. Dang.

We came across this pretty big fountain with lots of chairs and people just sitting there lounging in the bright, warm sun. I wonder if this is just a Caucasian thing, since they don't get a lot of sun during the year? You'd never see this in Singapore that's for sure. It's way too hot and humid to do that.

It was warm, but still a nice day out to walk and picnic and stuff I guess. And you know what I like about bright and sunny days - Good pictures!

The Lourve was actually just a short 5 minute or so walk from Pont des Arts, so I think it was a good choice.

There was a cool-looking arch just in front of the Lourve, which I just learned is called Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. It is the smallest of the three arches on the Triumphal Way, the central axis between the Louvre and La Défense. The arch is crowned with a bronze chariot and was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate his Austrian victories and honor his grand army.

We headed on into the compound of the Lourve, and it looked quite a bit smaller than I imagined. But it was still pretty cool, since it was actually projecting the image of the building it was obscuring.

But of course, the illusion only works if you position yourself just right and take a photo from the right angle.

Eh, close enough.

We didn't actually going inside the Lourve, since it was really crowded. And we figured since we already visited the Palace of Versailles, that was enough museumy-stuff for us. If you're into museums and architecture, I'd say the Lourve is worth vising though, because the interior looks amazing!

Source: dreamstime

We ended up just taking a bunch of goofy pictures outside the Lourve. And we had fun anyway.

And that's all that matters, really.

After that, we just followed our friend and enjoyed a stroll through the city.

It was nice to just relax and walk around, not having a set destination, you know? I've probably written about this before, but we are definitely not the kind of travelers who have a super detailed itinerary, hitting all the famous tourist spots (ala Amy Santiago from B99) or anything like that. Which is good, since we often travel together.

I don't really get people like that. I mean, it just sounds so busy for a holiday. But hey, to each his own I guess. Everyone relaxes differently, so you know, you do you.

I definitely find it more relaxing to just walk around aimlessly, taking photos along the way. Of course this strategy may only work in a big city like Paris. Maybe not so much in the countryside or suburban area.

I didn't take too many photos that day, as I tend to restrict myself when I'm with friends other than Sean. Not many people are patient with me taking a crap ton of photos everywhere I go. Especially when they're goofy photos like this:

We went for a late lunch after walking around for a bit. Unfortunately, I don't remember where we went, but we had a lot of fries from the looks of it.

I think we just went to some random diner. I remember it wasn't that crowded where we were sitting, and we ended up staying there for quite a bit chatting and enjoying the aircon and wifi.

After that we headed to Champs-Élysées if I recall. Which if you didn't know, is a 2 km long avenue lined with theatres, cafés, and luxury shops on either side. I actually already walked a little bit of it with my group mates during our field trip, but it was definitely more fun with Sean and Ho Kit. Eventually we kinda split off, since Ho Kit was more of a luxury shopper, which we are obviously not. I mean, we ended up in the Disney store, so.

We did find a discount store along Champs-Élysées though, which was not what I was expecting at all. But there's this shop called MONOPRIX and they sell clothes, accessories and stuff at pretty cheap prices! It's kinda like Cotton On here in Singapore, I suppose?

Source: Sortir a Paris

We spent pretty much the rest of the day walking and doing some last minute shopping along Champs-Élysées and came back with quite a few shopping bags. And guess who was waiting for us when we arrived home?

It was our chow chow friend! He was the owner's dog, and he was such a good boy! He kinda scared me when I first met him, and he startled me when I saw him waiting for us at the top of the stairs. But he's actually really docile and friendly!

That was the first time I ever saw a chow chow and he was so cute! He was like a bear dog :3 I loved seeing him just chilling around in the house.

I'm not sure if he was sad or his face just looks like that, but I always felt a little sorry seeing him by himself. So I always made it a point to pet him. Maybe he knew we were leaving soon? :/

When we got to packing, this was the bulk of what we bought to bring back:

We really liked the Lion bars and Milka chocolate, obviously.

Our flight the next day was about 8pm Paris time, and we had to transit in Istanbul again, so it was gonna be a pretty long flight. But thankfully, we were safe. And it was really close too, since the day after we landed in Singapore, the Istanbul airport was bombed! We were really lucky that we didn't get caught up in that, but still. That was scary.

Anyway, here's a nice shot of some mountains I got from the plane:

And with that, we've come to the end of this Travel Paris series! Just in time for the start of a new month too. I hoped you enjoyed this series of posts and I'm really glad you came this far. Even if you just joined for this post. Thank you to those who curated and featured my posts too!

Btw the title of this post is in reference to this song from Phineas and Ferb!

The next Travel series is another Japan one! But it's slightly different, since it was an exchange program we participated in with Keio University! Tune in next week!

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

Check out my previous post in this series

TacoCat’s Travels #59 (Paris): A Secret Above the City 🏙

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