Tour Eiffel

Feb 15, 2014

Today we had our API trip to see and climb the Eiffel Tower -- finally! We all met at the East Tower at 1:00pm, where one of our API coordinators gave us our tickets to climb the tower. Unfortunately, the tickets were only good to go to the 2nd level and not to the top (the 3rd) because you have to buy the ticket to the top on the 2nd level. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem but with my bad luck they closed down the lift to the top because it was extremely windy. So we only got to go to the 2nd level. So that means I'm going to have to come back sometime in the Spring because I definitely want to climb the entire thing.

So the trip was a little disappointing, but it was still cool even from the 2nd level.

Waiting in line to climb the tower with Alison (left) and Jaclyn (right) 

Some pictures from inside the lift: 

Views from the tower: 

"EUTHANAZI" - I don't really know what this means haha

A tourist bird from Madrid, Spain enjoying the view

Versailles

Today we had an API trip to see Château Versailles and its gardens. Unfortunately that also meant waking up at 7am to meet at the bus station by 9am. The bus ride wasn't long - only about 35-40 minutes - so it wasn't too bad.

I loved seeing the inside of the castle, part of which is used as a museum. There are over 1000 rooms in the castle so we didn't even come close to seeing them all. And the gardens outside were really pretty too. But I wished the trip had been schedule on a different day. Today was very damp and extremely windy - so it was very cold. It would have been nice to walk around the gardens and relax for a while, but that would not have been fun because of the weather so after taking a quick look and some group photos, we all headed back to bus to get warm and wait until we departed for Paris.

I think I'm going to come back in the Spring when it's warm so I appreciate the gardens better. API said it's only about 30 minutes from Paris by the RER, a fast-rail train, so it's definitely worth it to go back.

We got back to Paris around 2pm and every split up to spend the rest of their saturday doing whatever. Jaclyn, David and I met our friend Matt in the 13th arrondissement where there's a small china-town to get lunch. We wanted to take our time and see all the types of restaurants in the area but it started to downpour as soon as we got there! So instead we took shelter in the closest restaurant we could find, which was a thai restaurant. The food was delicious and I would definitely not mind going back to eat there again sometime.