Quick wrap up of Paris

I've been in New York now for 2 and a half weeks so I've decided to condense Paris into two posts. This one will be a quick wrap up and tomorrow I'll post a day report of one of my favourite days.

Summing up my experience in Paris is weird. Thinking back it feels like I didn't do all that much but if I look at the photos or think of specific days (the ones where I didn't stay inside that is) I realise I did do a lot. I did some of the obviously touristy things; Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, The Lourve, Musee D'orsay etc. There were a lot of days just walking around and seeing what I could see. I discovered an awesome little botanical gardens which is where those photos of the cats and peacocks in the previous post came from.

I stayed with a good friend of mine from Australia, Caitlin, who is doing a PHD in Paris. She has two housemates Carmen and Umeshree and all three are the best. This photo was from the first night in Paris

I also hung out a lot with my old housemate from Australia, Nick (this is also who I'm staying with in New York). Before he went to Barcelona with other friend Lisa and Sammy.

A lot of my days consisted of buying a baguette at a boulangerie and walking till I was lost. Or riding one of the Velibes. The Velibe and Velo-v system in Lyon were both great, I used them extensively. Arriving in New York, I have missed how good these systems were. New York has there Citi Bike system which is similar in principle but priced much more expensively for tourists.

One hightlight was La Nuit Blanche; which is a night festival, where I walked around and saw art, watched films in the Hotel de Ville and saw fireworks on the Seine. I got these awesome photos at the beginning of the evening.

This dog was just walking around on his own through the crowd he looked like he was having so much fun.

This was a random shot from the hip. I don't know these people are but love how great this photo turned out.

This building looked great all greened up for the night.

Overall Paris, and France was enjoyable will definitely go back. I wish I was better at french so I could've interacted with the locals more. A common part of my travels so far, which has continued in New York, is hanging out with a lot of Australians.

The second last day I had in Paris had a fun little coincidence. I'd put off climbing the Eiffel tower and had finally got round to it. At the bottom of the stairs though, I ran into Sammy and Lisa again, along with a friend of Lisa. Lisa is on exchange at a business school near Versailles, and Sammy was staying with her for the rest of her stay (she'd been in Paris before their weekdend in Barcelona) so it was a nice little surprise to run into them and have some company for the climb.

And I suppose I'll have to learn to start posting photos of myself. So here's me at the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was very cloudy and windy and little bit rainy that day. Which was great because there was no crowd, and the clouds cleared when we got to the top for a great view.