Paris, France - Day 2

We woke up early the next morning, hoping to get in a few more sights before leaving in the afternoon. First, we made our way to the Musée du Louvre, hoping to get inside and see some of the famous works. Unfortunately, the line was hours long. Since we didn’t have much time, we decided to move on. However, we did get to see the Louvre courtyard, with the Louvre Pyramid, the Inverted Pyramid, and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. From there, we stopped by the The American Dream Restaurant for lunch, and then headed to the City Island.

Along the way, we passed the Place Saint-Michel and La Conciergerie. Finally, we arrived at the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was terrific to see. Although it was getting late, we decided to try to see to The Moulin Rouge, so we quickly took the metro in the right direction. We weren’t exactly sure where we were going, but we ran right into the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, which looked beautiful atop its hill. Then, up around the corner, we found the Moulin Rouge.

After having seen just about all we could, we headed back to our hotel, picked up our bags, and took the metro back to the Palais des Congress, from where we caught a bus to the airport. There was a lot of traffic, and we barely made our flight, but we were back in Bremen before we knew it. We took the first Bahn back to the Bremen train station, but we missed the last train to Braunschweig for the night by 10 minutes. So, we took the last train to the Hannover train station. There, we passed 4 hours until the next train home, mostly sitting in McDonald’s. At least something was open! Finally,we made it back to Braunschweig around 6:00 am, where we decided to catch up on some sleep. Paris was a great trip, and I’m so glad that I finally got to see the city!

Paris, France - Day 1

Mid March, a week after Chris and Allison were here, Erin came to visit for the week, and it was great to have some more company. On Wednesday of the week, Erin and I decided to take a two night trip to Paris, France. Of course, traveling is never as easy as it should be, and we ran into a problem right away. Our Bahn to the Braunschweig train station didn’t show up, so we had to cut it close and take the next one. However, for some strange reason, the next Bahn was rerouted, and didn’t go to the train station. We got off about a mile away from the station, and our train to Bremen was leaving in 5 minutes. Another Bahn came by shortly, but we were five minutes late for our train. Amazingly, the train was delayed five minutes, and we made it on seconds before it left. We made it to the Bremen train station in 2.5 hours, and then took a Bahn to the Bremen airport.

Our flight out of Bremen to Beauvais, France went fine, and we arrived at Beauvais airport no problem. From there, we were able to take a bus a bit over an hour away to Paris. We were dropped off near the center of Paris, at the Palais des Congress. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a map, we didn’t know where we were, and it was already dark. Surprisingly, we found the nearest metro station, we were able to figure out how to buy tickets, and we even were able to find our metro stop on a map at the station. We had about a half an hour ride to our stop, where we got off, and followed directions to our hostel, which was in the middle of nowhere. We check in with our luggage, got a map, and it turned out that the hostel was actually pretty nice. By then, however, it was already past midnight. Since there was not much around, we were stuck having Swedish Fish for supper, before we went to bed.

We woke up early Thursday morning and went downstairs for breakfast, which was much needed after candy for supper. It was pretty weird seeing “pain,” the French word for bread, on the menu. Right after breakfast, we grabbed our bags, and headed to the Campanile Hotel. Since I booked the hotels so late, we had to use two different ones. Luckily, the Campanile Hotel was very near the center of the city, so it was easy to find and very convenient. While we couldn’t check in at that time, we were allowed to lock up our bags there, so we didn’t have to carry them around.

From there, we headed off for the day to see the city. First, we took the metro to Champs-Elysées avenue, which is known as the most beautiful avenue in the world. It certainly offered some great sights. We took a turn off of the avenue, and walked past the huge Charles De Gaulle statue. From there, we walked between the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais, before hitting the famous Pont Alexandre III Bridge, from where we could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We walked back up the way we came, hit the avenue again, and began to walk towards the Arc de Triomphe. After stopping for a while at the arc, we walked along the Seine River, past the Musee D'Art Moderne. As we crossed the river to the Eiffel Tower, we could see the Palais de Chaillot, and we walked past the Musée du quai Branly, which has a wing completely covered in moss. The Eiffel Tower came into view quickly, and was even larger than I imagined it was. We were going to take the lift to the top, but the line was hundreds of people long. So, we decided to wait. Instead, after walking around and under the tower, we stopped for lunch nearby. Then, we walked across the Champ de Mars public green, to the Peace Monument and the Ecole Militaire, from where we could see the enormous Montparnasse Tower. We walked to the Musee de L'Armee, which was complete with cannons and an emptied moat, and went inside. From there, we walked back across the Pont Alexandre III Bridge, went back to the metro, and headed back to the Campanile Hotel. There, we grabbed some brochures, checked into our room, and decided on where to go for supper.

For dinner, we decided to get some “normal” food at the Hard Rock Café Paris. Along the way, we got off one metro stop early, so we could stop by to see the Opéra Garnier. Once we got to the Hard Rock café, we put our names on the list, and sat at the bar for 20 minutes and had a couple of drinks. Soon, we were brought to our table, where we were introduced to our waiter, “Home Boy.” Home Boy talked to us for nearly 10 minutes, and it turned out that he lived in Germany for a few years.

After a delicious meal, we decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower, so we could see it lit up at night. Along the way, we walked past the Madeleine, before stopping in the Place de la Concorde to see the fountains, the Obelisk of Luxor, the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, houses of the French Naval Ministry, and the Hotel de Crillon. We continued on along the Seine, where we past a lit up exhibit at the Musée du quai Branly. Finally, we arrived back at the Eiffel Tower, just in time to see it sparkle for 10 minutes on the hour. It started to rain, but there were no lines, so we decided to take the lift up the tower. Unfortunately, due to it being so late, we were only able to go up to the second platform, instead of all the way to the third. But, it was an amazing view nonetheless. The city looked beautiful completely lit up, and it showed a clear reason why Paris is known as the “City of Light.” After 10 minutes at the top of the tower, the weather started to get really bad. It started to pour, and the wind was unbelievable, making the entire tower seemingly sway. We quickly made our way back to the bottom, crossed the river, found the nearest metro, and headed back to the hotel.

Prague, Czech Republic

After quite a wait, we got a new train and were finally off. It had already been a long day of traveling, but we still had a couple hours left. Fortunately, there were a lot of neat sights while driving through Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic. There were all kinds of little villagers built alongside hills and rivers, and the view was enough to at least keep us awake.

We finally arrived at the Prague train station. Unfortunately, it was a couple of hours later than expected, so Chris and Al had already headed to the hostel. We got directions to the hostel, and took the subway to the stop nearby. We managed to get to the hostel no problem, signed in, and put our luggage in our room, where we learned that we missed the others by 20 minutes. So, we got a map and went out exploring.

First, we headed to Wenceslas Square, where we saw the Czech National Museum and the King Wenceslas Monument. We walked around for a while, before stopping for a great dinner and a couple of drinks.

It was still pretty early, so we headed towards the Old Town Square, where we heard that a pub crawl met up near the Astronomical Clock. We waited for others to show up for a while, but only one other guy did. So, instead of paying to go on the crawl with just a few people, we went out for drinks instead. We stopped at a nearby pub for a few hours with the other kid, who was from Dublin, Ireland, and went to a small club afterwards for a short time. Around 1:00 am, we decided to call it quits for the night and head back to the hostel, as we planned to get up early the next day. We met Chris and Al back there, and we made plans to get up early to see the rest of the city.

We woke up very early the next morning, had a quick breakfast at the hostel, and went out to explore. First, we headed back to Wenceslas Square, where we could see much more in the light. From there, we went back through the Old Town Square, where we saw the Old Town Hall Tower, the Old Town Market, where we got fried dough, the Astronomical Clock, the St. Nicholas Church, the Týn Cathedral, the Prague Opera House, and numerous other clock towers and churches.

From the Old Town, we walked along the Vltava River, across the famous Charles Bridge. We passed under the Old Town Bridge Tower, from where we could see the Petřínská Rozhledna up on the nearby hillside. Along the bridge, we stopped for a minute to rub the statue of St. John of Nepomuk, which is considered to be good luck.

Then, we made our way through the other bridge tower, and began our trek up the many steps to the Prague Castle, the largest ancient castle in the world. Luckily, we made it to the castle entrance just in time to see the changing of the guards, which was a pretty neat ceremony. While the location of the castle offered a terrific view and some great sights, we were forced to head back to the hostel to pick up our bags, so that we could catch our train back to Braunschweig.

Once again, we hit a bit of trouble getting home. Our first train showed up 45 minutes late, so we missed each of our trains from there on out. We made it to Hannover no problem, but had to wait another couple of hours for the next train to Braunschweig. It was another long day, but we got to see a lot. Prague turned out to be an amazing city.

Dresden, Germany

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and Al came out to Germany for the week. I picked them up in Hannover, then they hung around here in Braunschweig on Saturday night and Sunday. From there, they traveled to Berlin and Munich, but unfortunately I had to stay behind and work. However, me and Loren did take Friday off, and we all planned on meeting up in Prague, Czech Republic, for the weekend.

We woke up early Friday and headed to Hannover, from where we jumped on a train to Dresden, in eastern Germany. We were supposed to catch another train from the Dresden Central Station. Unfortunately we got off one stop too soon, and missed our train by 6 minutes. We were able to catch another train, but we had to wait a 3 or 4 hours. So, we decided to take a walk through Dresden, as I have heard it to be a beautiful city. It sure didn’t disappoint. The center of the city was filled with old, elaborate buildings and cathedrals. We checked out a few shops, then walked by the Dresden Kreuzkirche, the Dresden Cathedral, and a few other old clock towers. It turned out to be a great way to kill a bit of time!

We headed back to the train station, and finally hopped on our train to Prague. However, we didn’t start moving. After 30 minutes, we knew something was wrong. They made an announcement that a new train was on its way, as ours was broken. So, it was another hour or so wait before we were actually on our way.

At least it gave us a chance to see Dresden!