After the Versailles fail we headed back to the hostel and painstakingly booked a hostel for Madrid and found on for Andy for the third night in Paris because Oops! lost his reservation somehow. After that was done we overheard some American girls talking about finding somewhere to go for dinner and since we were headed to the middle of the Latin Quarter where a good nightlife is, we invited them to go check it out with us. They ended up being nice girls. Two of them graduated early from Clemson and were traveling for a graduation present and the third girl was in their room and was from Canada. She had been traveling for more than a year and Paris was one of her last stops. I would never dream of traveling alone for that long! She's a brave girl.
They ended up eating with us at a night restaurant outside on one of the cobblestone sidewalks that line the Latin Quarter. I got steak for dinner and it was really good. I also tried some of Andy's escargot - snails are definitely not my cup of tea. The meal even came with dessert, I got peach melba. Yum! After dinner (which lasted about an hour and a half, so nice) Andy and I bid the girls goodbye because they were headed to the Eiffel Tower and we were going to check out the Arc de Triomphe at night.
Before getting to the Arc we hopped off the metro at the wrong spot but ended up right near the Opera Garnier, the one the Phantom of the Opera is based off of! It was really pretty and I was glad to see it beacuse PoTo is my favorite musical. Then we made it to the Arc!
The Arc de Triomphe serves as a roundabout, and is surrounded by about four lanes of traffic. Well, Andy and I didn't realize there was a tunnel to the Arc we ran across the roundabout instead (we've had lots of experience from Ireland). It probably wasn't the best idea, especially when the security guard told us the Arc was closed when we reached it. Which we thought was pretty funny, so we had to run back across the roundabout. Then we headed down the Champs Elysees, which was full of life despite it being midnight on a Sunday. It's just an incredibly long strip of road with dozens and dozens of fancy shops and restaurants lined down both sides. Most of the restaurants had outdoor seating and people were still out enjoying dinner and tea at midnight! It was really cool to look back and see the Arc at the end of the road and all the lights and shops stretched out in front. I loved, loved, loved Paris.
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