July 15th-17th, 2011

Okay, so where do I start? How about with I HAVE HAD ENOUGH PARIS TO LAST ME A LIFETIME! Obviously, I went to Paris this weekend but I’m starting with Friday before we left. Friday we got up and took the train to Cologne to have a Sport Marketing/Management exchange with the grad-students from The University of Cologne. This university is apparently the top sport university in the world, in both the sport competing aspect and in the sport management research aspect. Two pairs of our students present our projects that we finished before coming to Europe. Dr. Batista also presented some research he has conducted as well as Jason, our Ph D student. We got to eat lunch at the Cafeteria with the German students and it was fun and interesting. We had typical German food and I got to know the students a little better. It’s crazy, here in Germany the government pays for college education so they pay 400 Euro a semester for school. Yes you read that correctly: 400 Euro total for a semester. It was mind boggling. After lunch, the German students presented their research projects, and it was the longest most boring 2 and half hours of my life. Needless to say it was really repetitive and not impressive. Also, I should mention how rude the students were during the presentations. They talked and laughed the entire time and kind of took it as a joke. NOT OKAY. We started getting annoyed with them. They also had one Ph D student who was obviously a Mr. Know It All and I really wanted to go up to him and ask him “Hey were you born knowing everything or did you acquire it?” He was literally questioning Dr. Batista who has a Ph D and went to law school. We all obviously got annoyed with him.

Following the dreadful and boring research exchange, a couple of the nicer German students took us to a beer garden in Cologne. It was fun because it was a beer garden/sand volleyball court place. Not to mention a beautiful day full of sun shine. We grabbed a couple beers with them and discovered that there was a decent Mexican food restaurant nearby and we were all super excited. We decided to go there and it actually wasn’t too bad. It was kind of mix between American food and Mexican but for how far away from Mexico we were, it was pretty good.

After dinner, we got on a subway to take us to the main train station in Cologne. We made a few pit stops around the station to get snacks and drinks for the bus, since we were leaving for Paris from the Cologne train station- Hauptbonhof. We all changed into our comfy clothes and gathered out by the bus station. Let me just say that although bus travel may be the cheapest way to travel it is definitely NOT the best way to travel. First off, the bus was 30 minutes late leaving and once we got on it was brutal. For starters- the bus smelled like an abandoned sushi bar. It was horrible. There was also a baby that decided to cry here and there. In addition, there was an old couple who are obviously professional Europe bus travelers because they were snoring ridiculously loud within 2 minutes. I had a face mask on and my iPod on and I could steel hear the darn snoring. Then, about an hour into the bus ride the old man of the couple decided to yell and scream at the top of his lungs. We all decided it was from a falling nightmare he was having. Needless to say it scared the shit out of all of us and we all had our hearts beating pretty fast. It was a great start to the trip. Caitlin was my bus riding buddy and she conveniently got the window seat so needless to say I think I saw every hour of the clock and was awake for every time the bus stopped, which was about 5 or 6 times. Each time we stopped it was for a good 30-45 minutes. All I know is if Devin Cole was the one on that bus he would have died by now.  I have gotten so used to getting in the car and going and eating without stopping that this trip was so rough.

We finally made it to Paris at 5:50! We were ten minutes early so we had to sit and wait for the bus station to open. Once it did we got off and struggled for a good hour tried to figure out how the heck to get to our hotel. Thank goodness a girl on our trip Molly had spent the first half of the summer traveling Europe for a different study abroad and had already been to Paris. She was the biggest help with figuring out the subways, etc. We finally made it out of the subway to our part of town to find our hotel and as we were walking it started getting sketchier and sketchier. Come to find out our “hotel” was in the Moulin Rouge area which is the one place everyone says not to stay because it is one of the sketchiest parts of Paris. I immediately felt unsafe and vulnerable. Needless to say we dropped our bags off and headed to find food since by this time it was close to 8 already and none of us had eaten substantial food. We decided to take the subway to a nicer part of town and found a pastry shop that was open and decided to stay there until we figured out our plans for the day.

First stop: The Louvre! We had another girl Callie who had already been a week before and she figured out a back way into The Louvre so we didn’t have to wait in the long line! Then, she also figured out that if we told the ticket people that we were there to study history for school that we could get free tickets and we did exactly that! It was awesome, they just asked for student ideas and proof of a Visa which one guy on our trip had so we were golden! I tell you, this Paris trip was a total team effort. The Louvre was so big and so amazing! It is almost overwhelming- no wait it is. I snagged pictures here and there on the way to see the Mona-Lisa and the Venus de Milo. We also saw sculptures of other things as well. I didn’t want to stay at the Louvre forever because there was so much to see we decided to split up and a group of us went to see Notre Dame. It was huge and very cool to see in person however, that’s when the lovely rain kicked in and didn’t stop for the rest of the night. L

Next stop: Lunch and then new hotel destination. The same group headed to find a place for lunch and we ended up finding a burger restaurant that was super yummy and super expensive (as is everything in Paris compared to our sweet little town of Bonn). We used lunch to get out of the rain for as long as possible but that’s when Caitlin, Molly, and I decided that where we were staying was not okay. We had heard that two of the girls who had gone back to get something from their bags were hassled by some French guy and we just did not feel comfortable staying on that part of town. So I decided to call my Nana and luckily she helped us find another hotel. However, all of the ones we tried were of course booked because it was Paris on a Saturday night. But one nice hotel did send us to another one and then to another one until we came across the Hotel Europe. It was only 170 for all three of us for one night and it was right next to all the tourist attractions and shopping so we definitely felt safer and like we didn’t stand out as much. The place was air conditioned and even had English TV! Thanks to traveling with Nana and Cheryl I think I am just a little too used to luxury traveling. Needless to say the change of hotels was a good choice for us because the rain hadn’t stopped.

Next stop: The Arc de Triomphe. This was so much fun to see in person! Especially because of the big huge circle you always see in movies, jammed packed with cars. The cars were going round and round just as you would expect and the Arc was humongous! A little side note I want to make is the amount of music all around. It was definitely entertaining sitting on the subway and having some guy jump on with a speaker to play background music while he plays the trumpet to it, or a guy playing a base alongside an accordion. Music was all around and of course I really enjoyed that.

Final stop of the night: The Eiffel Tower! In the pouring down rain! And I bought a 5 Euro Eiffel tower umbrella that broke within in the first 5 minutes of me using it. Of course I know I bought it from one of those guys that illegally sell things. You know it is quite entertaining when the cops come walking down the side walk of all the little illegal vendors that have mini Eiffel Towers and such. They all yell “police” and then grab their stuff and take off running. I did however get some awesome picks in front of the Eiffel Tower with my snazzy umbrella. After meeting at the Eiffel Tower, we were supposed to go on a Fat Tire Bike Tour. That obviously did not happen for half of us. It was cold and rainy and they didn’t have any ponchos so a few of us figured out there were some girls that needed to buy tickets so we sold our 28 Euro tickets to them for 20 Euro and high tailed it out of there. Caitlin, Molly, and I barely made it back to our hotel room when it started pouring a ridiculous amount. We ended up crawling in bed by 8 from lack of sleep on the bus and sleeping in until about 10. Getting sleep was amazing!

Starting off, day two in Paris was much more pleasant. We got up and had a fun little breakfast at a 50’s American diner and then headed to the shopping district! The first thing I saw was the massive Louis Vuitton store. We went in and it was crazy cool. There were so many rich Arab women there buying multiple purses and spending thousands of dollars- it was mind boggling! They had every single thing Louis Vuitton that you could think of. After that we just kind of window shopped until I had a place that had everything 40% off: Best Mountain. I realized later that they just do that to get you in the store when really they mark up the prices to mark them back down. But hey I got some cute European pants and a shirt so that was fun!

After the shopping trip was when the chaos began. Caitlin and road to the bus station with Molly because half of us were leaving at 3 in the afternoon on a bus back and the other half couldn’t get on that one because it was full so we booked our tickets for the 11 o clock one that night (or 2300 as they say in Europe). Long story short somehow they overbooked the 3 o clock bus and Molly got bumped off. DO NOT EVER TAKE EUROLINES. The people were so rude and not willing to help us except to tell us she could go stand by on the next bus. So we headed back to get mine and Caitlin’s bags that we left at the hotel we stayed at and grabbed some Italian dinner. We headed back to the bus station early to try and see what we could get worked out. Come to find out our bus was full and unless someone did not show up Molly was going to get bumped to the following morning. So we planned for Caitlin to stay back with her if that happened. Well the other 5 of the group finally get there and after I had already checked in they figure out that three of the five had booked their bus for the wrong day. It was for Monday night not Sunday night. So then Caitlin ended up getting on our bus and we had enough room to get Molly on thank goodness. Except that left Michelle, Jackie, and Cameron still in Paris for a night.

Our bus ride back wasn’t as bad as getting there, starting with the fact that it didn’t smell, however it was packed. I got the last row of the bus that has the seat of five and I was in the one right in the middle of the aisle. I couldn’t lean my chair back and I had A&M Science people that we met on either side of me so I basically got no sleep. Traveling by bus is rough but I guess it is humbling at the same time! We made it back safely this morning at 5:45 to Cologne and caught a train back to Bonn with enough time to shower and get 

ready for the day.

Hangover 2 is called Very Bad Trip 2 in France: HILARIOUS!

The trip as a whole was an eye opening experience but I think I have had plenty of smelly people and scary people in my life for a good...let’s say…lifetime! I loved seeing everything but the environment was definitely a stressful one!