Stairs, stairs and more stairs

The theme for today was definately stairs. We started our day fairly late. We spent an hour or so in the morning booking hostels and stuff for the rest of the trip, so we didn't head out until about lunch time. First stop: Ile de la Cite where the Notre Dame cathedral is. It is spectacular!! After exploring the inside and grabbing a banana and nutella crepe for lunch (YUM!!), we decided to go up into the tower. Many, many spiralling stairs later, we got to the top where there is a spectacular view and you can see the ornamentation up close (like the gargoyles that I wanted to come to life, but unfortunately I don't live in Disney's animated world). The stairs up to the bell tower were the scariest because there were people going both up and down a stairway about 2 feet wide.

After that, we explored the island a little and made our way over to the other island: Ile St. Louis (it's actually a little strange calling them islands... they definately don't feel like islands). This was a cool little place with lots of fun shops and really, really good ice cream :-).

Despite a little bit of rain, we decided to head to the Eiffel Tower (finally!). We took the bus through a cool part of the city that I definately want to go back to and explore. The Eiffel Tower is swarming with people, but I didn't see any gypsies throwing babies at people like I had been warned. We decided to wait in the shorter line and pay less money by going up the stairs instead of the elevator (starting to see the theme??). 668 stairs later (no, I didn't count: they had counters on them) we were at the second level exploring the view and the shops and stuff. It was pretty amazing. I know I say that about everything, but how can I not?? This whole trip is amazing.

Around the corner from the eiffel tower we found an asian restaurant to pick up some supper. As we left to find a subway station it started to pour rain. My new raincoat passed its first test :) The subway was SO packed and SO disgusting, but we made it back. To finish the theme day off, when we got back to the hostel there were about 10 people waiting for the elevator that can only hold 5 at a time so we took the stairs up to our room on the 6th floor (which is really the 7th because here they don't count the ground floor as the first).

So needless to say, I think I'm going to sleep well tonight. Tomorrow's plan: the Arc de Triomphe and maybe the Catacombs (although they may not be open).

See ya!
Kaila