7/23 There's too many French people in France

Getting up early wasn't so bad when I considered that I would have a long time to sleep on the bus. I got packed and went straight to breakfast. The breakfast overall sucked at this hotel. There was meat, bread, cereal and juice... Borrring!

We got on the bus and headed for our first stop: Beaune, France. It was sunny out which was very exciting considering we had seen so much rain. When we got into Beaune, we parked just on the outside of the town square. We had 90 mins. to explore. Because it was a Saturday, we were lucky enough to walk around the farmer's market. Literally the whole town comes out to buy and sell anything from clothes to fruits and veggies to soap and mops! There were sausage vendors and people selling awesome smelling soaps and people selling homemade honey and mustard. Everything was so colorful and busy and I enjoyed just walking around and watching the vendors make their sales pitches. I bought also bought an oversized yellow purse because I was tired of not having something to carry my stuff in everyday. I also bought sone colorful soap that smelled like different kinds of flowers.

After 90 mins., I went back to the bus. We did our usual wait for the loud Indian Canadian lady who was late because she had to find the "right" pair of sunglasses. Finally, we were off on our way to Paris.

We made a lunch stop at a highway service station. Although I hated to do it, I bought a sandwich for lunch and totally gagged on it because I was so sick of them. It was the cheapest thing on the menu so that's what I went with.

By the early afternoon we pulled into Paris. I knew it had to be Paris because I saw the Eiffel Tower. I was so excited!!!! I knew I would see it someday but it's so cool to see it in person.

Our first stop was to the Seine river. Many of us had booked a river cruise and Eiffel Tower excursion. The rest of the group had free time until about 5:30.

We got our tickets and boarded our packed riverboat. It had just started raining when we had got on the boat but by the time we actually left it had stopped. The cruise lasted about an hour and took us by some of the city's most popular sites, including all the famous bridges, Grand Palais, the Louvre and Notre Dame. The pictures I took weren't great but I got a good idea if the city's layout.

After the cruise, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, which is super close to where our cruise was. There were soooo many people!!! It was packed. The lines just to buy tickets were at least 90 mins. long! Luckily for us we had our tickets pre purchased and we walked right up to the front of the line. It was like having a Disneyland fast pass!

We took an elevator up to the 2nd level. There were people who went all the way to the top but our ticket only covered the 2nd platform.

The views were amazing! Since it had rained, I got some good pictures of a rainbow out by the Sacre Couer. You could see for miles and you really get a good idea of how dense the city is.

I hung out up there for about 30 mins. I waited in a long line to get back down. When we finally reached the bottom, we had to head straight for the bus to head to go to the hotel.

The hotel was a chain hotel about 20 mins from the city center near the Ponte Clichy. I checked into my room (my own room!!!) and then met the Illinois fam and the TX couple in the lobby so we could go eat dinner.

We walked down the street and found a lot of pizza places. I was tired of carbs. I wanted steak!! So we found a bistro on a corner that had a steak, salad and fries dinner for only 12 euro. And it was seriously one of the best meals I had eaten in a looong time. I ate everything and nearly licked the plate!! The steak was juicy and the fries were crispy. It was perfect.

After waddling my ever larger growing ass out of the restaurant, we made our way back to the hotel. I said goodnight to everyone and went right upstairs to take a shower. I then turned on the news to see that Amy Winehouse had died. So until 10:30, I watched the news stories of the Norway shooting/bombing and the death of Any Winehouse, read my book and then went to sleep.