TacoCat’s Travels #59 (Paris): A Secret Above the City 🏙

Hey Steemit!

So if you didn't catch the last few posts, this series is about our trip to Paris way back in June 2016 when we went there for summer school! Both of us enrolled in a Luxury Management course at a college called HEC Paris. The course itself was 2 weeks long and in the last post, we finally completed it! We ended the course with group presentations and my group won the award for Best Final Project! Yay!

25 June 2016. Saturday.

Since our course ended, we didn't have a reason to stay in the college anymore. Our flight was not for a few more days (as we wanted some time to relax after we were done with school) and we booked another Airbnb to stay at in the meantime, so we headed there to dump our luggage and settle in for a couple more days.

There was a free shuttle bus from the college to the city in the morning so we took that first.

That was our friend, Ho Kit, who promptly fell asleep when we got on the bus

It took us quite a while to get our new Airbnb, but this was considerably nearer to the city than our first one was.The first thing we did when we got to the nearest station was grab some food:

I don't remember where this was from, unfortunately, but it tasted really goood! 😋

Eventually we arrived to this really huge house with a very nice garden.

Turns out the owners who lived here had refurbished their attic into a really nice studio apartment, which is where we would be staying!

It was actually quite big, and really comfortable too! Complete with a kitchen and everything:

And the best part was that the owners had a chow chow! What a cutie! :3

He did bark at us for a little bit when we first arrived, but other than that he was really chill. He even let me pet him! What a good doggo!

After we got settled in, we headed off to the bus stop. We had a direct bus from here to the city, if I recall.

The bus did take quite a while to get there unfortunately. There wasn't a schedule or anything like that. So we didn't know what time the bus would arrive. I felt like I was in secondary school again, when I would wait for the bus at my house, not knowing when it would arrive. Sometimes I would miss it and have to wait like a half hour for the next one. It sucked.

But anyway, eventually the bus arrived and shortly after that, we made it to one of the biggest shopping malls in Paris; Galaries Lafayette!

If you're like me and didn't know what this place was, Galeries Lafayette is an upmarket French department store chain. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris but it now operates in a number of other locations in France and other countries. It has been around for more than 120 years, showcasing a myriad of brands; from the most prestigious to the most obscure, making fashion and beauty accessible to all.

I'm not exactly sure if the one we went to was the flagship store, but judging by how crowded it was, that was probably the one.

We didn't really buy anything, and just walked around the mall. Most of it was fashion, beauty and luxury stuff, i.e. nothing we're interested in. But now that we finished the luxury management course, we recognised a lot more brands. So yay, we learned stuff!

We had an ongoing joke between us because I couldn't pronounce Pierre Hermé. These French names!

As expected, we saw a lot of Chinese tourists. I think going on a Saturday probably wasn't a good idea because it was so crowded! But oh well.

Eventually we made it to a quieter side of the mall - the Disney store!

I'm not sure why it was so empty, but hey I ain't complaining. It meant that we could take a bunch of silly photos without anyone judging us. Like these:

Back when tsum tsums were new:

Batmaaaaan nanananana

I think this was the first time we actually wore berets. And I have absolutely no idea how to wear it. It feels like it could fall off at any second!

If I recall correctly, the Galaries Lafayette that we went to consisted of 3 different buildings. One was for fashion, one was for cosmetics, and the last one was food. I think you can probably guess which one we actually bought stuff from.

But eventually, we got tired of walking in the mall, and found a secret rooftop!

It was quite a wide open area, with an amazing view!

This was the area I teased at the end of last post, and it's probably one of my favourite spots we went to in Paris! It just felt so surreal being above the city like that. And seeing the Eiffel Tower is the far distance. Needless to say, we got plenty of nice shots here.

The weather really helped too! I was so glad we were blessed with good weather that day.

So after taking a lot of photos, we begrudging left and walked around the mall for a little bit more. After buying some fruits from the food hall, we headed back to the station, where we managed to catch a stunning sunset!

When we arrived at our station, we got pretty hungry. And ate at this little fast food place called Big Chicken, where we had a kebab sandwich and a fried chicken burger, with a side of fries. To this day, I remember it being really yummy! I'm just sorry I didn't get a picture of the shop!

After that scrumptious meal, we took a leisurely walk back to the house. It was past 10:30pm when we got back, and upon our arrival, we were greeted with a really nice scenery of the garden!

The lights made it looks so magical and serene. I really liked how the owners decorated their house. It definitely has that chill, vacation house vibe down.

And that's all for now! Thanks so much for reading!