Paris Day 1

I figured the most logical way to share our recent trip to Paris, France would be by presenting the trip by each day. We took A LOT of pictures, so this will also help me to break up my posts a little bit!

France was A-mazing. I had SUCH a good time!! Max was working the first few days, so I got to venture out my own and explore the city. I was prepared for the 'rudeness' that everyone had warned me about, but I didn't experience it A SINGLE TIME. Everyone was so wonderful and helpful and nice.

The highlights (non-photo) for me were:
1. Eating some of the best food I've ever had (and LOTS of it).
2. Walking upwards of 10+ miles most days (my poor tootsies).
3. Reviving the basic French that hides in the back of my brain.
4. Truly understanding what "Paris is the most romantic city in the world" means.
5. Appreciating the amount of space I have in my house
6. Successfully venturing out ON MY OWN. (yes, hard to believe, I know!)
7. Marveling at the insane amount of work and detail put into EVERY building
8. The epiphany that I've turned into my mother as I read aloud from the guidebook about the history of a building we were looking at. It wasn't as bad as I had imagined... :)
9. Appreciating the hygiene of Americans.
10. The discovery that putting your metro ticket next to your cell phone will effectively deactivate the ticket. Life is much simpler if you just keep the two objects apart -- otherwise you will have to explain to just about every ticket agent that "Mon billet ne marche pas" (or however the heck you spell it) and hope that someone will understand you... (bless the last ticket agent's heart when he asked me "PORTABLE??" as he put his hand up to his ear like a telephone...and the light went off in my head.

Anyways -- I'm sure you're all here to see the pictures, not read about MY impressions/likes/dislikes of Paris...... so here you go, Day 1:

Day 1 was Sunday, the day we first arrived.

We hopped the train from Charles De Gauille to head to our hotel. Max's coworker had been to Paris before, so he showed us the ropes (and spoke enough French to buy the tickets)



Once off the train, Max and Keith consult the map to try to find the hotel.





Once we were settled in to our rooms, we hopped back on the Metro -- this time into the city. We got off at the "Cite" stop, and were greeted with a view of Notre Dame and the Siene river.



We saw Notre Dame for the first of many times -- this building took over 170 years to build, and the exterior is just AMAZING!! We couldn't just see it once -- it was a staple view every day!



It started raining shortly after we saw Notre Dame, so we ducked into a cafe for some crepes -- to pass the time while it rained. Once it cleared up a bit, we resumed our adventures -- our goal was to locate the cafe I was to meet a friend at the following day (while the boys were at work) following the directions she had emailed me.



We had no problems finding it, and also found this eccentric water art exhibit right in front of a wonderful old church Saint Merri



The church was outstanding and as beautiful inside as it was out!







We then resumed our walk back to the metro and came across this wonderful landmark -- which really helped me out the next day while I explored the city on my own!



We hopped back on the C line of the RER to head over the the Champs de Mar -- to see the Eiffel Tower. We were not disappointed.





Up the plaza from the Tower is the Ecole de Militaire -- a large military school. In front of the school was this wonderful 'Peace' display.





We were pretty tired and hungry again at this point, so we hopped back on the RER (B line this time) to head home. We had done all of that sight seeing from 3pm on!! The sun doesn't set in Paris until close to 10, so you never really feel like you are up as late as you are! We were pleasantly surprised when we looked out our hotel room window and saw this:



I guess in some hotels you pay $$$ extra to have a tower view.

Ours was FREE!