Bonjour!

Bienvenue a Paris! We left London early on Thursday morning and took the high-speed Eurostar train to Paris. We were excited to go through the chunnel (tunnel under the English channel) but to be honest...we were in the open and a few moments later in a tunnel...We didn't realize it was the chunnel right away because we had already been through one or two tunnels on the trip but after about 5 minutes when we didn't see light again we figured we were in the chunnel. So at least we've done it I guess...but it didn't feel or look like anything special!

After arriving in Paris we waited in a suuuuuper long taxi line and headed to the apartment. This apartment was fantastic. The couple that owns this one (called La Fleur in the Bastille area) own quite a few throughout Paris. They actually live in Canada and bought their first apartment so they would have a place to stay when they traveled to Paris...they rented it out when they were in Canada and realized how much money was in it so they continued to buy apartments throughout the city. They were so great to work with, I highly recommend them (Cobblestone Vacations in Paris). Their local host met us at the apartment and she was so awesome. She calmed my fears about eating weird food (monkey brains, disgusting) and calmed Jim's fears about all French people hating Americans. :) She is actually from Florida which helped. The apartment is small but just right for us. I'll post photos of it. It's in a complex with a bunch of other apartment buildings around (and I truly mean a bunch....probably 8 or 10 buildings with maybe 8-10 floors in each one of apartments). They all surround this peaceful courtyard. The apartment was on a very busy street (Rue de la Roquette) with lots of markets, restaurants, bars, etc. but is completely safe. And once we got inside the gated apartment area it was quiet as could be. We really enjoyed sitting on our balcony with the quiet!

One note about the taxi ride. Our first ride in London was quite odd since they drive on the wrong side of the road...but above that, some of the streets are so small and the drivers try to fit through the tiniest spots...it was a bit terrifying. Paris was worse. Oh my gosh, there is a round-a-bout (Bastille) right near our apartment...and it's hard to explain. I should have videoed it. We have round-a-bouts in Topeka, but they have lanes and are quite normal...the ones in Paris, not so much. No lanes so people just enter whenever and wherever they want and squeeze through and push their way in. Pure craziness (little did I know, the driving got worse as we moved on to other countries!). Oh, I have one more thing to say that I don't think I mentioned in the London posts. It was so confusing crossing the streets there because normally, we look right-left-right.......you do that there and you're going to get run down by a bus!!! It was hard getting used to looking the opposite direction for traffic but they actually paint at the streets "Look Left" or "Look Right" or "Look Both Ways". It made us chuckle but darn it I forgot to take a picture of it! Oh well.

Ok, so we made it to Paris and by then it was lunchtime so we left in search of some food. We stopped at a quaint little cafe on our street to eat and the main items on their menu were......wait for it......hamburgers. WHAT?! Not only that, but we saw quite a few hamburger joints throughout Paris. I thought that was so weird. So we had a hamburger. And some coleslaw which was pretty similar to American coleslaw but more horseradishy. And some pommes frites (I think that's what they were called....french fries. Although I must say I thought we could just call them fries over there, haha). Lunch was good, not great, but not bad either.

We navigated the Paris Metro system after that (ok, truthfully it took us quite awhile to navigate it, but eventually we figured out where we were going and what we were doing) and headed over to the Ile de la Cite area. We walked across Pont Neuf and had our first view of the Eiffel Tower! Originally I had more planned for this day but I must say, Paris was HOT. And crowded. So we shortened the list and just tried to get through the day!

Notre-Dame Cathedral was up first. This Cathedral was a bit different than others we've gone to because it was in the Gothic architecture but still gorgeous. It was started in 1163 and completed in 1345, badly damaged by the French Revolution, and restored in the 19th century. It is not the oldest nor the biggest cathedral in Paris, but probably the most well known!

After this, we walked past Sainte-Chapelle, another Gothic cathedral with amazing stained glass windows but we chose not to tour the inside of this one.

Next up, the Avenue des Champs-Elysees. This was supposed to be my favorite section of the day as the Champs-Elysees is known for it's amazing shopping (Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Gucci, etc.) but we took the lazy route and got off at a metro station half-way down the street rather than at the beginning so I think I missed the best stuff. Well, we DID walk past the Louis Vuitton store...key word being PAST as Jim would not let me go inside. Boooooo!! At the end of this street is the Arc de Triomphe, an arch that was started by Napoleon to celebrate his military successes.

From here we went back to the apartment to cool off and rest for a bit. We then hit up the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (I have never been impressed with their food but Jim wanted a shirt from there) and then went to the Eiffel Tower.

The Tower twinkles at the top of every hour for 5 minutes and we of course missed the 10:00 twinkling by mere minutes so we had to wait around until 11:00 so we could catch it twinkling. Definitely worth it though. The Tower was absolutely GORGEOUS!

After this late night, we went back to the apartment and straight to bed. Zzzzzzzz.