Paris

Ok let me just start this off with I hate technology! I had this blog almost done and just deleted over half the text and most of the pictures...and thanks to blogspots, auto save every couple minutes it saved the delete, not what I wanted saved!!!!! So this post might be short and not too exciting beings as I am so angry at my computer right now!!!

Woohooooooo! We made it to Paris! I was so excited to see Paris, and try the food...OK lets be honest I wanted to try some pastries! Anywho, we hopped on a train from Amsterdam, and headed to Paris. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the train was. I had only ridden on a small commuter train once before, to bath, and wasn't impressed, but this one was pretty nice. There was so much more room than on a plane, and you could get up and walk around unlike in a car. The only down side to the train was the bathroom...YUCK! I though airplane toilets were bad, that was nothing compared to this, plus the guys restroom was out of order so everyone was sharing on! GROSS. OK moving on...We got an early ticket so we could get to Paris early in the day and still have time to sight see a bit before turning in for the night. As I waited on the platform Brandon went to check the schedule, so I began to people watch, and lets be honest listen to people's conversations. Pretty soon I realized that the couple sitting newt to me was American too! So of course I had to talk to them. They were heading to Paris as well, and were from Missouri! Small world, we talked for a bit, and Brandon and I helped them translate their tickets. Since we printed ours off at home, our ticket was in English, they had printed theirs at the station, and therefore it was in Dutch and they couldn't figure out where they were supposed to sit! Luckily using our tickets they found out all the info the needed!

We arrived in Paris before lunch, and easily figured out the tube in Paris (the subway)...well ok maybe Brandon figured it out, but I pretended to know my way too :) It was a short ride from the train station to our stop, and less than a 5 minute walk to our hotel from there! I was anxious to check out our room and drop off our extra luggage! Here are some pictures of our room, it was much more like the hotel rooms I am used to!


You can't see in the picture but there was a T.V on the other wall (of course not as exciting when all the stations are in French with no subtitles!), and a nice sized bathroom, with a full size shower! Oh and no notes posted warning you about mice! SCORED Another point for the Paris room, was there was an elevator to get to our 3rd floor room! Of course Brandon felt I should use the stairs and not be lazy...plus the elevator was so tiny you couldn't fit both of us and our luggage at the same time. The elevator reminded me of something you would see in a movie...I liked it, even if it did make me a bit nervous.

So this is the point at which my post went to the crapper! So not as many details probably but I did re-up-load all the pictures! Who knows maybe by tomorrow I will have had a change of heart and re-do the whole thing...we will see!

After checking into the hotel, we headed off to find some lunch and start sight seeing. We decided to grab something quick for lunch, then find something we could get to go and eat in our room that night. On our way to McDonalds (I know not real French, but cheap and easy to order in French) I spotted a street vendor selling these pizza things, and crepes, so we decided that would be our dinner! After McDonalds we jumped back on the Metro and headed to the basilique du sacre coeur. It was a short ride to the stop for this, and not too long a walk from there to the base of the hill where it is built. Brandon had warned me it was a steep hike to the top, but I was feeling good and said I didn't need to ride the trolley to the top...I might have regretted that choice :) Oh well it was worth it!

So time for a side story...on the looooong walk up all the stairs to the cathedral, there were people selling souvenirs and showing off tricks. We either politely said no, or just walked past all these people. Then when were almost to the last turn to get to the cathedral 2 guys approached us. Again we said no thanks, and tried to walk past, but they were not having that. Still not sure how they managed it, but they maneuvered themselves between Brandon and I. The one guy kept pressing himself into me, and I kept saying no. I tried to get around him and he grabbed my arm. This really ticked me off! By this point Brandon was pretty frustrated and I heard him yell "get your hands off her!" I tried to pull away and he grabbed tighter so I threw an elbow at him and yelled let go of me. He finally let go, and the other guy got away from Brandon. Now I would like to think my viscous (ok for me at least) elbow throw was intimidated them enough to get away, however I have a feeling it was the armed military men just around the corner patrolling that really had them off to find their next victim. Best part was we didn't even get pick pocketed! Well that was our one and only "dramatic" moment in Paris!



Views from the ledge in front of the cathedral!



After we walked through the cathedral it was time to move on to our next sight. Brandon really wanted to make sure he got his picture in front of the famous Moulin Rouge sign, so that was our next stop!



Since that didn't take too long, we decided we had it in us to make it to one more monument...ok let's be honest, Brandon asked me if I could make it, and I decided I could do it! Our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe!!! I was very excited for this one...can't say exactly why I was so stoked about it, but I was :) One thing we found was it was so easy getting around Paris, or at least the city center, and it didn't take long to get anywhere!


One thing I found crazy was how busy the city was, and how all the monuments were just right in the center of it all, like the city just grew up around it! There was a huge round-about around the Arc, it was insanely busy, luckily there was an underground path so get you to the center of it! Also we got lucky enough to find some people who spoke English, and were not intimidated at using my camera. That was one tough part about this trip, finding random people to take our picture who we could explain how to use my DSLR with the language barrier! Oh well we made do, and it wasn't as nerve racking as I thought it would be!





Our original plan was to hit the Louvre on our first day there, and then on the second we were going to take a double decker bus tour to see all the monuments. But of course the Louvre was closed on the day we arrived, so we had to improvise a bit, but it worked out really well. We walked around the outside of the museum before we got dinner, and were able to get some pictures without huge crowds in the way!!!! Also have I mentioned that the hotel my husband booked us was just a couple blocks from the entrance to the Louvre??? Well he did and it was awesome, way to go Brandon :)

OK in the picture once printed it is a lot clearer that is says The Louvre above the arch...I guess you will just have to take my word on it!








As our first day in Paris came to an end, one of the things I look forward to most when traveling, it was time to get FOOD! Like I said before we chose something fast and cheap for lunch, and were going to get dinner to go in our room! I had not been able to quit thinking about those pizzas all day, so we dropped our stuff off in our room, and headed down the street to the booth. This is where our luck ran out on that day. We figured that being across from a major monument and in the middle of the city center that the stands would stay open past 630 pm...welp that is not the case in Paris! It was about 6:45 when we got there only to find out they were closed. We both were so tired of walking and in no mood to search for a place that was affordable (and had English on the menus), plus poor Brandon had to deal with my being over tired, and emotional, and not wanting anything but those pizzas, so guess where we ended up...again? Well McDonalds of course! UGH I love their food and all but it was a bit depressing to go all the way to Paris and eat it twice in one day! Oh well we still got it to go, and watched an episode of Big Bang Theory on our computer in the room. All in all it was a great day!!!

DAY 2

We got up and ate breakfast at the hotel, which was bread, bread, and more bread! Which I loved! Plus we each got a chocolate filled croissant! YUM Then we headed down the street to the Louvre so we could get in line before the wait got too long! We thought is opened at 9:30am, but that was for people who had pre-bought tickets, so we had to wait till almost 10:00 but due to getting their early we didn't have to wait in a massive line, which I hate doing! We spent between 2 and 3 hours wandering around in the museum. We probably only saw 1/4th of it, but we aren't big art buffs so we also didn't feel the need to see everything, plus all the description signs by the art were in French, so we couldn't read them anyways! We hit all the big paintings, including the Mona Lisa (Of course) then we went through the exhibits of our favorite eras in history. For Brandon that meant ancient Egypt (I learned something new about my hubby there :), and for me the ancient Greek stuff! I LOVE Greek Mythology and hands down, the Greek God Sculptures were my favorite things in the museum!!!! By the time we headed out I was all museumed out (I'm not a big museum person...or really a history person) Plus I was all excited to get to lunch! I know me and my food! Well we weren't taking any chances this time, we saw the pizza stand from the day before and stopped in for lunch! It was AMAZING, everything I had been imagining the day before :) After a very satisfying lunch we headed to the bus stop where we could get on the tour bus of the city. I think I was most excited about this because it meant riding to places, and not walking, and it gave my very sore feet a little break! Since we had stopped at a few monuments the day before we only had 2 monuments we wanted to get off the bus for.

Our first hop off was for Notre-Dame!





We saved the most famous Paris monument for last, the Eiffel Tower! I wish I could say that I was all smiles and excited at this point, but I was so dang tired by that point, and it was getting late in the day. I was paranoid we would miss the last returning bus to our hotel, so I was a bit of a downer. I am so blessed to have an amazing husband who takes such good care of me, and didn't get too mad at my crapy mood! OK so we made it to the Eiffel Tower and got in line to ride to the top. We waited 30-45 minutes to get to the ticket booth, then were told it was another 20-30 minute wait to get to the first stop on the ride up the tower, then another 30 minute wait to get on the next elevator to go all the way to the top...plus it cost a lot more. So we decided to only go halfway up. I know Brandon was a bit bummed to not go to the top, but I think he was afraid I would have a melt-down if we missed the bus (which we would have if we had gone to the top) I owe my husband for being so great that day. But the views from halfway up were still pretty awesome. Plus with my telephoto lens we were able to spot all the monuments around the city!

The rest of the pics are from halfway up the tower :)


(Notre Dame)

(The Arc de Triomphe)


(The Statue of Liberty)


(The Basilique du Sacre-Coeur)

The Eiffle Tower definitely was the high point in the trip for me, and my favorite part was getting to spot all the monuments from up in the tower! Although it was a tough trip on me physically it was definitely worth it. The last thing we did in Paris was go to a Paresian cafe for dinner.