Paris Day 1

Wow, what a beautiful city! There are cafés and historic buildings on Every street. Shopping and high end fashion is taken to the extreme. People…. Hmm… not great, but not terrible. Lastly, their hot stops are sizzling. We arrived into Paris early in the morning. After finding our bearings, we finally made it to our B&B. Amanda wanted to have a fancy place in Paris to balance all our hostels, and she picked an authentic one. Its housed in an older building and has a very old, but bold feel to it. Our room has exposed beams, and a window that looks out over an alley filled with cafes. It’s pretty neat. We feel special. We took Amanda’s Nana and Grandpa’s Christmas money to help pay for it. Merci (thank you). After we checked in, we set out exploring.  

We hit Notre Dame up first. The hunchback of ND story took place here. The church is a millennium old and it is a masterpiece. You should see all the gargoyles lining the sides. Pretty spectacular. We grabbed a baguette and some brie and had a tiny feast outside the church. The line to get in was long and we found out that it was free later on at 6 when they had service. So we decided to come back later.

We then took off and  roamed around. We stumbled upon found Bastille – a monument in honor of France’s independence day.

 Later we found Place de Vogues – a high end square with nice park in the middle. Amanda ordered 2 shots of espressos from the bar to go.

 We walked into a local supermarket and found Chimay blue that is brewed by trappist monks in Belgium for less than 2.50 dollars. That is dirt cheap compared to the 6 dollars one would spent in the USA. We were impressed.

 Next, we sat out on the river for a bit. We tried to convince ourselves that we were in Paris. Watching the boats go by was a soothing experience.

 We took the underground to the Arc de Triomphe and walked up the 300 steps to look out. This was our first encounter with the mighty Eiffel tower. What a beast she is. She is a lot taller than we thought and simply stands on the city with ease. We were also able to look down the Champs-Eyliesse (Steven’s favorite part b/c the Tour de France finishes with laps around the Champs). It was fun for Steven to imagine Lance and other bikers taking that same route.

After the Arc, we walked down the Champs until we were tired and caught the metro back to our place. We went to the local supermarket and bought more brie, another baguette, Chorizo and Taboule. It was a nice French meal to send the couple into a deep coma (which was interrupted many times by locals on the street below haha).