Bonjour Paris!

Pictures from Brussels

Tuesday (Day 1 in Paris)

Paris is cold and we are southern wimps. Turns out our only sunny day didn’t work out that way. Living in Georgia, I think we forgot what 50 degrees actually feels like. We most definitely did not pack warm enough clothing. The morning started off at the Eiffel Tower. They recommend arriving when the tower opens, at 9:30am. We did arrive at that time and there was already a pretty long line. As it turns out, one of the elevators is also broken. So, we stood in line for 1 hour. Then the wind picked up and it started to rain. To say that we were freezing doesn’t even begin to cover it.  At the 2 hour mark, we finally had our ticket to the top of the Eiffel tower in hand and we were in the elevator. The first part of the ride takes you 75% of the way to the top. It was so cold and rainy up there that we literally stepped out of the center of the building, snapped two photos, and ran back inside. We didn’t want to go to the very top. Sadly, I feel like we really didn’t get to enjoy seeing everything because we were Parisian popsicles! I think we’re going to go back one night to see the tower in lights.

Since the rain continued, we bough a 2 day pass on the big red bus that tours around Paris and you can hop on and off whenever you want. It was perfect because we got to see a ton of Paris that we just wouldn’t have been able to cover in 4 days. The entire bus tour takes 2.5 hours so we did part of it and then got off to have lunch at a café. We had a delicious Croque Monsieur and a nutella and banana crepe for dessert! Yum! Then we paid another 0.20 euro each to use the bathroom and then we were off to see the Arc de Triumph. All of the architecture of the buildings is so amazing. And having the Seine river run down the middle of city is beautiful. After the Arc we walked down Champs Elysees which is mostly tons of shops. We went to Laduree which is a patisserie that specializes in macarons – they are the best in Paris! They make like 20 different flavors, all pretty traditional (lemon, orange, chocolate, pistachio, etc). We tried a few different flavors and they were all delicious! The rain and wind had died down and it was actually much warmer so it was okay to walk around. On Champs Elysees there is everything from H&M to Dior. We got a cute outfit for the peanut and a sweatshirt for the rest of the week (not from Dior)!

I think so far my favorite part is all the cute cafes and getting French snacks all day J. Nashama’s favorite is Laduree. With the rain and cold we didn’t get as much accomplished as we had hoped, but it was a fun day overall.  Tomorrow we are going to do the Louvre and Notre Dame in the morning. Stay tuned…

Dessert count: 2

Nashama’s ankles: still swollen.