A Future Where I Could See Paris in the Spring

We grabbed the train from London to Paris bright and early on Monday morning. Well, it was early. Not so bright. We took the 5.30AM train. I tried my best to stay awake for the entire trip, and I was doing well until we went into the Chunnel. It was dark. I had my iPod on. And I woke up in Paris.

Our first stop in Paris

Me struggling to get bags off the train - I was still sleepy I think.

The first stop was our hotel, but that wasn't very far from our second stop - Notre Dame.

We really just stumbled upon Notre Dame - I mean we knew it was there, but we didn't really plan on going here right off the bat. We were headed somewhere, just not here. But we figured since we practically tripped over it, we should at least go inside and take a look around.

Inside Notre Dame - a forbidden picture - except everyone was taking pictures.

Cool picture from outside Notre Dame

After a visit to the cathedral, we continued on our way to what was our true destination for this, our first day in Paris.

Crossing the Seine.

Now, we've found ourselves at the Louvre. We knew the Louvre was close to where we were headed, but once again it was not our final destination. In fact, we didn't even go inside of the museum on this, our first day in Paris, but we had to take some pictures.

Courtyard of The Louvre

Hanging out by The Louvre

Stacie at The Louvre

Now we've finally reached our original destination! On our first day in Paris.

That's right! There's an Apple Store beneath the Louvre! Why are we at the Apple Store you ask...? Well, we may or may not have had a little mishap with the foreign electricity and may or may not have fried Stacie's power cord for her computer. So, for the next 3 hours, we waited for someone to confirm what we already new and get us a new power cord - a more Euro-friendly version this time.

After our time in the Apple Store, we headed back to the river. We had heard that a great thing to do right when you get to Paris (after you purchase a new power cord, of course) is to take a river boat tour through the city.

Our boating company of choice.

We didn't really have any info on particular boat tours so we just headed to Pont Neuf and got in line for one. We were not disappointed. It was a beautiful day and the ride through the city really helped us to get our bearings.

Cool bridge

My first brush with Tour Eiffel

I liked to take pictures of the French flag waving when we came across them. This was the first one we saw.

Lots of barely dressed men sunbathing. This seemed pretty European to me.

After our boat trip, we headed back towards our hotel as we were pretty exhausted for the day. On our way we stopped in what we thought was a little garden in the 6th Arr. As we would later discover Jardin du Luxembourg is pretty large actually. We strolled in here, sat down and began to people watch. I pulled out our book on how to speak French in hopes to try and gain some bit of confidence in my ability to tell someone that I had no idea how to speak French. As I read, Stacie napped and soaked up some sun. It was a really nice afternoon.

Jardin du Luxembourg

After relaxing in the garden for a bit, we headed back to the hotel for a little nap before dinner. Dinner time happens pretty late in Paris which actually worked well for us because we eat pretty late at home a lot of the time. After watching Le Juste Prix, and immediately becoming hooked on the show, we eventually pried ourselves off the bed and headed out for dinner. We really just wandered until we found something interesting. We came across this great little outdoor cafe where we had a waiter named Jean-Pierre. How perfect is that for the first French person we actually met?

We had a nice time dining there and talking to Jean-Pierre. He praised Stacie for her wonderful French and insisted that I should keep practicing. However by the end of the evening I did manage to squeeze out, "Vous etes tres gentil." That means "you are very nice."

After a long, relaxing dinner we decided to just wander the streets of Paris. After a bit we came upon this fantastic creperie which would pretty much become our home base for breakfast.

Around the corner from the creperie, we stumbled upon a movie theater. It was 11PM, and a show was just beginning. So, we bought a ticket and sat down to watch Alice and hoped our French would be good enough to get us through.

As it turned out, the entire thing was in English with French subtitles. I still give us an A+ for going out on a limb and trying to watch a movie in a foreign country.

After the movie, these two weary travelers made our way back to our hotel and fell fast asleep until about 10 the next morning. What a great first day in The City of Lights!