Paris!
We went to Paris!
When we started planning our trip,
Carrie was looking at a map and made it known that she wanted to go to Paris for a day. Actually,
she wanted to go to Paris and spend a night or two, but time would not allow for that on this trip.
We settled on taking a day trip, so we booked tickets for the
Eurostar - a train that leaves from London, goes under the English Channel, and arrives in Paris after a two and half hour trip. We took the first train out - leaving at 5:40 a.m. - and the second-to-the-last train back to London - leaving around 8:00 p.m.
From my travel journal: "Our alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. and we were up and running. We got ready quickly, and by 4:45 a.m. our hotel doorman was hailing a cab for us. When we got to the Eurostar station I realized I didn't have our ticket voucher in my purse! The voucher I had grabbed in my sleepy-stupor was for our Spice Girls evening the night before. After what seemed like several minutes, I finally convinced the ticket ticket lady to search by our last names, and she was able to print our tickets that way. A little stress to start the day...here we go!"
Fortunately, we slept most of the way there, and I missed the whole
our-train-is-in-a-tunnel-under-the-water event. When I woke up and looked out the window, I knew we were in France! It was different and it was beautiful.
When we got off the train in Paris we were both a bit overwhelmed. New country, new language, new bearings. Carrie's three years of high school French really paid off, and one of my favorite things about our day in Paris was hearing her speak French. She was so natural with it ~ and she's such a sweetheart anyway. It warmed my heart to see how the people in Paris responded to her as she spoke.
The only thing on my list of
things-I-wanted-to-do-in-Paris was go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Carrie pretended like she didn't want to, but we were
there! It was a chance of a lifetime and I was determined to get to the top.
Well, one of the lifts to the top of the tower was under construction, so all tourists were directed to the one operating lift. We stood in line, in the cold morning Paris air, for two hours to purchase tickets. Two hours of precious time...two hours of security guards in camouflage with fingers on the triggers of large machine guns walking around the crowd...two hours of people with no concept of our "personal space"...two hours. Then! When we got our tickets, there was MORE waiting for our turn on the lift, and then MORE waiting at the second level to take the other lift to the top...and then MORE waiting to take the lift back down so we could get the heck out of there and see some other stuff in Paris!
But! We can both say we have been to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was awesome. It was freezing cold. We took pictures. ~sigh~
After we left the tower we started our long day of walking. Walking. Walking. More walking. We found a sweet Italian restaurant on our way to the
Arc de Triomphe and had the most delicious lunch.
We were using Carrie's iPhone as our GPS that day, but her battery was fading so we took some time to figure out how to use the antiquated paper map.
Great invention, those paper maps! We followed the map, and we were really happy to see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.
Wow - I hadn't been prepared for how amazing that Arc is. It was spectacular! I could have spent a long time there, marveling at all the tiles and carvings.
From there we walked down the Avenue des
Champe-Elysees and went into a shop or two along the way. We were mostly focused on continuing to walk to our next destination:
Notre Dame Cathedral.
Wow - by then we were tired and cold and a little fussy. We were both very relieved to see the cathedral in the distance, and that place did not disappoint! It was amazing to be there - to experience the energy in a cathedral that old and beautiful. We lit candles for
my mom there.
♥
After Notre Dame, I think we were both getting a little antsy about getting back to the train station on time. Even though we had a couple of hours, it made sense to start making our way back there. When we asked a cab driver to take us there and he said no, we really got nervous about the thought of having to walk all the way back to the station. We weren't sure there was enough time!
We finally found a cab to take us, and that made us early enough so there was time for a drink and a snack before we caught our train. We shared an order of the most amazing fries - and I loved the mayonnaise/horseradish dipping sauce that came with our order.
It makes me smile now, thinking of how we ate our way around Paris! There were several must-tries on our food list: crepes, croissants, macaroons, baguettes,
croque monsieur,
{French} fries, and chocolate. We covered all bases!
Travel journal: "Back in London, both happily exhausted, we ordered late night room service and called it a day. Tomorrow we'd have time to see the sights in London. Wow - what an amazing trip we are having!!!"
{Carrie's Photo}
