european adventures: paris part 1

And so it begins...

In case you just tuned in, E and I recently took a little adventure to France and Italy. 

We spent a week in each country.

One thing that I will go ahead and say is that if you're planning on traveling to either of these countries, then go ahead and buy the Rick Steve's travel books. They helped us in so so so many ways. Remember that we planned the entire trip in 3 weeks, and I'm not sure we could have done it without the help of these books.

Just for laughs ... If you think my hair looks big and crazy there, then it only gets worse. Day one into the trip I plugged my chi into the wall using the European converter. I checked the wattage and it looked like it should be OK. Well, it wasn't because about seconds later is started to smell funny and then just shut off. Toast.

I am going to try my best to organize the posts based on places that we visited.

Also, while we were there E kept a daily journal where he made a list of a bunch of memories.

Whenever it seems fitting, I will share a memory from our journal. I'll let you know by saying something like {insert memory}. Easy enough right?

First stop on the trip... The Eiffel Tower {of course} 

{insert memory: Our first day in Paris we went to the Eiffel Tower and saw a homeless man spraying beer on gypsies and met the GM of the Dallas Cowboys stadium}

When we walked up to the tower, we spotted this guy. I'm not 100%  sure what was going on, but this guy had like 3 beers stacked on top of each other. He was just walking through then all of the sudden this gypsy girl came running purposefully knocked them out of his hands. While she was running around, laughing about what she had done, he walked over, shook up the can and totally spayed her with the beer. It was quite a show.

 

There were tons of street performers and dancers also putting on shows.

Including this little guy. Adorable. He was not a street performer ... just a tourist getting in on the action.

There were tons of gypsy ladies begging for money. They knew a couple of English sentences, but very little. They would walk up to you and say - English? 

E decided be would just speak random Spanish to them.

They would just walk away looking confused.

We went all the way to the top of the tower, and enjoyed the lovely views of the city. 

Paris is probably the most beautiful city I have even seen. 

I'll go ahead and say that out of all the places we visited, it was my favorite.

It's just amazing how old everything is confused to the US.

Because the city is so old, none of the buildings are over like 5 stories. There are no sky scrapers. 

{insert memory: we ate macaroons and chocolate croissants at a small bakery)

The French love their bread and pasties. I love their bread and pastries as well.

Notice all of the architectural detail on the ceiling and molding. It seems like the French have a way of taking ordinary things and making them lovely. 

Everything in Paris was so pretty. I think that's why I loved it so much.

Next stop ... Arch de Triumph

The Arc is located at one end of Champs-Elysees. The Champs-Elysees Avenue encompasses Parisian culture. It's kind of like Times Square in New York City. Well it's much classier than Times Square. What I mean is that it's kind of an icon of the city like Times Square is.

We dined outside on this famous street.
 There are a million things that I adore about Paris, but there are a few that I am not found of, and one of those is smoking. 

It seemed like everyone smoked. Nasty. Everyone at the restaurant was smoking ... not my favorite thing.

One of E's favorite things was that all the guys carried man purses. He would fit right in.

In general, the Parisians dress amazing. Everyone wears dark colors {a lot of gray and black}, but at the same time everyone looks so sleek and classy.

I loved all of the adorable little black balconies.

I also wore my gray and black ... trying to fit in. I didn't fit in at all. Turns out the Parisians don't really wear denim or flip-flops. They do LOVE scarves, so I had that going for me.

There was a McDonald's on this street with some amazing treats ... not what you would think of for McDonald's. However, I'll save that for when I do a post on the French food.

So that was day one. 

Oh and I didn't mention that we got into Paris at 6 am, but really it was 12am our time. We took a 3 hr power nap, and then forced ourselves to stay awake.

After a long day we went back to our friends apartment and crashed. 

We did have huge mishap on the train the first night, but I'll share that for another time. Let's just say I got yelled at in French on my first night there. Yelled at for like 5 minutes. Oh well, I still loved the city and it was still a great start to the trip.

More on Paris coming soon.