I mentioned before I left that after the tournament I was staying in Europe for a week to do a little touring. Kristin, one of my best friends and college roommate, was flying over Sunday night and arriving at the airport Monday morning. I was going to meet her at the airport and we are going to spend a few days in Paris, then take the train to Brussels for a day and finish out the week in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, Kristin's flight from Philadelphia was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Luckily, she was able to get on a British Airways flight that left Philadelphia late on Sunday but it had a layover in London and didn't get to Paris until 3:00 today instead of her original arrival time of 8 am. Instead of waiting for her at the airport I decided to take the Air France shuttle into Paris and try to at least check into the hotel. Charles De Gaulle airport is pretty far outside of Paris so by the time I found the shuttle, caught it and was dropped off at Montparnasse where the hotel was it was about 11:30. I figured at a minimum I could probably dump my stuff at the hotel so I set off to find it. I had looked up walking directions on google maps before I left Caen and wrote them down but in reality they were no good. Anyone who has every been to Paris knows that the roads are very confusing and there are not a ton of street signs. I had a map that I picked up at the airport and ended up walking around (and lugging my 2 bags and backpack) for almost an hour before I found the hotel. Thankfully I was able to check in because at that point I was so exhausted I needed to take a little nap.
Kristin's new flight landed in Paris on time so she caught the same Air France shuttle I caught to head out to the hotel. I don't have a cell phone here but luckily her work blackberry has international coverage so we have been able to email back and forth and I met her at the shuttle drop off location. After successfully navigating our way back to the hotel we quick got ready and headed out to find the tourist office by the Champs de Elysees. We successfully navigated the metro and got to the roads where the website said the tourist office was but we couldn't find it. After walking around in circles for a good 45 minutes and asking several people we finally found out that it is a temporary stand that is only open in the summer! Opps! We then decided to walk over to the Eiffel tower and try to get on a river cruise down the Siene.
The Eiffel Tower is just breathtaking. We saw it for the first time from the Champs de Elysees and as it got closer it got more and more beautiful. It really hit is us then that we were in Paris and we actually pulled off this trip. After walking around for a bit we found the dock where you could purchase tickets for the night cruises down the Siene. We tried to use the electronic machine but for whatever reason it wouldn't read our credit cards so we had to wait in line to purchase tickets. Being in this line reminded me of China when it came to personal space as in I had none. They only had one ticket window open so it took forever! Once we finally got tickets for a 10:30 cruise we decided to go try to find a cafe to have a bite to eat. Eventually we came upon this cute place called Ribe. Kristin and I bought a bottle of wine and had an awesome dinner. We had french onion soup directly from the source, followed by steak and the best chocolate mousse either of us has ever had. In the words of Kristin, it was "a life changing experience." While in the restaurant, we ran into a couple that had also come from Philadelphia sitting right next to us - such a small world! After dinner we decided that one bottle of wine wasn't enough and we wanted to get one for the cruise. We found a really nice little cafe that agreed to sell us a bottle to take out. We asked for cups as well and the waiter asked if we preferred small or large. Knowing that things tend to be smaller here in France I said large. Well thank god I did because our "large" cups were the size of the tiny bathroom solo cups I use at home! It didn't matter, we got another fabulous bottle of wine and had an awesome tour of the city on the water. After the tour it was time to head back to the hotel. For those of you that don't know Kristin, she is an extremely smart girl but can be a bit challenged when it comes to reading maps so I had to take the role of navigator. Though it took us a few minutes, we eventually found the metro, navigated through a transfer and made it back even closer to our hotel than when we started.
It was a fantastic start to our trip. Today we have big plans to try to see as much of Paris as we can. Ready, Set, Go!
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