Once we finally landed though the real fun began as we had 4 large suitcases and 4 carry-ons to cart around with us. We opted to try out the subway, since it was cheapest, to get us to our destination (that of a boat that Adam had rented that was right on the Siene River in the heart of the city). However, what we didn’t anticipate was the lack of elevators and escalators in the subways which required quite a bit of finagling. Luckily we met a LDS young man on the subway and he actually ended up getting off the stop with us and was kind enough to help me with my bags up and down stairs until it was time for us to part. He really was a tender mercy for me because I was feeling MISERABLE with my cold and wiped out from the long flight. Once again God sent me an angel to let me know he was aware of me and loved me. I so do love tender mercies.
Wait, have I even told you yet why we actually didn’t continue on from Paris – continuing on to the States and back to our wee little ones we were missing terribly by this point! Adam as you know had flown over to India several times and figured out quickly that each time he flew out – he always stopped in Paris. So in a moment of sheer genius Adam and I had the idea to call the airline we were booking through to see if we could extend our layover in Paris for a few days. “How long do you want to stay?” they asked. “Oh, maybe 3 nights,” we said. “That will be another extra $100″ they responded.” “Sold!” said the two love struck romantics who had always wanted to go to the city of love. And it was done. 🙂 Now back to our Paris story!
Once we got to our subway stop and out of the dark underground tunnels – it finally sunk in for us that we were actually IN PARIS! Yay! And the excitement started to grow. We picked a beautiful day to be in Paris and loved getting to walk through the gardens on our way to our boat and to see the Louve! Our boat literally was RIGHT in the center of the city. Right next to the Louve and in an amazing location to almost all the tourist attractions. We felt really lucky to have scored such a great location!
After settling in a bit on our boat and unpacking, we started getting hungry, but my head cold was in “kick my butt mode” and so I opted to stay back and take a quick nap while Adam went out to find us some lunch and explore a bit. Luckily by the time he got back I was awake and feeling like less of a zombie so we enjoyed our lunch out on the deck of the boat. Adam did GREAT picking out some awesome French cuisine for us (or maybe its just that EVERYTHING in France tastes Amazing? I’m not sure) but we really enjoyed our baguette sandwiches, cookie, cut up fruit, and cheese bread. It really hit the spot and was so very tasty and enjoyable.
After lunch we decided to hit the city hard and do some sight seeing but because I was so sick we thought that “riding bikes” might be easier and faster (for seeing a lot in a short period of time). Adam had heard of a bike rental place were you could pick up a bike ride it to where you want, drop it off, and then pick up another one somewhere else – so we decided to try that out. It ended up being FANTASTIC – after we finally figured out how it worked. It took many different credit cards, asking a few people, lots of frustration, and then logging in online on Adam’s phone to finally get it to work – but after about 45 minutes we were on our way!
Our first “official” stop of the day on our cute Paris bikes was to the very well known (and visible) Eiffel Tower. We mostly went there first because we could see where it was and didn’t need google maps to find it. Plus we wanted to see it both during the day and at night (which was recommended by Ad’s brother who served his mission in France) so it worked out well to head that direction.
If you don’t know the history of the Eiffel Tower – it was actually first built as the entrance arc to a world fair that Paris was hosting in 1889. It was named after its designer Gustave Eiffel, and funny enough was frowned down upon by many of France’s leading artists and intellectuals back in the day. Today, however, it is the worlds most visited paid monument in the world. In 2011 alone it had almost 7 million visitors and in 2010 its 250 millionth visitor ascended its steps (see wikipedia). Pretty cool. Adam was super impressed with the sheer SIZE of the monument. It really is very impressive!
After a quick visit and a few pictures we decided to head off again – this time heading to the Arc de Triomphe. It took us probably about 20 minutes of bike riding to get there and was a little bit out of the way, but very fun to see so much of the city as we rode. There literally was something awesome to take a picture of on every block!
And there she is! The Arc de Triomphe herself! Unfortunately she was under construction during our visit, but it didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves any less and we loved learning about what many of the engravings on the arc mean. It really is a fascinating structure and was built in 18096 by Neapolitan who conquered many nations bringing wealth back to his country. It was to show off all of Frances military defeats.
After checking out the outside of the arc for awhile we decided to also do an indoor tour and get to go to the top. What I didn’t know (and wish I had before buying our tickets) is that you had to climb like 150 million stairs to get there (actually only 284 – but still!) Because I was so sick – this was particularly exhausting for me and ended up completely wiping me out! 284 steps up and 284 steps down. I think I got my work out in that day! 🙂
The view from the top was amazing though and I loved getting to see the city from this angle. The Arc actually makes a star with 12 different roads all leading out from its center. Pretty cool if you ask me.
We headed back for the Eiffel tower after touring the Arc with hopes that we could see it just before dark so Adam could climb up and get some pictures of the sunset (I was WAY too tired by this point to even dream of climbing more stairs). I opted to just sit on a bench and do some people watching while Adam had his own little adventure. 🙂 He left me money with instructions to buy as many Kroff’s as I wanted (donut like things with apricot or nutella inside that I loved on my mission) and hot chocolate. So I was in good hands. Adam’s good to me like that.
We totally lucked out and were able to see the Eiffel Tower when the lights came on. We at first just thought that the lights were just these yellow ones that you see behind me, but then…
Afterwards Adam had scheduled for us to meet up with some co-workers of his for dinner (who are Parisians), but we ended up getting severely lost and were incredibly late. Plus I was 100% spent and couldn’t ride nearly as fast (we were on our bikes). Then it didn’t help either that we couldn’t find a place to PARK our bikes (you have to return them to one of the many locations in the city – but they were all FULL so we had to ride to other ones hoping they had spots open). My body just wanted sleep and nothing more – but I tried to keep my spirits bright and play the interested spouse for Adam’s business meeting. We had a good time with Adam’s co-worker though, but when it got to be late (11ish I think) I finally tried steering the conversation to a close. I also was lucky enough to convince Adam’s co-worker to drop us off by our boat so that I could avoid riding a bike another 10-12 blocks. I literally felt like I could pass out at any moment and had no energy. He was kind enough to oblige my request.
It was an amazing first day in Paris though – even despite feeling completely miserable from my cold. And I’m glad now that I suffered through it so that I now have all these great experiences and pictures to post! It was worth pushing through the tiredness to be able to see so many awesome parts of the city! Paris truly is a work of art!