Paris - Day One

What a crazy day! I'm in Paris! PARIS, FRANCE! I was just on the EIFFEL TOWER! Which is actually a lot smaller than I imagined; until I began to climb up the stairs, that is. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We arrived in Paris last night (Friday, July 31st) at about 23:00, and it was almost 01:00 when we finally got situated in the apartment we were going to be staying for the weekend (there was some "failure to commun-i-cate" going on). Melissa is a member of the CouchSurfing Project and was able to arrange our staying with a fellow CouchSurfer in Paris. It made for a pretty awesome (and free) way to stay in Paris. The apartment was around a couple miles south of the River Seine in a really nice quarter. It had a balcony with a nice view of a small park across the street. It would have had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower except for a building that sat in the way and was just a little bit too tall. As it was, we had to settle for watching the spotlights on the tower swing by the clouds above us.

We started this morning (Saturday, August 1st) at about 8 AM and I enjoyed a wonderful apricot pastry and a croissant from a bakery down the street from the apartment. The croissant was rather heavy, and it took me quite a while to finish it, but the apricot pastry was incredibly delicious. We started out by walking through "Cimetière du Montparnasse" on our way to Notre Dame de Paris. We got to the cathedral at about 9:30 AM or so and stayed until just after noon. We spent some time inside, and then climbed up the towers to enjoy the view (we did a LOT of climbing today). I grabbed a salami sandwich and a cold soda from a stand near the cathedral before we wandered our way along the river Seine towards the Arc de Triomphe. We passed through the Musée du Grand Louvre without going in, and enjoyed the shopping quarters of the city as well.

From the Arc de Triomphe (the only building that we did not climb) we headed north-west towards the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Paris (I should get a map of our travels, I will see what I can do). We climbed up the basilica as well and enjoyed that view for a while. Melissa went shopping for a little bit while I sat on a bench and watched the hub-bub of the city flow by. We grabbed dinner (I had a delicious leg of lamb with a glass of Merlot) at a restaurant somewhere between the basilica and the Seine.

We finished up the day by climbing up to the second level of the Tour Eiffel. This was pretty sweet, no kidding there. They lit it up just before we arrived and they really enjoyed setting off flashing lights all up and down the tower. The line wasn't too bad and in total we spent about two hours waiting/climbing/enjoying/descending.

After a little confusion regarding which direction to walk, we made it back to the apartment at around 1 AM Sunday morning.

So with that said, "Wow, what an incredible day!".