We had the opportunity to travel to Paris, France with Brian's family over the Christmas Holidays. Neither Brian nor I had ever been to Europe, so this trip was a really big deal for us. We had a fantastic time, and I will be discussing our trip in detail in the next couple of posts.
Day one was actually a day and a half long. We left the airport in Atlanta on Christmas Eve and flew overnight to Paris. I have always assumed that jet lag sucks, but I now know this first hand. We didn't get any sleep on the plane thanks to the baby sitting in the row behind us who screamed for hours on end. By the time that we had landed, gone through security, and got a shuttle to our hotel, it was well after noon on Christmas Day. Naturally, we were hungry- but we were also very tired. Once we entered the hotel room, we immediately crashed on the bed. So, most of day one in Paris was spent asleep. Everyone seemed to feel better around 7pm, so we met in the lobby to find something to eat. After walking around the neighboorhood a bit, we settled for a little grill owned by a turkish guy. The food was good, but at this point I could have eaten a cardboard box. After supper, we went directly back to the hotel room and fell right back to sleep. We may not have gotten a whole lot accomplished, but we did learn our way around the neighboorhood and we spotted the metro entrance.
Day two in Paris began with a relatively late meeting time and a delicious breakfast at a parisian café. We then made our way to the Eiffel Tower. The view as we approached the tower was spectacular, and we stopped to take lots of pictures. The locals had set up some little stalls along the road between the metro station and the Eiffel Tower, and they were selling all types of things- cheese, trinkets, purses, etc. There were also two different carousels between us and the tower. We made it by the first one without a ride, but there was no way we were making it by both of them. The carousel that we rode was cool, though, because it was two stories tall. I've never seen one like that before. After riding the merry-go-round, we continued our walk to the base of the tower. The line to go up into the tower itself was very long, but we waited anyway. We figured that we should go all the way to the top since we weren't sure if we'd ever be back in Paris again. So, after lots and lots of waiting, we got into the elevator that went to the second platform. There, we stood in line for a smaller elevator that took us to the top. The view from the top was awesome. We could see all of Paris laid out before us. I had no idea that the city was so large! The journey to the top of the tower pretty much took up our whole day. After we got back down, we walked around a little bit and then went back to the hotel. I would say that of all of the things that we did in Paris, this was the kids' favorite- and the one that they are most likely to remember.
