First stop: the Eiffel Tower. We went there first because it opens at 9:30 and we knew there would already be a line, which there was but it wasn't terrible. You can't see the Eiffel Tower from the metro stop that I had us get off at because it's blocked by a building and I purposefully didn't tell Amber that it was basically around the corner. When we got past the building I was watching Amber and her reaction was priceless!!! She stopped dead in her tracks and squeaked super high pitched!!! I just started laughing and a couple that was standing near us were like "that was adorable!!" I was SO proud of Amber!! She does NOT like heights but she was a champ and went all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower and even turned her back to the fence to take a picture (which is a big deal for most people that don't like heights). It was ridiculously windy, a little rainy and cold. I was shaking from the cold! But we didn't let that stop us from getting out there and getting pictures and enjoying the full experience! That was my 5th time being on the Eiffel Tower and the view still takes my breath away every time! Paris is soooooo beautiful and HUGE!!!
From the Eiffel Tower we went to the Champs Elysees, saw the Arc de Triomphe, and then walked all the way down it to Place de la Concorde. I love walking down the Champs Elysees! After that it was the Love Lock Bridge, and then Notre Dame.
We ended the day by walking by Moulin Rouge, eating at Cafe des Deux Moulins (where the French film "Amelie" was filmed) and then we walked around my favorite neighborhood, Montmarte. Where we stopped at my favorite biscuit shop (they're like the most amazing, delicious, buttery cookies that just melt in your mouth....totally wishing I had some right now...)
Day 2 in Paris was a Sunday, so we got up, caught the train and drug my luggage with us to Melun to go to church and leave my luggage here so that I wouldn't have to drag it all there by myself. (That was quite the adventure. I had planned on catching a cab from the train station to take us and my luggage to the church....well of course there were absolutely NO cabs to be found whatsoever....so we ended up walking for 45 minutes dragging my 50 lb suitcases behind us from the train station to the church...good thing I still remembered my way around after 3 years!) Anyways, after church we grabbed sandwiches from a cafe and ate them while sitting by the Seine River (where we saw a giant, dead rat floating in the water while eating our lunch...delicious, I know). Then we caught a bus out to Chateau Vaux le Vicomte. And spent a glorious, sunny day wandering the gardens and buildings of the beautiful chateau. And it just so happened to be some kind of special day that they have once a year where you can come in costume or rent a costume there if you don't have one. You can picnic on the lawns, there were fencing matches, baroque dancing, and people riding horses around....it was amazing!!!!
Day 3 we spent at the Louvre Museum, seeing some of the world's oldest and best art and then going back to Montmarte to get some of our own art done :) I saw Mona Lisa for the 4th time, and got a portrait of Rue done to hang by the portrait of Sadie that I got done in 2011, and then got a portrait of myself done. It was a pretty chill day, which was nice after all of our hectic, none stop running around that we'd been doing.
The next morning I dropped Amber off at the airport (*sniffle*) and headed out to Melun to start the 2nd part of my adventure here in France! Which will be recorded in the next blog post!
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