Paris Day 1

Ok- so a couple things I learned from this trip:

1-      Book your hotel in advance

2-      Learn a couple words/phrases in the native language for the country you’re traveling to.

3-      Never apply to The Amazing Race together

Every year Neal and I switch off planning our Anniversary. He did the honeymoon, I did the 1 year, we both did last year, so it was his turn this year. Let’s just say it’s going to be pretty hard to one up him come our four year anniversary.

Sunday night Neal called from work and said that I need to pack my bags and take work of for the next couple days. This came as a total shock because our anniversary isn’t until NEXT week. But I was a good wife and did as he asked. Not really- the entire time I was complaining about how hard it is to pack for something where you don’t know you’re going. What’s the weather going to be like? What kind of shoes do I wear? Do I need a bathing suit? You, know… just the necessary questions you need to ask before a trip.

The only thing he’d give me was the weather…. 70 degrees. It could be ANYWHERE!

We went to the airport Monday morning, showed up to the gate, and there it was:

FLIGHT DL88

PARIS FRANCE

ON TIME

I didn’t believe it was real at first!!! I was in total shock and just couldn’t stop smiling. He TOTALLY surprised me on this one. Our flight left and we were on our way to Paris for the first time! I could not wait to get there.

This  Neal's first time out of the country by himself. He did a Euro trip with his family but he was in Junior High and had no responsibility whatsoever, he just had to follow the rest of them. This trip was much different. It was hilarious to see Neal in culture shock, I don’t think it hit him that we were traveling to a foreign country until we got off the plane and he realized EVERYTHING was in French. We struggled to find our way to the information desk and were able to exchange our money there. After that, the only thing we had to go off of was a text message from his coworker, “Take the RER, to the Chalet des Halles stop, find free Wi-Fi, and get a hotel in that area.” Yep- that was it.

So we hopped on the train, luckily found the right one, and we were headed toward downtown Paris! I could not contain my excitement and tried to control my comments about how cute the little homes and chautaes were. They were darling!

We pulled into the train station in Paris about half an hour later. It led straight into Challet Des Halles Forum (shopping mall). We were then instructed (via an old text message) to just 'find a hotel in the area'.

Well our 3G did not work so we had to find FREE wireless internet. We proceeded to book a hotel room.... let me rephrase that, I booked a hotel room for the wrong dates and under the name Erin Burm. Not cool.

After walking around downtown Paris for an hour in the rain trying to find someone who spoke english. We gave up, found a McDonald's, and booked a hotel WAY out of our price range but within 2 blocks of where we were out. After that it was smooth sailing :)

See! Look how happy we are now that we're showered and in a safe place! 

Once we got the courage to go out into the foreign city again, we were off! We couldn't wait to start sight seeing. We found a tourist map that allowed us to navigate around the city to get to all the 'must-sees'.

Me- perked up and ready for an adventure!

Neal- wishing he could go to bed.

The streets were BEAUTIFUL! The rain cleared up just in time for us to venture out and start exploring. I loved how cute and magical each road was, I was just in awe the entire time.

Here's the river.... yeah... we're that bad. I don't even know the river! I told Neal that before we come back we definitely need to do some more research on the area haha

Our first stop was Notre Dam, one of my favorite sights to visit. Shout out to my catholic roots.

The prayer candles, very similar to prayer roll in the temple, except it costs Euro to light these so I decided to just keep a prayer in my heart, money in my pocket, and take the photo opp.

How gorgeous is this!?! We were lucky enough to visit during an actual mass. The priest was conducting, the nun was singing, and the incense was burning. It was beautiful in a very gothic way. If that makes any sense, I felt like I was taken back to medieval times except Neal never showed up on a white horse and in shining armor.

Love Lock bridge in Paris <3 p="p">

We were too cheap to sit down at a nice nice parisian restaurant so we opted for authentic crepes. We really didn't have the time either on this trip, we were all about seeing as much as we could. So needless to say, we had a whole lotta crepes this trip.

The fountain by our hotel. The only landmark that we could find and were able to tell that we were actually close to our hotel.

We finished off the night with some shopping and more eating. We were so tired by the end of the day that we decided to go rest for a while, plan our day for tomorrow, and then go back out again for dinner and to see the Eiffel Tower at night. Great plan right?

Yeah that never happened. After our 10 hour flight and a full day of sightseeing, we fell asleep before our heads hit the pillow! We didn't even stand a chance.