Oui, Oui, Nous Sommes En Paris!!!

Well, after three full days in Paris, everyone is exhausted so we are having down time at our hostel this afternoon. It's Thursday afternoon as I write this and tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, we're headed to another country! One of my favourite parts of this trip, thus far, is seeing Europe through Sam and Rachel's eyes.

Anyways, I did write a bit about Paris in my last post (which you can read here) but I wanted to tell some stories in chronological order too.

So exciting seeing our flight up on the board and watching planes taking off, 

knowing our turn was coming!!!

We caught a plane on Sunday night and we were so excited to be at the airport. We had an overnight flight and the kids did fairly well. We all caught a few hours of sleep and landed in Paris on Monday morning. All our checked luggage arrived (WHOOO HOOOO!!!) and we caught a train, and then a metro to our hostel. Unfortunately, we couldn't check in until 3pm but we could leave our luggage at the hostel. 

First food in Paris -- a delicious grilled cheese with green onions in it. Also, that salad was so delicious!!!

We found a cafe just down the street and it was delightful!

Finally, we were able to check into our room, change out of our travel clothes, and hit the streets of Paris! We stopped at a bakery and I got my first pain au chocolat.

 

I had hoped we could beat jet lag by walking to The Eiffel Tower but everyone was just too tired so after about 45 minutes, we jumped on the metro and took it the rest of the way. I hope I never forget Rachel's gasps of joy as she saw The Eiffel Tower for the first time!

 

We walked along The Seine for a a bit and then took the metro home. We were too exhausted for supper so we shared two bags of chips and went to bed. By the end of the day, I had walked 16,104 steps.

The next day we found a place which served crepes for breakfast! YUM!!!

 

I had one with lemon, sugar, and butter and it was soooo good!

Then we walked for a bit and found a playground for the kids to play at. We also walked up to the Moulin Rouge because Dave really wanted to see it.

 

We kept walking and I enjoyed seeing sights like all the mini motorcycles and this QR code made of mosaic. At least, that's what we think it was. We don't have data on our phones so we had to guess.

Rachel was thrilled we found "her" street! 

Eventually we caught a metro to near Notre Dame. We wanted to visit Shakespeare & Co, a famous Parisian bookstore. We loved our visit there and came away with a bunch of books for everyone! (You can't take pictures inside the bookstore but it was a maze in the best of ways and I loved it!)

 

We walked over to Notre Dame but, unfortunately, they are still working on restoring it, so we couldn't go inside at all. Bummer.

 

We had lunch at that amazing Italian place I wrote about on Wednesday. We had thought we would do touring that afternoon through a 'hop on, hop off' bus which drives you around the city to different sites and you can get off wherever you want. We decided to buy tickets for the "batobus" instead which was a boat on The Seine. My only disappointment was that there was no tour included. It was kind of like taking the metro or a bus, except it was a boat. However, I loved being on the river so that was worth it.

We ended up getting off at the Jardin des Plantes, eating ice cream (mine was made with violet flowers), and wandering around the gardens. We also ate supper somewhere in here, and true statement, we just grabbed McDonald's. Sad, but true.

Then we headed back to our hostel for the night. By the end of this day, I had walked 15,267 steps. I just LOVE walking around cities in Europe and discovering new places, eating good food, and having fun adventures!

To read about Days 3 & 4, go here.

For a more general Paris post, go here.