Riding the Eurostar was great! Much less stressful than flying. Security is much simpler, with no restrictions on liquids. We got through security, had our passports checked and stamped by the French border police, and after a short wait, got on the train! We had luckily picked seats toward the back of the train, and got 4 seats to ourselves. In what felt like no time (but was actually just over 2 hours), we pulled into the Gare du Nord station in Paris. I was a little freaked out when we first got off the train with the language difference and all, but soon enough we'd gotten directions to our hotel and got on the Metro.
Let me just say right now that I love the Metro. Simple and easy to use! Even in French!
We got off at the Pyrenees station and walked only about a block to our hotel. It was a small, kind of run down hotel, but for us it was perfect. It had a real bed, and our own bathroom!! Yipee!!! It also had French doors that overlooked the street:
After freshening up, we went into the city center. Paris is beautiful! That night we saw the Notre Dame and the river Seine by moonlight. We ate dinner al fresco (of course). Jarrett had smoked fish, and I had the French version of bangers and mash. It was a sausage from a certain region in France (can't remember which) and mashed potatoes which were different because they were mashed extremely fine and mixed with garlic and cheese--very good. I have to say, we were really underdressed! It was a very nice evening, and we (stereotypically) wore shorts and flip flops. Boy were we stared at!! On the Metro ride home, this drunk guy started kind of freaking out and pointing at my legs and we realised he was surprised that I wasn't cold (even though the temperature was in the 70s).
Thursday morning we slept in a bit before heading into the city. We saw the inside of the Notre Dame, and after that walked through the city, going through the Luxembourg Gardens, H&M, Hôtel des Invalides, and finally to the Eiffel Tower. We relaxed for a while in the park next to the tower before going all the way to the top! It was a lot of lines and 2 elevators, but it was really cool. We were there basically at sunset, with great weather. On the way down, however, we ran into some horrible Americans. They got off the elevator at the top, but didn't even go up the last set of stairs to go outside! They looked out of the windows and then cut into the line to get on the elevator back down. Lame! But we had a great time :)
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to change into more "night-appropriate" clothes--no more stares! We went to dinner at a cool little restaurant called Le Gai Moulin (recommended by Lonely Planet). It had a great atmosphere and really good food. I got beef bourguignon (like in Julie & Julia) and it was really good. After dinner, we decided that we wanted to see the Arc de Triomphe, and decided we'd just walk there so that we could see more of the city. I'm not really sure that that was a good idea!!! Our feet hurt SO bad. But, on the way we got to see the Louvre (just the outside--we saved the inside for next time), the Tuileries Garden, and most of the walk was down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
We finally got to the Arc, and it was really beautiful, all lit up in the dark. We took pictures, rested for a bit, then headed for the Metro to go back to the hotel. HOWEVER, it was closed!!! This is one problem with Paris--there seems to be a complete lack of clocks in public places, and since our phones weren't operational, we didn't carry them with us. When we finally found out the time, it was something like 1:30am! The other problem is that everything stays open so late--restaurants are open til 12:30ish--that its hard to gauge the time. At any rate, we found a taxi and somehow communicated that we needed to be dropped off near the Pyrenees metro station. This took a little work, but we did it! Unfortunately that ride was 20 Euros, but it was worth it to get back to the hotel. There was NO way we could have walked.
On Friday, we got up, got breakfast at the bakery by our hotel (can I say delicious??) and took the train to...Versailles! Versailles is a nice town, and the famous French palace is located there. We got there at about 11 and stayed until about 7:30--and could have stayed longer! It is so huge, and so much to see. We really loved it. Everything is ornate and covered in gold, it seemed like. The gardens were also very pretty, and we got to see the Petit Trianon, Grand Trianon (2 smaller palaces in the grounds of the main palace) as well as Marie Antoinette's Hameau, the little model village she had built. That was probably my favorite part, as it was so picturesque around a lake, with farm animals and everything.
We rode the train back into Paris (which was a nice rest for our feet!) and got some REALLY good ice cream after we got back. Then we went to a Turkish restaurant on our way back to the hotel. It was in a very international part of the city. Dinner was great but boy were we tired! We headed back to the hotel and got ready to leave the next morning.
Saturday morning we finished packing, checked out of the hotel, and took the train to the airport. We hoped to get onto the direct flight between Paris and SLC, but no luck--completely full! We then were bumped to the Paris-->Philadelphia flight, but again no luck. We started thinking this would be a repeat of trying to get out of SLC when we got seats on a flight to Atlanta--in Business class! We could not believe our luck, and were so excited to at least get a plane back to the states. It was so nice to fly business, too, as I never had before. We got to board the plane first; they took our coats for us and hung them up; we had amenity bags with socks, a sleeping mask, chapstick, lotion, etc. We also got real pillows and down comforters instead of the normal crappy airline blankets! Oh, there was also plenty of juice to go around before everyone else got on the plane. In-flight entertainment was great: we could choose what movie we wanted to watch and when, as well as tv shows and music. The food was great too--3 course meals! I'm not sure if business/first class is worth the extra money you normally have to pay, but it sure was nice lucking out on those seats! :)
When we got to Atlanta, we couldn't get on the last flight of the night to SLC, so once again we got a hotel. Luckily hotels are much cheaper in Atlanta--we stayed at a Super8 for "only" $50. We got some sleep, which was nice, because the next 2 days were a nightmare!! We went back to the airport at 6:30 in the morning. We tried to get on 4 flights in a row to SLC, but to no avail, and the standby list just kept growing and growing--with us at the bottom. Then we tried twice to get to SLC via Houston, but that didn't work either! Finally we got on a flight that evening to Sacramento. We arrived around 10pm, completely exhausted and feeling nauseous from stress and lack of sleep. We were scheduled to leave on a flight the next morning, but after checking with the airline staff, it looked like we wouldn't actually get off the ground until 6pm the next evening. Now it was time for desperate measures because it was Sunday night and we both needed to get to work the next day. So we bit the bullet and rented a car--and DROVE FROM SACRAMENTO TO SLC! Let me recap: flew from Paris to Atlanta to Sacramento and drove to SLC. This process may have been the longest 3 days of my life, haha. Anywho, we were out of there by 11:30pm and on our way north. We switched on and off driving, but it was tough! I was so tired I started seeing things pop up in the road (such as animals and an old lady). At that point, we switched drivers.
We were almost to SLC the next day when I got pulled over by the highway patrol in Tooele. The officer acted like he pulled me over for speed, but asked us about what was in our trunk and stuff. Then he even had me come back to his car with him. It was only later that I realised that we had been profiled as drug traffickers and that was the real reason he pulled us over. He asked me to get in his car because his dog was in the back and it would have gone crazy if it smelled drugs on me. Still, he grilled me again about where we were from, where we had been, what we had been doing, what was in the car, how I knew Jarrett, when/where I met him, and how long I'd known him! Talk about the grilling of a lifetime. Still, he let me go without even an official warning.
We made it back into town around 10am, and we both went straight to work. It was a crazy trip, but a good one!!!
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