I finally gave up and got my phone out and just wrote down a bunch of thoughts. Messed around on social media, looked at photos. Put the phone away and tried to sleep again. The last time I looked at the time was 445 am. Woke up at 630, 730, and finally at 9. Running on fumes here!
We trekked off to the train station, got some breakfast and coffee. Found our train and boarded. Just over an hour’s journey. Our last train trip of the trip. Trying not to think about it too much. We’re booked for the Eiffel Tower this afternoon.
We arrived at Gard du Nord and the first 3 places we saw as we came out of the station were Five Guys, Popeyes and Burger King – I took some photos to send to Jesse. Not exactly what first comes to mind when you think of Paris.
We walked to our hotel which is in an Indian neighborhood and not very far from the station. We couldn’t check in yet, but they let us leave our bags. We headed off to start exploring. We went to the Arc de Triomphe. We got photos from a distance and then went under it. Pretty impressive. While we were there, there was an unclaimed backpack so we hightailed it out of there and put some distance between us – false alarm, but a reminder of city life. There have been riots in and around Paris because a young Algerian man was shot by police.
After that we wandered through some lovely neighborhoods until we came to the Seine and caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. We had tickets booked so we checked in and waited in line for our turn up the lift. We were in line behind a group of young women who honestly looked exactly like each other – same clothes, make up, hair, they even talked like each other. We were all taken by them – they were like another species.
Up the Tower we went. One lift took us up to the 1st and 2nd floors, then another lift to the top level. It was overcast, but still amazing views. I didn’t realize how big Paris is even though I’ve been here before. There was some sort of fire in the distance while we were at the top, we were sure we could hear about it later, but never did. I decided I wanted to climb down the stairs and everyone else decided to as well with varying degrees of reluctance. Oh, at the top, they have a little bar and you can order a cone of champagne for 22 euros!
We bought tickets for a Seine cruise for the next day. It started to rain a bit, and all the street vendors magically started selling umbrellas! It was amazing.
We went back to the hotel and got our rooms. The boys ended up in their own room because they didn’t have a family room available. The rooms are super tiny! We decided to have a curry since we are in an Indian area – we got a recommendation from the reception guy, who by the way, only speaks English, Arabic, and French, he’s learning Spanish, but Spanish really easy! We ate at the restaurant next door to the hotel and it was so good! I ordered spicy, and it really was.
Afterward, we walked back toward Gard du Nord to find a supermarket to get ice cream. Had an earlish night.
Lamppostings 