Hello from Paris!

Current Location: Paris, France

Bonjour!!! I am updating this from my hotel room during my now 3rd day here in France, and I am having an AMAZING time!!

Well as of my last update, I was at the Newark airport. Flight came and we boarded close to on time and started our way to Paris! On the plane I watched two movies. The first movie I watched was New Moon, and it was SO BAD it defies description. Sadly I used to like the series, but not anymore! It was good for a laugh though, and kept my mind off the turbulence, which was a bit bad at times (plus I'm an awful flyer)! Second I watched was Inglourious Basterds. It was good, but it also rewrote history which I found a bit odd. I have an inability to sleep on planes, but I tried after the two movies - no luck. Unfortunately, the people sitting next to us had a cat, which I had a major allergic reaction to, so I wasn't feeling too hot as we landed in Paris.

Our first day (Tuesday) was pretty low key. We were exhausted, since neither myself or my mom slept too well on the flight. We took a taxi to our hotel, and checked in, but it was too early for our room to be ready. We went upstairs to get some free breakfast for being Marriott platinum members and then off to get me a cell phone! The language barrier wasn't too bad, and we got me a phone on a pay as you go plan for not too much. When we came back the room was ready and we came back and promptly took a nap! After that we got a delicious dinner at a little cafe nearby - a bottle of white wine, escargot, avocado salad, and a selection of cheeses! Delicious!

Wednesday was a packed day! We woke up fairly

early, got breakfast, and we were off! We took the train over to Notre Dame and headed there first. It is so beautiful, and the history with it is amazing. Next we walked over to Sainte-Chappelle. It is a church with these amazing stained glass windows. Sadly, they are currently cleaning and restoring the windows, so several were missing. It was still very beautiful without

them. Next we decided to walk over to Orangerie - it is a museum in Paris that has several beautiful originals of Monet. It was a small museum so we were able to see everything which was nice. The walk there was lovely - we walked through the Jardin des Tulieries, which was absolutely amazing - they keep their gardens so nice! Finally we decided to go to Invalides to see the World War I and II museum and Napoleon's tomb. The tomb was stunning!

Beautiful art everywhere. The museum was very interesting as well - my grandfather fought in the war, so I love to see information about what happened. All that we did added up to 5 miles of walking so we were exhausted! We decided to just eat at the hotel, but had a delicious dinner. Called it an early night :)

Today we got two major things done - Eiffel Tower and Arc du Triomphe! We woke up a little later than we planned - all that walking had made us tired. We headed to the Eiffel Tower, where we had a bit of a wait, but we made it up. The views are breathtaking up there. Afterwards we headed down and took some pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower. We then went to a little cafe Laura had recommended called Tourville - it had delicious milkshakes! After that we headed over to the Arc du Triomphe. It's really amazing to see up close. We didn't pay to go in, but it was nice to see.

Tonight we are going to head over to the area I am going to be living for 4 weeks and get a feel for it. Hope to find something fun for dinner too! The next few days we are probably going to go to Montmarte and a few museums - I will be sure to update.

Au Revior!