Whenever I go off track, Josh and I try to take a little vacation. Since Josh is in school, it's a little more difficult to find time to go. Thanks to President's Day, we had a 4 day weekend to go somewhere, and it was even over Valentine's! Perfect! But where to go... First we were planning on Hawaii but the flights were full. So were the flights to Cali, Florida, D.C., and basically anywhere else we looked. Friday we went to my mom's to check flights again, hoping to find a way to Cali. No deal. Instead we found that the direct to Paris, France was wide open! There and back! Even more perfect! We were packed for warmer weather so we had to hurry home to get our coats and trade in our shorts and short-sleeve shirts for pants and hoodies! It was around 3:00 p.m. at this point and the flight left at 4:45 so we had to HURRY! We go to the airport, went through security and we had about 10 minutes before we started to board. We hurried and pricelined a hotel and were on our way!
*Trying our best to look like we fit in*
We were lucky enough to get Business Class (boo yah!) so when we sat down we had our choice of orange juice, champagne, or a mimosa. It's SO nice to fly Business because your seat reclines almost all the way so you can sleep, you have your own TV, you can watch all the movies and TV you want, listen to music and play games. They have nice pillows and blankets for you to use, not those nasty ones. They also serve you a 5 course meal. The only 5 course meals we have ever had have been on planes! Pretty fancy! And the best part is that it was all FREE!
*A cool picture Josh took from the plane*
The flight was about 10 hours long and when we landed in Paris it was about 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 13th. It took us a while to figure out where to go (the airport is HUGE), how to get on the metro, where our hotel was because we booked it minutes before we boarded... After a couple of hours of figuring everything out, we finally got to our hotel, The Renaissance in La Defense. Our hotel is part of The Marriot chain so there was a Book of Mormon in our hotel! Once we checked in we went right back outside to explore! There was this weird cube building right outside our hotel. We never figured out what it was for or anything but it was still pretty cool!
The architecture there is really cool so it was fun to just walk and look at the buildings. There was a huge mall really close by, so we went and shopped around. It was absolutely freezing so I bought the cutest beanie I could find that wasn't a beret. Thankfully H&M Kids had something big enough to fit because all the beanies in the adult H&M were hideous! I am not a beanie wearer at all, I think I look like an idiot in them but I had to get one or I would have frozen to death. You will see I'm right in the pictures to come... We also stopped by their grocery store to get some things for breakfast and stock up on Haribo candy for Josh.
There were also a lot of random works of art everywhere. It's weird not being able to read all the things that are around you. It drove me crazy! I guess I'll have to learn French for the next time we go...
There were all these groups of guys from the military walking around with machine guns. It kinda freaked me out at first but they were everywhere so I guess it must have been pretty normal. Josh was very enthralled with these guys and very sneakily (but not really) took pictures of them everywhere we went.
We were super tired from lack of sleep and the time change so we went to bed around 7:00 p.m. We woke up around midnight, watched a few episodes of The Office until we fell asleep again, then woke up a little before 7. We got ready for our Valentine's Day in Paris and then headed straight for the Lourve. The metro was right by our hotel and it took us right into the Lourve.
*By the entrance of the Lourve*
This place is absolutely massive so there was no way we could see everything. We decided on the things we wanted to see and went from there. First on our list was of course the Mona Lisa.
*Mona Lisa*
It was super guarded and you couldn't even get close to it so this is the best shot we got... They also didn't allow you to use a flash so some of our pictures are pretty crappy, but what can ya do?
On our way to find the Mona Lisa we found Madonna on the Rocks. I was glad I'd read The Da Vinci Code because it made it even cooler for me to see these paintings. It was so crazy for me to think how old these paintings are and that Leonardo Da Vinci painted them.
There were so many paintings that were HUGE like this one...
The ceilings were also way cool...
We went and checked out some African, Medieval and Egyptian stuff...
*Outside the Lourve*
It was super busy when we were leaving so we were really glad we went there early!
We walked to Notre Dame since it was just down from the Louvre. Lucky for us it was a bright and sunny day so we didn't totally freeze to death!
*Notre Dame Cathedral*
We were using our timer to get a picture of us with Notre Dame and as we were standing there posing for our picture and this guy comes and stands right in front of our camera. We didn't know he was being a jokester until he started laughing at himself. It was pretty funny because in my head I was thinking, "Hello! Why do you think we're standing here posing? Oh, because we're trying to take a picture that's why!" So this is the picture from that happening...
I thought the gargoyles on the cathedral were pretty cool...
*Notre Dame from the other side*
*More of Josh's "sneaky" military guy pictures*
Next, we took the metro to Arc de Triomphe!
There is so much detail on this thing. Everything in Paris had so much detail for that matter. Too bad I can't read French...
The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of the biggest roundabout ever! One really smart family attempted to cross it. They never made it. You had to walk through a tunnel that went under the road to get to the Arc...
We thought this sign was pretty funny...
From Arc de Triomphe, we walked down to the Seine River and then followed that until we got to the Eiffel Tower! The next 2 pictures are buildings/churches that we passed on our way down to the river.
When we got down to the river, there was this torch thing like the Statue of Liberty holds... I don't know what it was exactly because, once again, I don't speak French, but it reminded us of the Statue of Liberty so we took a picture with it and the Eiffel Tower in the back ground!
Once we got close to the Eiffel Tower, we (Josh) struggled hardcore with getting a picture of us with the whole tower... Here are some beauties. We seriously have 15 of these suckers and they all look the exact same. Josh couldn't not tilt his head all the way to the side when he was taking these pictures. We found it pretty hilarious.
It was really crazy actually seeing the Eiffel Tower in real life. I absolutely LOVED it! It was so so cool!
We interrupted a nice couple having champagne and strawberries by the river for Valentine's Day to take a picture for us, so thanks for that! Its nice to have a different type of picture. All of our pictures are a close up of our faces with a different background since Josh takes them all.
Once we got to the Eiffel Tower we decided we may as well walk a little further to check out France's replica (or whatever it is) of the Statue of Liberty. In August, we went to New York and saw the Statue of Liberty so we thought it'd be kinda fun to say we saw both of them within a year of each other.
And there she is! Slightly disappointing since she was the size of nothing but I'm still glad we went and checked her out.
We walked back down to the Eiffel Tower and took even more pictures!
It was insanely crowded, especially because it was Valentine's Day I'm guessing, and we didn't want to wait in the crazy long lines to ride up it, so we didn't!
Paris had the craziest public bathrooms on the street I have ever seen! You push a button to open the door, you go to the bathroom, push the button for either a big flush or a small flush(ha ha), you go through, like, a line to get soap, water and then a paper towel and it's all automatic. Then you push the button to get out, the door closes behind you, it washes the floor, flushes the toilet and sanitizes, and then it's ready for the next person. It was so weird and took so long! At least we didn't have to pay I guess!
Here's a picture of our hotel shower, I hated that super tiny door. I got the floor soaking wet every time.
We had a fabulous trip and we can't wait to go back!
