Paris Trip ~ Day 1

Valentines Day – and the day of our trip to Paris!!!!! Gene had class in the morning 8-12. I was really excited and we left for the airport at 13:00.

We got to Nice Airport and started looking for parking… Drove like crazy from one Parking lot to the next only to find them all full. Finally we entered the P8, drove around for a while and finally got a parking space when someone left. There was no baggage to check-in - went thru customs, and sat and waited for our Easyjet flight to Paris-Orly airport. The flight was delayed – apparently there was an Air Traffic Controllers strike – a lot of flights to Paris were cancelled. Ours was the only Easyjet flight to take off an hour later than scheduled. Arrived at Paris-Orly about 19:15. The adventure begins…. Got out and purchased our rail tickets, and then had to return it because it was for 5 zones and we needed it for only 3 zones. We then went and looked for the Air France bus which would take us from the airport to the Invalides Train station. In all this I discovered that I had LOST my glasses between the time I got out of my seat and walked out of the terminal – we walked back to see if we could trace it . No luck – it was cold and foggy in Paris with cold breeze blowing in our faces….It was a really long day and it took us so long – to get to our room where we were staying. We took the Air France bus to Invalides bus station, and then walked to the Invalides Train station to get a train to Lourmel, our final destination by train and also purchased our 3 day travel pass from a ticket machine which “only spoke French.” Got off at Lourmel and walked for about 5 minutes to 183 Rue Saint Charles – this is where we were staying for 4 days. Reached here, tired, cold and hungry, it had taken us NINE hours!!!!!! We went to our room, got rid of our luggage and went out to look for food.

Our Valentine’s day dinner was at the first restaurant we saw – boy, it felt really good to be stationary for once and the dinner was great. Once we ate, we felt a lot better – and then decided that we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower, so we got onto a train and went two stations down and walked to Eiffel Tower.

We needed to get there before midnight – we walked or kinda RAN in the cold toward the light that was coming from there and guess what – WE GOT THERE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT!!!! Boy, it was really awesome, we kissed under the tower and wished each other Happy Valentines … Someone sold us some roses and another sold us key chain souvenirs!!!!! It was so foggy that we could not see the top half of the tower.

It was all lit – and at midnight – more lights were turned on and it was blinking for about 5 minutes – really kool - very difficult to describe in words – we sat there and watched it for a while soaking in all, and then started to walk back – long walk, late at night, got onto a train, got off at the train station, but got turned around so someone told us which direction we should go….. and we finally made it to our room – it was only a five minute walk but felt like 30. It had been a really long day, so tired and so glad to be back in the room. Feet were ready to fall apart, Need to sleep now!!!