First Days in Paris - July 3, 2010

 Senne's Summary - We arrived in Paris, ate some yummy food, saw some amazing buildings and had REALLY long walks!

July 2

We had a long, but uneventful flight to Paris. There was a delay on the second flight so we spent five hours in the Montreal airport, and then flew the rest of the way to Paris.

July 3

We arrived at Orly airport to discover that there isn’t really anything that you might call a "line" here. Everybody just pushes and shoves and moves around everybody. So we pushed and shoved at customs, pushed and shoved at the luggage carousel, and pushed and shoved at the line to get tickets for the RER.

Special Notes for those of you arriving at Orly Airport and wanting to take the RER into Paris:

1)   The ticket machine is ONLY in French, although many people told me there would be English instructions.

2)   The ticket machine would not take either of my Canadian credit cards.

3)   Only some ticket machines take Euro bills, the other only takes coins. If your credit card isn’t going to work, make sure you go to a machine that takes bills. (Unless for some crazy reason you have A LOT of coins!)

Anyway, we got our tickets and made our way into Paris. On the RER you need to validate your ticket to get in and get out. Nobody’s ticket was working to validate to get out, so we had to climb over or under the turnstile to get out. Steve nimbly jumped over the turnstile.  I, (carrying 30 pounds on my back and 10 on my front) was not so nimble. Steve was very gentlemanly and helped me scramble over it. (In my defense he is also a fair bit taller than me!)

We go up the 2 escalators and 1 set of stairs and come out in Paris! The first thing we see is Notre Dame Cathedral. Wow! I don’t spend too much time admiring it as I’m hot, sweaty, carrying a large load, and 3 hours late to meet the lady renting us the apartment.

She is patiently waiting at our apartment, and shows us in. We get the quick tour (and when I say quick, I mean quick) and she goes on her way.

We survey the land. The apartment is nice, but small. (I’m estimating under 200 square feet), but don’t know for sure. It has a kitchen, wardrobe, full queen bed, little table and chairs, teeny tiny bathroom… everything we need :)

We are both starving so head out to find some food. We walk up and down cute little streets reading the menus outside the restaurants and discover we don’t know what most of them say. We end up at a very cute little restaurant (rigatoni and lasagna are words we know) and sit out at a table on the sidewalk. Thankfully our waiter speaks English because we have discovered that our French is seriously lacking!

After eating we head back to the apartment for a much needed nap. It was our plan to avoid napping to help conquer the jet lag… silly plan. Steve was so tired he was walking out into traffic… he needed a nap :)

After the nap, we wander the streets in our little neighbourhood (Ile St. Louis) and discover many cute little shops. The streets have come alive (about 6 pm) and people are everywhere. Steve tries to train me to walk on the road… the rule-follower in me just gravitates towards the sidewalk, and we check out some nifty places. Did I mention there is an ice cream shop at the end of my tiny street, literally 5 doors down??? We see a boulangerie, a wine shop, a candy shop… ahhhh, who wouldn’t love this place?

We decide to walk further and see what we can find. How can you help but find Berthillon? The famous Paris Ice Cream shop. We have a near miss as the ice cream promptly falls off the cone, but Steve's super fast reflexes save the day (next time we get a cup!) Steve and I share a chocolate hazelnut cone as we walk the beautiful streets of Paris.

Next we cross over the bridge to the other little island and admire the Cathedral of Notre Dame (from the outside). It is an amazing building. I don’t have the words to describe the intricate carvings and amazing craftsmanship… never mind that it was originally built starting in 1163 and took over 170 years to build. It’s absolutely amazing to imagine people working on this.

Steve participates in his new favourite hobby… taking pictures… a lot of pictures… for a very long time. I don’t mind as I just wander around and look at stuff and people. (People are VERY interesting :))

We walk a little farther along the Seine and admire more buildings and fountains. We make it as far as the Pont Neuf Bridge where we get our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. We attempt to take some pictures (you just can’t capture the beauty of this city in photos), and then head back to our little island to find something for dinner. Hmm, the bakery and wine store are closed. We find a little supermarche and pick up some fruit, diet coke with lime (of course) and wine.

I go back to the apartment and unpack the bags, while Steve tries to find somewhere selling food. He comes back with a pizza and we enjoy our first dinner with a lovely Bordeaux. Only 5,50 Euros… shocking really. It was just as good or possibly better as any $20 bottle you can get at home.

It’s about 11:30 now and we think we should try to go to sleep to get on Paris time. Hmmm, not as easy as it sounds. Eventually we both fall asleep. Steve entertains me with some sleep talking that includes the phrase “launch codes” and our first day in Paris is over.