We arrived at the airport in France, and I have to admit I had some cultures shock.. not seeing one other blue passport, and not one English sign.. Luckily, I have my own personal translator, aka Jord. :)
We took the Subway with our huge HEAVY suitcases to our hotel.. but got off on the wrong stop. Apparently my translator.. aka Jord speaks Arabic as well! I know it sounds weird, but I get so emotional hearing Jord speak other languages, its like I see the studying for hours and hours and home and the stress.. that I haven't really been able to hear him interact with other people. I love seeing his hard work pay off. That might be my favorite part of this entire trip... ANYWAYS! We made a friend in the train station and had a free ride to our hotel in just a few minutes. (Seriously Arabs are the NICEST) We got to our hotel and didn't mind the cruise ship size bedroom because we were pooped!
Apparently Paris never sleeps either because about 3 am we woke to a racket outside our window, we finally fell asleep about 5 am and woke up at 9 for breakfast. Breakfast was a
dream, all I ever want to eat is juice and bread, and that's exactly what we had! In fact, that's all there was to choose from! ha ha
Everything was so tiny and cute. Jord was thrilled with the selection (not). But we stuffed a few extra baguettes in our backpacks and hit the road! We left the hotel and journeyed on yet another train adventure to find our apartment (found through Airbnb) that we will be staying in the rest of the week.
Paris is not equipped with ramps near every staircase like America is so lugging around my 60 lb suitcase up countless flights of stairs was a real treat. No... really.. watching Jords hulk like muscles carry BOTH our suitcases everywhere was SERIOUSLY a treat. ;)
We arrived at our apartment I collapsed and slept for about 3 hrs while Jord scouted things out around town. After a quick snooze we downed a 5$ bottle of Coke Zero and made plans for our first afternoon in Paris.
There is this fantastic bike system that came with our apartment rental. They have bikes ALL over Paris that you can rent for 30 minutes at a time for free! BUT if you happen to go past your 30 minutes you are charged an unspecified amount. We have been given specific instructions not to go over the 30 minutes by the apartment owner. There are bike stations where you can return your bike and get a new one every 300 meters all over the city.
Before we left the apartment Jord asked, "Should I grab the umbrella!?" "Oh, we will be fine! I stated casually, we dont need the extra weight in your backpack".
{SERIOUSLY FAMOUS LAST WORDS}
25 minutes later we find ourselves in the POORING rain panicking to find a bike station to return them before our time runs out and getting snotty looks from snide French people for riding on the sidewalks. . And all of a sudden there is not a single one to be found....seriously. On top of that the wind picks up and we are freezing our bunzies off!
Well.. we rode and rode but our blissful cruise through Paris quickly turned into nightmare on Elm St. Its hard to describe the mounting anxiety we felt every second we went over the 30 min time limit not knowing how much extra we were being charged!!
It made for 26 minutes of H-E-double baguettes.
After returning our bikes and doing some research we discovered an extra 30 minutes of bike time was only 1 Euro... talk about an overreaction WHEW!
We made our way to the Lourve mostly to escape the rain.. but also to see some pretty awesome art. We were a little weary when there was a sign in every language possible stating BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETers. But that didn't stop of us from liberal use of the selfie stick waving our I phone 6 in the air.
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| oh a brochure? yes ENGLISH please |
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| I spy with my little eye... |
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| A ridiculously overpriced magnifying glass. HA |
After the Lourve and after we embarrassingly asking if we could share an entree and being told we would have an exception made at a quaint cafe, I know..we're such cheapos, we got a beautiful meal and made the journey back home trusting the bike system once again.
We made it back in plenty of time to stop at the market! I think markets are frustrating when all the labels are in English, but finding a certain thing in a French market with French labels was EXHAUSTING. We got to the checkout and after an eyeroll from the cashier and a huge line behind us, we were told we hadn't printed out a weight for our produce. Jord sent me... and not being able to read a single thing on the computer I just pushed a bunch of buttons until something printed out and slapped it on the bananas. once again.. WHEW!
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| view from the balcony |
Now here we are, back at home with this INCREDIBLE view to say goodnight to, until next time!
AU REVOIR!
