Paris day 1

Tuesday morning we drove the kids over to Charlottesville and said goodbye. We then drove to Baltimore for our flight. We got there a little early so we stopped at a restaurant Dad had recommended for some delicious crab cakes. So good!

We flew on an Icelandic airline called Wow. They are a low-budget, no-frills, no-free-water type of airline so we grabbed another snack before taking off a few hours later. We tried to sleep as much as possible because we were set to fly through the night and land in Paris around noon. Dan slept better than I did... We had a layover in Iceland and then continued on to France!

The airport was a ways out of town so we took the metro in. There was a strike going on, so we had to take the local train which was jam-packed with people. We stood the whole way. A guy shoved me because I accidentally tapped him with my backpack. It was not a great way to start the trip! After a connection, we made it near out hotel.

(Heading out into Paris.)

We grabbed our first French food - Dan a sandwich and me my first Parisian crepe (goat cheese, fennel, and honey - sounded better than it was), and then checked in to our cute little hotel. It used to be part of a monastery. Our room was classified as "cozy" but that's what we expected and we didn't spend much time there. The lobby had a bunch of portraits of animals posing as people. I thought Afton would like this one below.

We dropped off our stuff and then hit the streets!

In half-joking preparation for our trip, we watch Bourne Identity. Here I am at Pont Neuf and looking over the Seine. "I told you to come alone!"

The weather was cool and it started to rain pretty hard as we walked over to the Louvre.

We made it and noticed the crazy line to get inside. We had bought museum passes that got you into a bunch of different places and I'd read that there's a shorter line for pass holders if you went in a different underground entrance. So we spent forever trying to find that, only to also find out that there isn't a separate line downstairs, it was back outside. So off we went again into the rain and finally found the shorter line to get inside.

The Louvre is gigantic. I read in one of the many guide books from the library that it would take 9 months just to glance at each of the 35,000 things they have on display. But we did our best. We started with the Mona Lisa.

Ha! Can you see her back there? I eventually made my way to the front of the pack for a shot.

And here's a better shot of everyone else trying to do the same thing.

A few more pictures of things I liked in the Louvre.

The building itself was incredible. I wish they'd give you a tour of it and explain what they used the insane amount of rooms for...

When we got back outside, the rain was gone and it was really nice out.

We started our long walk from the Louvre down to the Arc de Triomphe. (About 2.2 miles - I just looked it up. We did a ton of walking on this trip!) Along the way, we stopped for dinner at a place called Creperie Framboise. So good. We split a "salty" crepe and then had two dessert crepes - one raspberries and cream, the other sauteed apples with caramel sauce. Oh, baby. So good.

Anyhow, we walked the Champs-Elysees to the Arc and took the 284 stairs to the top. Pretty view!

 The Eiffel Tour "glitters" for the first five minutes of every hour after dark until midnight or so. We got there at like 10:10, so we just barely missed it, but it was still pretty and all lit up.

They kicked us out at 10:30 so we climbed back down and took the metro back to our hotel.

There are twelve roads (I think) that all come together around the Arc, so you have to cross the street underneath. The traffic there was pretty crazy.