Oh my stars what a day! ( I feel like I start every post with a phrase like that one!) We woke up this morning and were in a taxi by 5:40...and at the train station by 5:45. Our train left at 6:30 and arrived in Paris at 9.
We had some crazy boys in the seats right in front of us, but Zack, Zoe and I slept anyways...we're getting pretty good at sleeping whenever we have the opportunity. I think our flight back will be much different than the flight here (when I had to fight with both Z's to sleep!). We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel - and got an awesome cabbie who knew "a little English." Well his "a little English" was pretty darn good - and we got a decent tour of the city on our way to our hotel. Of course, the first thing we did was go for pastries and coffee at a little place by our hotel.
(mine was similar to a Dunkin cheese twist, except way better - and it had some bacon thrown in there too!) Next we started our trek to the Eiffel Tower...and encountered some pretty cool stuff on the way...
And then it was Eiffel Tower time. (BTW, Dolly we talked about you all. day. long. Were your ears ringing? Zack had so much fun sharing with us the info you shared with your class about the Eiffel Tower. He was a wealth of Eiffel Tower info!)I took so many pictures. Here are some of my favs...
(look, Zoe's touching the top!)
We needed tickets - so we stood in line with everyone else in Paris for a little while (Zoe and Zack entertained themselves with some candy strings we bought at one of the grocery stores we visited on this trip...I'm not sure what country they are from...)
And then up we went...
650 steps later, we were there....
After taking in the view from all angles, we went inside and did a bit of shopping, and then grabbed hot chocolate and coffee. Did I mention it was COLD today? I didn't even pack a sweatshirt for Zack! We were the only ones in Paris in shorts - such a rookie mistake :)
And then we went back down the 650 steps. Somewhere on the way down, Zack jumped funny and hurt his heel. He spent much of the rest of the day on Chris' back.
We jumped on a Metro and ended up at Avenue des Champs-Élysées - and the Arc de Triomphe.
After exploring the Arc, we did some lunching
and did some shopping. Zoe and I got psuedo-matching Swatch watches. I think mine is a perfect preschool-teacher watch!!
Then we hopped back on the Metro and headed for the Sacre Coeur Basilica (and another 300 stairs!)
and then we were on our way back to the bottom. We did stop and snap a couple of fun pics though....
And then it was back to the Metro. Except we couldn't find the station Chris was looking for...and we ended up in a not-so-nice section of Paris called the red-light district. We finally found the station, walked directly in front of three police men armed with machine guns and got on the Metro. Oye. Next up...Cathedral of Notre Dame
The very impressive, flying buttresses...
We grabbed a taxi back to our hotel (actually, we stopped for pastries first, but small ones...honest!) where we relaxed for half an hour and then headed out to dinner. We went to another dinner spot recommended by our Rick Steves book - Cafe du Marche. It was yummy...and we sat outside! Which we haven't done yet because there are so many smokers in Europe. All these super cute cafes - that have clouds of smoke hanging over them. If you know my children, they are not shy about telling people that smoking makes you die. We all really despise cigarette smoke - so eating in it didn't really sound like too much fun. But tonight was a windy night and it was our last night, so we went for it! The food was so good. I actually ordered fried duck - which prompted Zoe to burst into big, crocodile tears. She was not happy that I was killing a duck like the crow killed the baby duck at our house at Easter. I convinced her that it was a very old, great grandfather duck who had died of natural causes that I was eating...not a duck from our back yard. But I still got this...
The duck, and everything else was yummy! And check it out, Dr. Bender ordered and drank a bottle of wine by himself! (The evening shoulder rides were pretty funny!)
After dinner we went in search of yet another pastry shop...at the FIRST one, we had macaroons and a cafe eclair - beyond amazing.
Then Zack and Zoe had to check out the public toilet - crazy thing took forever! After each person, not only did it disinfect, wash and dry the toilet, it did the same thing to the floor! Z & Z were quite entertained...
Zoe tried to give Chris a shoulder ride (I should have helped with the wine...)
We found Zoe a beret...
and stopped at one last pastry shop, where Zack got some crazy raspberry thingy, and Chris got an apricot tart, and we both got coffee. We took our goodies back over to the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show.
It was the kind of day that just made you jump for joy...
It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. And although I'm sure I'll do a follow-up post, I wanted to thank everyone for following the blog and our trip, making comments on the blog, and sharing fun with us on facebook. It has made the trip that much more fun knowing that we're traveling with y'all! On our walk home tonight, Chris and I were trying to figure out how to pitch a realty show to the networks about traveling with kids. In all seriousness, I have really enjoyed connecting each night, and will miss blogging! It was the perfect way to review and close out each day...and will be fun for us Benderz to look back on and remember :) I promise to let y'all know when we're back safe in Jax (probably around 6pm tomorrow), XOXO, Benderz
