See it and try to see it all- Shem

Andrea and I arrived safe and sound and for many who know andrea may have been worried for her (I was) that we wouldn't reunite without incident. We did meet up in the CDG Paris airport as planned and it was amazing to see her again. We got straight on the bus and were in the heart of Paris within the hour and were checked into our hotel room by 1 pm.

Every building is so old and has such great detail it makes our architecture seem kind of lazy. Even buildings that are tucked away on side streets have little statues on them or carvings on the corners or under the windows, the detail to each building is awesome.

Right down our street  there is a cool street market of vendors selling fresh fruit, vegetables, breads and meats. Though we're obviously not from here (the basketball shorts and sneakers might give us away) the little neighborhood that we are in feels like our neighborhood, each time we come back from the day it feels like coming home.

After checking in we just wanted to get lost, we didn't take the metro for fear of missing something, anything. So after winding down several streets and a few left and right turns we found ourselves at l'Arc de Triumph. Andrea and I were both blown away, again the detail is ridiculous, its crazy the amount of time that was put into this structure, it has the tiniest and most intricate detail in places you wouldn't even imagine to even look or put something.

From there we could see the top of the Eiffel Tour so we decided to head over there. Apparently August is not the time to travel in Europe because many Europeans go on vacation and may places are closed, it turns out that they all go on vacation and come to Paris. That might not be entirely true but seriously there are so many people here, I'm not the biggest fan of crowds in fact 10/10 times I will avoid a crowd but it hasn't gotten to me yet. It's really cool how many people from so many parts of the world come to see this place.

We made it to the Eiffel Tour and to see this thing that you have seen in pictures and movies your whole life is only done justice in person. It incredible to see this thing, which Andrea recently to me was built for radio tower use and is still used for that today (Andrea wants it to be clear that I did not know this)  and to know that it was built in a time when structures were not built this high, its amazing but we didn't stay too long because we were getting tired and hungry.

So we make the 45 minute walk back to our hotel down the Champs de Lycée and we walk past our hotel by one block but decide to eat where we are at. Andrea went into a little hotel and asked the front desk of a good place to eat and he directed us to the restaurant on the corner. we looked at the menu and it didn't look too enticing so we turned to walk away but the we heard this small voice behind us say with a thick french accent, "Guys..." we turned around and found Arik, small little man sitting at a table that looked like a regular table for him smoking one if what would be 20 cigarettes that evening. He convinced us with his best English (he refused to speak French saying, "English is better for me") that we should stay there for dinner and considering that we were just a block or two from our hotel we figured why not.

I ordered the steak frites with I think a dijon butter type of sauce and andrea had the Omelet mixte with a salad and she loved it. For dessert we had the tiramisu which is by far the best we have ever had, easily, I still think about it, I'm thinking about it right now!

All the while we are eating Arik keeps coming up to us saying all these things we have to do and by the end of our meal it was settled, he was taking us with him to drop off us off at Sien River because we had to see Paris at night on our first night. I was kind of reluctant because you hear so many horror stories of people getting ripped off and mugged on Paris but i figured this man is really little I could probably take him if it came down to it. Fortunately he really was a genuinely nice man who just wanted to help and he dropped us off at the Bateaux Mouches.

To be honest when we got out of the car we were kind of bummed, by this time it was already 9 o'clock and the boat ride was going to be at least an hour long plus we were a 45 minute walk from the hotel and we were both running off a the very few hours of sleep that we didn't get on the plane. So after waiting in line with some tourists who looked like they followed us from Hawaii we got on the 10 pm boat. If anyone is coming to Paris soon I recommend you do this boat tour it is amazing, Paris at night is more than what you might have read or heard or seen in photos it is amazing do it even if you are tired and have been walking all day and the only the thing you want to do is lay down and sleep, just do it you will not be disappointed.

Needless to say we loved the boat tour but some how managed to leave our map at the restaurant  doubling our 45 minute walk home into more then an hour and a half, we got lost. Also another word or advise if you're coming to this great city keep in mind that the streets are NOT in blocks but in ring circle things so when you think you are walking down a street that has a little bend in it beware because you could be thrown into a loop! All in all our first day was pretty amazing!