Let's Go! Day 3

Saturday September 22^nd

We woke up and the lights still weren't working.  We were afraid we would be kicked out but when we told the front desk, they simply flipped the breaker and we were back on.  Needless to say, I didn't fix my hair the rest of our time in Paris! 

We started the day with free breakfast at our hostile.  They serve  chocolate croissants and baguettes with jelly along with one cup of coffee.  The coffee there was really strong so it took some getting used to.  

We took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and found a bench to do our daily readings.  It was a beautiful, cool sunny day and there were people out everywhere.  

We had our bike tours that day so we met our first group at the Sud (South) corner of the Tower.  It was very comfortable because the majority of the tour group spoke English.  Our tour guides were from tu but we didn't hold it against them:)  We walked to the shop and picked out our bikes. The tour took us to the Eiffel tower, the Peace Monument, Echo de Militaire, Dome Church (where Napolean is buried), the Tuleries Gardens, Arc de Carousel, the Louver Musee, and back to the Eiffel Tower for pictures.  We stopped to have lunch at an outdoor café in the gardens where we ate with our tour guide and another member of the group who was traveling by himself.  He works for Delta and flies free to so many places so he was really interesting to talk to! I had the quish and Joe had a hot dog. 

After the tour we went back to the Louvre but the line was super long and the short cut was closed so we wandered around taking pictures and stumbled upon the Lock Bridge.  Couples come to this bridge and place a lock on the fence as a symbol of locking away their love forever and tossing the key into the Seine River.  We came prepared with a lock that I had painted our initials on.  The lock is from Jacksonville when we locked our trailer of stuff for the move back home.  It’s pretty special knowing our lock is half way across the world!! 

After that we walked to a crepe stand and bought a ham and cheese crepe and a coke.  The vendor was asking Joe if he wanted a bottle or can but Joe didn’t realize since the guys French accent was super thick.  Joe just kept saying yes a coke, a coke. I translated for him and said, “oh a bottle!” The vendor laughed and made fun of my thick Texas accent and said, "Oh sorry, BAAAHHHHTTLLLLEEEEE!” 

We went back to our hostile to grab some jackets for our night tour since the weather was pretty chilly.  We were running out of time and were 15 minutes late to meet our group at the Eiffel Tower.  Luckily we had just been there in the morning so we started running to the bike shop.  We barely made it in time!  For the night tour we had to wear pretty sweet reflective vests.  We met some people from Seattle and talked with them throughout the night.  This tour was fun because we started on the other side of town near Notre Dame so we had a 20 minute bike ride where we got to ride really fast.  We went down a main street and it was cool to see how busy and lit up everything was.  This tour took us to Notre Dame, the Ile de la Cité, the Ile St. Louis, St. Chapelle, the Latin Quarter, Berthillon Ice Cream, Academie Française, Hotel de Ville, Musée D'Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower. The tour ended with a boat cruise along the Seine River where we enjoyed several glasses of wine:)  It was really fun and the perfect way to see the City of Lights! 

Once the tour was over, we headed to an area of town that our tour guides said was good for night life and found a quaint bar with a lot of people outside.  We sat at the bar and ordered some beers, just talking with the bartender.  This girl came and sat next to us and we talked with her for a long time.  She didn't speak very good English but we had a great time figuring out her French and she liked our English accents.  We joked about George Bush and marriage (she couldn't believe we were married so young).  Joe asked the bartender how you say “Yaaaay” in French..he looked at him very seriously and said “Yaaaay…see now you know French!” Haha! When we said goodbye, they kissed us on each of our cheeks.  It's funny how sentimental that felt.

We took the metro to the closest stop we could find to our hostile but it wasn't familiar and we got lost. We saw a young man, Lucha, saying good night to his girlfriend, and asked him to help us. He was headed in the same direction so he walked us home. What a nice guy:)