Oh Paris it was a very crazy 24 hours. See when planning our trip we went back and forth about going to Paris. On one hand we would only be able to spend a day there and it might not be enough. On the other hand at least it was something and it's so close how could we not? We wanted to make it work.
I woke up that morning and my throat was on fire and my head hurt like crazy but I was going to Paris! So my excitement was going to keep me going. I know Josh didn't sleep very well that night so he was exhausted that morning as well. We left in good time I even planned a bit of time to make a coffee run. We got to the underground only to discover we were suppose to go to the station down the street as the line we needed didn't go through the station we were at. As I was trying to figure out the best corse of action a Tube worker came to us and helped with some directions. Turned out that the line we were originally going to take was out of service anyway so it was a blessing in disguise.
We got to St. Pancas Station and went through the security check. Our bag ended up having to be searched. It was really awkward but it had to be done. Once we were through security and the boarder crossing we went and grabbed coffee and tea with snacks. Then off to board the Euro Star. When we boarded I was slightly disappointed. I kinda thought the train would be nicer. I don't know what I was expecting exactly but it seemed a little run down compared to our train to Liverpool. It was still cool to be on it. The train travels under the English Channel and is a high speed train. The train ride itself went by pretty fast but as we got into France Josh discovered that our sim cards which we thought were suppose to work in France didn't. This alarmed me a little but we both thought ahead. I already knew the route to get to our hotel and Josh downloaded maps locally to his phone.
We got into Gare du Nord and exchanged some pounds for Euros. The lady wasn't the friendliest but we got what we needed. Then we needed to get tickets for the metro. Once again we ran into a problem with our cards not usable through the automated machines. So we waited in a long line to be helped by a person. Now we needed a day pass for transit. Some places will have a day pass that will last 24 hours. Then other day passes will only be good for that day and luckily I asked because we had to get 2 days. My commuter card through work didn't work here which I was really disappointed about. The Metro in Paris was pretty good in my opinion.
Once getting off we made it to our hotel. My brother in law was able to get us a room at the Marriot on the Champs Elysee. Our room was sadly not ready for us and we were starving. It was really awkward being in this hotel. Lets just say we didn't exactly fit the class of people there and if it weren't for my brother in law we could have never afford to be here. It was high class for sure. They held our bags as we went to get food. Now when I think about french food I think about many things, butter, duck, bread, and thats not exactly easy for a vegan. There's also the whole language barrier thing. Also there you don't just tell your server "don't put that in" or "can you put that on the side?" its considered rude. The last thing I want to do is make a french person who's handling my food mad. So after some searching we found a place but when we actually got there and looked at their menu there wasn't much Josh could eat. So we ended up finding a Thai place that Josh could eat at. It was pretty good.
At that point Josh was literally fighting to stay awake. It was a bit of a dilema I didn't want to keep pushing him and make it worse. So we went back to the hotel so he could lay down for a bit. We entered to find a bottle of champagne and cake. While Josh reseted I went exploring. I was advised to go to a place called Laduree to get macaroons. It was a beautiful store and I was so overwhelmed with all the choices. I ended up picking chocolate, vanilla, mint, cafe, rose, and carmel. They were out of this world! After that I went down the Avenue to the end to see the Arc de Triomphe. I kind of just stood there for a while. It was so big! On my way back to get Josh I decided to get a picture from the center of the rode. It was pretty busy but they had a little medium that helped me out.
After getting back and getting Josh we headed to the Effiel Tower. If there was one thing we had to do it was going to be that. After getting off the metro we walked around this pop up market. One thing for me was this tent of headbands... I just wanted them all!! We got closer and of course its full of people. We were looking around for a cafe of sorts. I was hoping to be in this park for a while. Much to my surprise the area around the Effiel Tower is not the lush green area that I was expecting. When we tried sitting down we got harassed by a lady who was trying to get us to sign papers and donate money. She was a smooth talker but I don't care to donate money unless I know exactly whats being done with it. It was just super awkward. We found a nice guy to take our picture with the Effiel Tower. He was also an American visiting with his wife. We still wanted to find coffee but the only places around in the area were little carts. We walked out further and found a cafe with a tiny view of the Tower behind trees. Its ok I'll take it. However, as I'm walking in Josh noticed that the menu had espresso spelled "expresso" which is a major pet peeve of his. He said he couldn't be here and we left to find another place and discovered that the that's just how the french spell it. So we went back to the place we originally were at with the tiny view. Josh was asking if they had soy which the woman behind the counter was very confused about so she went to grab another person who knew english more. Turns out the don't have soy. Oh well. I really enjoyed my cappuccino with coco dusted on the top. The foam was perfect.
I was craving something sweet and set my sites on going to Berthillion which has ice cream and gelato. Not just any ice cream, according to Mike Dekeyser it will ruin ice cream for you because its that good. I had remembered to save the address and we were able to navigate there ok. They had gelato too which I was thankful for so Josh could have something. I got Chocolate and even with my taste buds being a little shot from being sick I couldn't get over the richness of it. We enjoyed a walk with our ice cream and decided to go to Norte Dame since it was so close. It was incredibly beautiful to see. It was dinner time and we needed to find a place to eat. We were really hoping there would be access to wifi around. We had really bad luck finding it. I thought to myself I know a place were we can get wifi... let's go to the Louvre there's an Apple Store there that we can get wifi. My guess was that it was going to be closed which it was but even so we were able to get some wifi. The store is beautiful I only wish I could have seen more of it but it was closed. We went outside of the Louvre. It was really surreal for me. We walked around the plaza for a bit then went and had dinner.
We found a place that was all vegetarian and in fact had mostly vegan items. The hostess seemed to know english but our server not so much. She didn't care for us and we couldn't seem to get water for our table. The food however was really good! I had "shrimp" and Josh had a "burger". I was really happy with the meal but the service was meh. It's hard to go to a country not known the language. I'm told that a lot of people known english but they don't like speaking it. We made it work though.
We went back to our hotel after dinner. I was in a lot of pain at this point from all the walking and fighting whatever I had, I just had to lay down. I ended up taking a long bath, had more champagne, and macaroons, it seemed fitting. We slept very well that night. We got up in the morning and got a few souvenirs. I got some breakfast and went to the monoprix to get some stuff for my cold before going to the train station. We got on the Euro Star and said goodbye to Paris. I kept thinking how I might have done things differently. I know it was really hard on Josh but I don't regret it. I would have regretted not going even more. Being sick was out of my control I pushed forward and did what I could. I wouldn't advise Paris in a day but you can definitely see a lot.
