{a photo of the entrance to our hotel}
Remember this teeny little journal I made for my trip to Paris?
Well I thought about a comment I got about if I could fill a whole book with one day's worth of photos, this little journal was not going to be big enough! So two nights before we were due to fly...I took it apart and started over. I used a moleskin. I am so glad I did!!
I will still take photos and show you. It is bursting at the seams and I haven't even printed any photos yet! I am going to have to be selective about photos, I somehow doubt it could hold over 1000 photos!!
So Day three of our trip.
We slept soundly that night, exhausted after a long flight with very little sleep and a whole day of sightseeing and walking...
A lovely breakfast of croissants, chocolate pastries, coffee, orange juice and rolls with butter and jam. Yum. {I don't normally eat anything with wheat in but this trip I must say, It was hard not to! Parisians sure love their breads and pastries!}
note to self: get photos of breakfast off J's phone! {will post them when I have done so}
The first stop was at the local Marche up the road from us. We bought some yogurts, apples and juice to pop into the backpack hubby carried.
It was quite funny as the guy that was served before us, came back into the shop and said to the cashier {all in French obviously} that she must remember it is common courtesy to greet customers, say hello, thank you and goodbye and then he thanked her politely and walked out!
Her mouth was hanging open!!
I couldn't help but giggle!
One thing I found to be false...this theory about the French being rude. I think it is unfair to take a whole nation of people and generalize and brand them as "rude" or anything else for that matter. I am sure you do get rude people but then you get rude people everywhere!
One thing we found was that some people could mistake the way the French are sometimes abrupt or in a hurry-{especially in the restaurants} to be rudeness, but you realize they are just going about their jobs in the most precise, efficient way they can.
I love the way the French are 'people' people. They are sociable and you can see their whole way of life revolves around their genuine interest they have for each other. Take for instance the way you are greeted as soon as you enter the cafe or the Patisserie. {We got so into the habit of greeting and saying goodbye that we found it hard to stop when we got home and realized what a wonderful thing it is!} Now I find myself going the extra mile to greet people when I go about my daily errands. It makes such a difference.
Take for instance too the way they set their chairs and tables to all face the streets. So they can watch the crowds walking by while still holding a conversation with the person they are dining with. Strange for us to see, but so interesting how cultures differ!
The sheer amount of restaurants and cafe's tells you that they love to get together and socialize and I loved that about the City. There is always something going on!
Back to our day...
We went to the Hard Rock Cafe to get our 4-day Paris Pass cards. If you ever go to Paris for any amount of time longer than 3 days, do yourself a favor and get the Paris pass. It is wonderful! I haven't worked out if you really do save money, but you definitely just save a whole lot of time and frustration and waiting. We had free entry into all the museums, and a lot of the monuments like the Arc De Triomphe, an hour free ride on the Bateaux {boat} on the river. {unfortunately we just didn't get around to using it!}. All in all over 60 attractions, free use of the metro, RER, trams and bus's within zone 1-3 and a two day hop-on-hop-off bus tour of Paris and some other specials too.
So we started the hop-on-hop-off tour and got off and walked around when we wanted to.
I LOVE this photo! It reminds me of one of those Posters. I took this while we were on the bus tour, passing a chef school I suppose... {another example of their friendliness!}
We went to the Arc De Triomphe and went up it and looked out over Paris.
From there we went to Parc Monceau. We walked around, enjoying the warm weather and beautiful spring scenes.
We made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Took photos in the parks there nearby.
Had a cup of coffee on the bridge and watched the boats...
Asked a gentlemen to take a photo of us...he clearly thought the Eiffel Tower was more important than two silly tourists!
Dinner from there at 9pm and then back to the hotel.
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