Bad Tour Guides

day 72 // paris

What a productive first day we had in Paris! We woke up (even slept in a little… well I did anyway) and had breakfast at a cute little place right across the street from our apartment. We had the "American style" breakfast (HA) which was a coffee, an orange juice, a baguette, a croissant, scrambled eggs, canadian bacon, yogurt with fruit, and toast. They don't jip you on the early morning carbs that's for sure. Then we took the metro across town to the stop that (we thought) was closest to Notre Dame. When we finally got to it, my mom pointed out it out and I started taking pictures. There were no gargoyles which we thought was odd, but my mom assumed they had taken them off to clean them. Well long story short, it wasn't Notre Dame. It was just a random church. This actually continued to happen throughout the day. Shelly and my mom we convinced they knew where everything was and that they were basically top-notch tour guides. We joked that Paris had moved some buildings and monuments around since they had both been here last and that even the maps are wrong. But I just let them continue to think they knew what they were talking about for the rest of the day ;) We found this awesome little vintage second-hand store and I got this adorable vintage leather bag. As we ventured to our next stop, we stopped to take a selfie in front of this really pretty, old building and this random guy with a mask on jumped in and scared us. He didn't make the photo unfortunately, but certainly got a jump out of us. Finally we found the REAL Notre Dame. There was a huuuge line to go inside so we decided to skip that part. Seeing the outside was good enough for me, it's so pretty and the whole area around it is just gorgeous. I took lots of pictures. Then we walked across the love-lock bridge. Again, lots of pictures. Then we came across a ton of street vendors selling super old, cute little vintage books, postcards, and posters. In our apartment here in the bathroom there are towel hooks make from old books (I think I told you this yesterday), so Shelly and I decided to get some books so that we could duplicate the project at home! I also got some super cool vintage postcards that I want to do something cool with. Then we walked through this really pretty garden which we later found out was Medieval Paris. We stopped by Shakespeare's bookstore and had a bite to eat right next door. My mom had the French delicacy croque madame while Shelly and I had dinner crepes. It was sooo so yummy. Then we walked around the a little. We fell in love with this small street with cute shops and patisseries, so we walked that one twice. Then we made our way to the Ponte Neuf where we took pictures of the sun going down over the buildings and the Eiffel Tower from a distance. Then we visited the Louvre and took some fun pictures with the big infamous pyramid. From there we could see the Arc de Carousel and through that arch we could see the Arc de Triumph. We're going to see the Arc de Triumph up close tomorrow, but it was cool that we could see it from the Louvre. Then we took the metro home! Like last night, we went onto our terrace at every hour to watch the Eiffel Tower light up and sparkle. Still unreal that we can see it from our apartment. Can't wait for another day in Paris tomorrow - I am LOVING it all so far. We saw so much today, but still have to see the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph up close. GET READY FOR LOTS OF PICTURES IN THE NEAR FUTURE.