Day 1: Saturday June 4th

Bonjour!

To start off our trip, my mother (Karen), my father (Larry), and I left Miami airport around 9 o'clock Florida time. My brilliant father decided we needed to be at the airport 3 hours early to make sure nothing went wrong; so we arrived and got checked in by 6:20 and had almost three hours on our hand to basically sit in front of our gate and wait. Of course, my techy famille all pulled out our handy dandy smart phones to surf the web which immediately ate our battery life for dinner. So I retired to a quiet little corner underneath some pay phones to try and at least get our batteries up to 50% (later on we found out that we didn't have a power converter to charge our phones or camera's until we met up with my brother for the second time later that week). While sitting in that corner the British flight nearby started to announce that it would be loading soon. After a few minutes the announcer begins cracking jokes over the intercom in his strong British accent to amuse the boarders. Once I finally sifted through the tiny language barrier I heard him announce "Would guest Victoria Beckham please make her way to the desk?" Naturally everyone began whispering and looking around. Moments later he announces again "Also Simon Cowell." Pretty funny guy right there. Let's just say the were definitely not in the airport.

Finally it was time to board. At least we think. We were flying a French airline and they decided to announce only in French. Now hear me out...I have only had 2 years of beginners French and my folks basically think I can carry on a full out conversation with an advanced Parisian easy, piece-o-cake. Not exactly the case. So they began speaking in French announcing who was supposed to be boarding. We decided it was best to just wait until no one was in line and try and get on.

During a flight to Europe you are supposed to sleep as much as you can in order to creep up on jet lag and not let it kill you. Well our flight happened to have 2 screaming babies and a terrible two's toddler. So I'm pretty sure I only slept 2 hours. Not so great for our trip.

We had told my brother (Kody - who has been studying abroad in Cergy, France for 6 months) to pick us up from the bus station and plan our entire first day there in order to keep us awake. Let's just say by the end of the day...jet lag was raping me.

We started off by trying to find the guy we rented our apartment from. Turns out our place was on the 4th floor of this small little place in the middle of a quaint cozy avenue in Paris' back streets. There was 88 steps to get to our room…quite a leg workout overnight when you are exhausted. The avenue was filled with stores from bakeries to world famous restaurants and we ended up buying our daily duex baguette from the man across the street. So convenient. Did I mention the Super Marche was one door away?

I was surprised that we even found our way back every night…Paris' back streets are VERY confusing and easy to get lost in if you don't understand their system. Thankfully my brother was becoming a local, sort've. All in all we rarely spent anytime on our avenue anyways, we were out and about from 8 -11 each night. But we did spend quite a bit of time trying to navigate the metro and the streets once my brother left after the first night to go back to Cergy. One thing we've learned is don't trust the locals…because they might say they speak English but you end up only understanding half their directions and end up doing only that half and end up in Purse Street Europe (more on that in a later blog post).

One thing you should also know about Paris is that it doesn't even get dark until 11 or 12 each night. The world in Paris seems to come alive right around 9 p.m. which is mid afternoon CO time. So naturally my jet-lagged body tended to come wide awake every night when I should have been falling asleep. Oh well.

To begin, Kody took us to one of the local cemeteries to see the thousands of graves of rich and famous people. It basically dates back to the 1800s or even a few from before then. It's crazy and some of the really old ones, the stone is split in half or the writing isn't even on them anymore. Sketchy and haunting. We found a few that were probably 2 stories high of just cement. It was like having your own personal National Monument. One included was the writer Oscar Wilde. I don't know how many of you have been to his grave but basically fans of his come from around the world to basically get their lips on it. It is covered top to bottom with red and pink lipstick messages and lips; basically they all wanted to show their appreciation of the great author. It's actually really cool but weird and germ-a-phobes probably would instantly start with their handy dandy Mr. Clean spray before they even considered placing their lips, let alone a finger, on the grave. For a few of my fellow Harry Potter fans…I found the Lupin Famille grave and a pure white casket that could have easily passed for Dumbledores resting place. Also the composer Chopin is buried here.

Oscar Wilde's grave. Notice the markings behind.

Dumbledore's grave

After that we ate our first family traditional meal of baguettes, cheese, and meat. It was delicious! To follow up on the meal we made our way through the metro and to Paris' main attraction - The Eiffel Tower. It was a gloriously beautiful day with blue skies so after a round of pictures we sat in by the fountains in front of the Tower for an hour before deciding to see if we could climb the Tower itself. Meanwhile the local Parisians..or maybe the tourists….decided it was a good idea to swim/wade/lounge in the fountains. One girl even went in with her skinny jeans on while her friend decided to go in wearing a fancier party dress. Yea, we didn't understand either

One of the most amusing things of this trip was watching the local policemen chase the vendors selling keychains out from underneath the Tower. You would be sitting there and then all of the sudden you see these men fast-walking their way to the nearest out while the police are following calling "Monsieur! Excuse-moi, MONSIEUR!' Definitely entertaining. But then again…almost anything can be entertaining when you are waiting two hours in a line to get in the Tower and feel like falling asleep right there on the street. Word to the wise…make sure you have caffeine to keep you awake if you plan to sight see the day you arrive in Europe.

Remember how I told you it doesn't get dark until later…well at this time is was about 9 when we were on our way up and it was basically a blue sky with a few clouds. My the time the elevator had taken us to the 2nd level it was windy and reports of lightening were seen. So they had to close the ride from the 2nd floor to the top for 30 minutes. By the time we got into the elevator to take us to the top it was finally dark and we watched from the elevator as the Tower was eluminated and began it's first 5 minute sparkling show of the night. Overall it was quite a sight…truly amazing. We stood at the very top watching the Tower's sky beam and lightning fill the sky while enjoying the view of the city below for a peaceful first night in Paris. That is…until it started pouring and we had to walk throughout he rain to the metro..down a street and grab dinner and then continue walking in the rain all the way home. You really should see a Paris rainstorm..the lightening can make it look like day time and when the rain starts, it pours…relentlessly.

Family portrait on the only nice weather day!

So cool!

Tower light show