Day 14 - Paris [July 13, 2009]

This morning is was raining in Amsterdam. We checked out by ourselves with the computer and then had lunch in the lobby. Oh I didn't talk about the CitizenM lobby yet. It is not really a lobby it is more like a lounge. Nice sofas, iMac computers that can be used for free, large screen tv, bar open late, toilets that you can't tell which one is for the ladies and which one is for the gentlemen... really nice place.... again I recommand the hotel... and I don't think it was more than 80 euros a night. So we ate at the funky hotel and waited for the rain to stop... but it wasn't clearing out. We had to drop the bikes at 2pm and take the train to Paris at 4:30pm.While waiting Mike reached his cousin and we will have late drinks with her and her husbands tomorrow night.

We finally had to go dropped the bikes. It was about a 15-20 minutes bike ride. We got there completely wet. We had to bike with our huge backpacks and a smaller packs in the front. We were smart enough (well Mike was smart enough) to bring huge garbage bags so we were able to cover everythings. I wish we had taken a picture of ourselves...

I was hoping that we would meet up again with Kate in the afternoon before we left but the timing wasn't right and at the end couldn't see each other today. That's ok. I'm glad I got to see her on Friday.

We took the Thalys to get to Paris. This is a fast tain which is not that fast until Brussels but then we zoomed at 300km/h (192 mi/h). It is very comfortable to travel by train. The 4 hour journey went by fast.

When we arrived at Gare du Nord I got super excited. I was now in Paris. A place that I've been wanting to see for so long. The Eiffel tower, les champs Elysees, les jardins du luxembourg... A place where I can speak my first language... I was actually jumping around at the gare ready to spend the next 2.5 days in la ville des lumieres.

We checked in and then took the metro to l'arc du triomphe. Wow this thing is big! It was around 10pm when we got there so it was all illuminated. Stunning! It doesn't make the nicest pictures (especially with our little diginal cameras) but I have all the memories in my head... Then walking around l'etoile I saw it..the Eiffel tower...so pretty in the background glowing with lights. We had to go there now... we walked along les champs elysees for a while but I jus wanted to go to the tower. Mike wanted to take the metro there and I wanted to walk... so we walked :) I was being careful not to look at the tower as much as possible. Mike was to let me know when to turn around and see the whole thing. We got to les champs de mars, Mike gave me the ok to turn and there it was. Right there. Huge. Tall. Pretty. It is just a silly tower but for some reasons it is way more. I can't wait to go up in it. I want to take the stairs to the first level....I don't care ow long I will have to wait in line.

Mike conviced me to take the metro back to the hotel. I totally though that we could walk the 2 or 3 km to the hotel but it was around 12:30am at that point and Mike had already been a good sport walking to the tower without complaining too much :)

Back to the hotel I watched a little bit of french tv... some game show.. news.... I'm so happy to be here :)