Girls in Paris....day one.

I arrived in Paris last Wednesday morning only having slept on the flight

for about 3-4 hours. I dragged my tush through customs and wandered around

looking for Air France....since my friend Kim was arriving on that airline.

She stepped thru the door and it was like no time had passed since i had

last seen her in December.

No sooner had we hugged then she grabbed a piece of paper

out of her backpack and made me sign a confidentiality agreement.

yup.

Apparently she thinks i like to write....

and write details.

I signed the form and promised i would not bring up anything that

would implicate her in any way.

I was not going to talk about the bracelet she bought from a man that wouldn't leave her alone.

I would not tell everyone that she smoked her first french cigie.

I would not mention the blisters that encased her feet.

I was not going to talk about the fact that she wore Nike's like a tourist.

Nope.

I would not talk about the boudoir photo shoot that happened.

I definitely would not talk about the escargot shell that she was eating from

went flying across the room of a very nice restaurant.

No...

I would not bring any of that up.

This is the beauty of our friendship...

we're cool like that.

Besties till the end.

I hope you have a friend like that...

Anyhoo.....


we left the airport and hopped on the metro for Paris.


We thought we were so "french" to be able to walk right on over and


hop on the train all by ourselves without asking for help.


I mean really.....


all the tourists were in lines for the taxi or waiting for shuttles.


Not us.


We were taking the metro.


We jumped on...grabbed some seats and off we went.


Now let me just pipe in here for a minute and remind you that i don't speak


French....nor do i understand it.


Oh...i can get by all right...with my few basic words and knowledge..


but it really is quite embarrassing.


Kim is the girl that knows the language and i totally relied on her the entire trip.


She'll thank me later...


really...it was for her own good to travel with a novice...


i mean....


now she can consider herself fluent.


Ahem.


Where was i?


Oh...the metro.


Yes....we were on our way into Paris.


We were chatting along...catching up on old times....


when on the overhead speaker i heard the word...


STRIKE


now being the non french speaking part of the duo...


that is one word ..i believe...is the same in all languages.


STRIKE.


{i would later learn that workers in France strike for everything....}


Our train slowed down...and came to a stop at a station.


At this point....even though we heard the word strike...


we just thought we would let the people getting off here at this station


and carry on.


The weird thing was.....everyone got off but us.


We just sat there...looking at each other.


yup.


ho hum.


But then people started getting back on....


and we wiped our brows ...saying to each other...its fine...


we're off.


The problem was...


the train started heading back toward the airport.


I think this is the point where we looked at each other and were thinking


we should have just taken a taxi.


Like all the other tourists.


Anyway...


we hopped off at the next station...


and decided at that point...


to just take a taxi.

{free tip: there is nothing wrong with taking a taxi}

We made it to our hotel around 2 pm and the hotel was

located in the 5th arrondissment....and our hotel was very nice...

and very modern. We were about 6 blocks from The Pantheon....and walkable

to the 6th Arrondissement which was our favorite area. The 6th had small

shops and cafe's which did not have a tourist feel and felt very quaint.

As soon as we checked in.....

you got it...

we walked outside and on the corner was a darling cafe.

We parked ourselves...

ordered our first taste of Paris.

Luckily Kim loves wine as much as i do.

After our lounging at the cafe...

we started walking.

and walking...

and walking...

I loved seeing what people were wearing....

so much so...

that i took a ton of photos of fashion...

which i will post soon.

The men had amazing style...

the children darling.

I saw a lot of converse shoes on people...

so no need to fret if you are headed there to visit.

If you are worried about shoes...

just wear some converse.

Women had adorable dresses on...

with converse.

Men had suits....with converse.

This is Jean-Pierre....

and this is exactly how we found him.

Sitting in a window looking absolutely charming.

He was nice enough to let us take a photo of him.

I am a lover of architecture....

and there was nothing better then street after street

of gloriously old buildings and roof lines to photograph.

The first place we found ourselves at was The Pantheon.....

which had our very first view of the Eiffel Tour.

Building of The Pantheon was started in 1764 by architect

Jacques-German Soufflot.

There is not a lot of info in English and none on

it's famous residents are who are buried inside.

{quoted from my french guide book...}

I'm an architecture lover...not a history buff

oops.....

don't know how Jean-Pierre got here again..

but since he's back..

let's just marvel in his fashion sense...shall we.

From the Pantheon we headed over to the 5th....

where we found all sorts of bakeries and cafe's.

We were standing outside one bakery watching

the bread makers making bread when i casually mentioned to kim

that we need to somehow sneak inside and watch.

Kim so graciously agreed...

and she asked one of the bakers taking a smoking break if we could

peek inside.

The baker agreed and at that point we knew we were in Paris.

Standing in a bakers kitchen getting our first private baking class.

After our private tutorial...

he loaded us up with loaves of fresh bread to take with us.

He then offered to show us his apartment on the top of the 15th floor

of the building so we could get some roof line photos.

{ahem...}

okay...so he didn't really do that....but we thought it would have

been nice if he did.

I think maybe if Kim would have batted her eye's at him...

The floral shops were all amazing...

i don't think we passed by one that we didn't snap away at.

{you can even see Kim has her converse on below....

we were so French}

We ended up in front of Notre Dame.

Construction for this gothic style cathedral was started in 1163 and is

the symbolic heart of Paris. Napoleon was crowned here...and

many kings and queens exchanged marriage vows before it's alter.

{just some history being thrown out to you...}

Anyhoo....

as we were sitting outside enjoying the view...

and while kim was nursing a blister on her foot...

a lovely young man came up to Kim to chit chat.

Apparently he wanted to take her on a ride on his vespa.

{this is the part where i'm glad i don't speak a word of french}

It would be one thing if the guy was handsome...

because it would be funny since i'm obviously the tag along at this point

to see the both of us on the back of a vespa.

Kim would have gotten to wrap her arms around him...

and me.....

i would have had to wrap my arms around kim.

So glad the guy was bald and really short.

Kim delicatly declined the offer of a ride on his vespa back to our hotel...

so we decided to get going.

We made it back to the hotel and waited for our friend Simone to show up.
Simone was heading over from London to stay a few nights with us.

Once Simone got to the hotel and hugs were shared...

we headed out to dinner.

We asked our hotel for a recomendation for dinner..

and they told us about Le Coupe Chou.

We had happened to walk by it earlier in the day and had

found it totally charming from the outside.

It was one of our favorite restaraunts that we had tried.

One of the deals that kim and i made...is that we were going

to try new things.

We were so glad we did.

We all started off with escargot.

Now....i love escargot....and really...it's drowned in butter and garlic..

so how can you not love it.

If it weren't for the snail shells...you'd never know.

{this is the point where apparently a scene from the movie Pretty Women

takes place. Like i mentioned before...i won't tell you who did it...

but there was a little incident when a shell went flying across the room}

Luckily...the nice lady who's glass of wine the shell fell into was not upset.

I ordered Pigeon for my entree....

but it wasn't till the next day that i saw how abundent these birds are in the city.

So much so...

that i kept thinking of the song from the movie

Mary Popppins.

"feed the birds....tuppins a bag.....tuppins..tuppins..tuppins a bag...."

to be continued......