"We arrived in Paris one year ago, it was the turn of the century and..." Wait, sorry wrong story! We arrived in Paris two evenings ago. But first we stopped in Frankfurt, Germany. We had a couple of hours to kill so we left the station and wandered around until we found an interesting place for dinner. It was an Australian bar/grill called Kakadu. When I say Australian, I mean it! Heather had kangaroo for dinner!! I went for the Frankenfurter braut (yay Rocky Horror!). I tried the kangaroo too, it was pretty good! I will never see a kangaroo in the same way...
We arrived in Paris just before reception closed at our hostel. It was a 440 bed hostel (biggest in France!) It had a cafeteria area and tv lounge on the main floor, bar/ dance club, laundry room, lockers, and movie theatre in the basement and 10 floors of dorms!! As usual, we arrived and everyone in our room was asleep. We rumaged around in the dark and found our beds, got changed and went to sleep. Heather always sleeps on the top bunk, but I think its harder to dress your bed that way. I'm good on the bottom bunk :)
In the morning we got ready, had breakfast (hostel breakfast: cereal, deli slices and bread), did a load of laundry and headed out to tour the city. We started our site seeing tour in Montmarte. Its just north of central Paris and is home to my favorite place! As soon as we got off the Metro I started singing 'Complait de la Butte' and as we rounded a corner to the Sacre Couer a street performer was playing that song on the accordian! I tipped her for her obvious great taste in music. The Sacre Couer was as beautiful as I remembered. The view of Paris from atop the infamous steps is stunning. We sat and ate some snacks, taking in the view, then it was off to my favorite destination!!
We had to ask for directions because it wasn't marked on the map, but as soon as I had a visual of the red windmill I went run-walking down the street, dragging H behind me. Yes, the Moulin Rouge is awesome in real life. I took a few pictures (or 20) and we sat and admired the view for a while. When I first came to Paris I was 15 and with a school group, so the Moulin Rouge was NOT on our tour. But this time I even went inside!! (To the box office area, not the stage area) Then my amazing wifey took me to the official Moulin Rouge boutique!! I looked around for about 30 minutes until I decided on a red coffee mug with the famous windmill logo on it. (OMG I want coffee now!)
From the Moulin Rouge we left Montmarte and went to the catacombes deep below the city streets. I had never been, and nothing could have prepared me for the emensity of the crypts! The catacombes are gorgeous/eerie and enourmous. There are bones stacked floor to ceiling, room after room, corridor after corridor. We couldn't find a figure of how many corpses there are but we over heard a man saying it was over a million. No matter how many there are, its insane. I'd never touched a human skull before, but if I continue with Forensic Anthropology I will be doing it for a living!! Heather and I, of course, we looking at skull ridges, bone size, type of bone, etc. A very anthropological-scientific approach. The catacombes are so big that we walked straight through at an average pace and it took 50 minutes!
From the crypts we went to Notre Dame to take pictures, play with gargoyles, ring the bells, fall in love with a Gypsy princess...the usual. From there it was on to L'Opera! Made famous by 'The Phantom of the Opera' the actual opera house is just stunning. We missed the last tour of the day so we walked the perimeter and admired all of the sculptures and what not. Continuing on our ridiculous site-seeing extravaganza we went to the Champs-Elysses. Starting from the Obelisque we tried to snap shots of the Louvre but it was closed for the night. So we bought some crepes (sugar/butter for me, Nutella and banana for H) and began our meandering.
We purused shops here and there, then while walking out of the Disney store we heard screaming from across the street. Come to find out, the French premiere of 'Abduction' was taking place at the movie theatre on the other side of the street! We darted over to join the screaming tweens and sure enough, about 15 minutes later Taylor Lautner himself arrived and went strolling down the red carpet!! We took some great pictures, seeing as we were maybe 20 yards away!! Heather was overly excited because she had never seen a celebrity in real life before. I'm glad coincidence put us in the right spot at the right time! Heather was giddy the rest of the night. Taylor is just as adorable (if not more so) in person!
We finished our celebrity tour of the Champs-Elysee at the Arc de Triomphe. By this time it was lit up and we sat on a bench admiring it from outside the scariest traffic circle I know. After our feet were rested we found a Metro stop and went to our final site...Le Tour de Eiffel. The tower is one of the most beautiful monuments at night. I re-created my "falling off the tower" picture from last trip! And we sat and watched the tour sparkle on the hour. What a wonderful way to end our whirl-wind tour. (Can I please note that we did everything on our site-seeing tour in eight hours!!! Most people take 3 days for all of these sites. It was exhausting!)
We got back to our hostel and passed out! What a great day in gay Paris!
Safe Travels,
- Kit & Heather
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