C'est la vie in Paris!

My dear Michael granted me my dream, and we took advantage of our "unemployment" to take off to Europe. Italy namely, but we flew in to Paris and were able to spend an amazing day and night there. As a child, I dreamed of Paris; then something about that whole "French people are rude and hate Americans" dissuaded me a bit from my creperie longings. But Paris was above and beyond what I expected. We LOVED it! The food was insanely great, and the city itself so beautiful and magical. As this city was my first taste of Europe, I have to admit there were a few teary moments as my breath was literally taken away by the beauty and history of the buildings. Doing Paris in a day was feasible, but I definitely plan to come back again for longer-girl trip, anyone?
We did a tour where we were able to go up the Eiffel Tower and eat lunch, then see the Arc de Triomphe, Cathedrale Notre Dame, Louvre, and then we had a sunset boat ride on the river Seine. We were able to spend a couple hours in the Louvre-it was beautiful on the outside, and held such amazing treasures on the in. The Mona Lisa is indeed much smaller than you'd think. After two nights of just minutes of sleep, Michael and I sat down on a bench for a little break at the Louvre, and before we knew it, we were both most likely snoring--completely out. Shortly after, someone stood above us and scoffed, "Sleeping at the Louvre? Pathetic..." Well, there's one person who spoke English, because it seems no one else did! We showed up on a day where the entire city was on a labor strike, so it took us only, um-three hours--to go the ten miles to our hotel. I guess my French is not as useful as I thought! The Eiffel at night was stunning as it lit up like a disco ball. We stayed at a Renaissance Marriott by the Arc de Defense--which was another pretty incredible building. A great start to a fabulous trip-more to come...