Day 4: Paris

Bonjour!  

We caught the Eurostar from St. Pancras this morning at 8:55 and made our journey through the Chunnel to Paris.

Riding the Eurostar

A note for the future:  go ahead an buy the Metro pass they offer on the train.  As soon as we made it through the turnstiles, we were heckled by teenage girls,wanting us to sign something to support....something.    Luckily, we had read in our guidebooks some of the tricks these pick-pockets will attempt.  It was frustrating getting our tickets at the ATM-like machine (which wasn't taking our cards initially and only accepted coins) and making our way onto a very crowded train.  It's a good thing our hostel was only one stop away.

Le Regent

Our tiny room.  We have a sink.  There are dorm-style showers/toilets.

After checking in at the hostel, we headed for Champs de Elyseesi.  We had lunch at an adorable little cafe, Chez Clement, near the Arc de Triomphe.  I wasn't in a picture-taking mood today.  I guess I'm getting tired of looking like a tourist.  But my lunch was surely worthy of a picture.  It was delicious.  I had the Steak de Canard (duck steak with a green pepper sauce).  A glass of wine was 15 cents more than a glass of water.....so naturally I had both : )  The best part of lunch was probably listening in on the conversations going on on either side of us....although we didn't understand one word of it!

We decided to hit Paris by foot, crossing the River Seine on our way to the Eiffel Tower.

But guess what?  Today just happens to be Bastille Day.

Don't we just have the greatest luck?  At this point, the police were everywhere, blocking the roads leading to the tower.  Apparently there are to be some major fireworks.  Too bad we're too annoyed to bother watching them.  I have never in my life seen so many police.  I guess we'll try to get closer tomorrow.  We took a few pictures as we made our way back (only stopping at one patisserie along the way).

Hopefully tomorrow will turn out to be a better day for seeing the sights.

Au Revoir