The Roser Family: A Night in Paris

After a nice relaxing Sunday full of church and yummy home cooking Dave and I caught the high speed train Monday morning to Paris. Grammy, Pappa and Auntie Schwest were nice enough to offer up their time to watch baby David while Mommy and Daddy took a mini trip. Let's just say we were a little out of our element in Paris. Neither of us speak French and we came to realize very quickly that the streets in Paris are not well labeled. It was definitely an adventure but through nasty weather, getting lost and at points coming across like complete idiots we managed to have a nice time. Here are some highlights of our night in Paris.

The train got us into Paris around 1 PM and we headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. Dave is deathly afraid of heights, but was a trooper and went up to the 2nd viewing level. As you can tell from the last picture the view was not great. The rain and fog really limited what you could see. It was because of this that I did not go to the very top. I figured why pay the money and wait in an extra line to get up there and not be able to see anything? We then headed over to the Arc de Triomphe and preceded to walk down the Champs-Elysees. This was a little hectic considering it was the Monday before Christmas and the Champs-Elysees is basically where all the major stores are. We did not stay here long and I really did not take many pictures because of the chaos.

The Arc de Triomphe

At this point in the trip Dave and I were absolutely starving and would not mind finding a cafe to sit down at. So I had the brilliant idea of taking the subway to the Latin Quarter, which is by the Universite' Paris Sorbonne. This is where we ended up getting lost and you could probably imagine what it was like; two hungry Americans lost in Paris......not a good situation. Someone was looking over us because we happened to finally stumble onto this cute courtyard with Christmas lights and cafes. It even had a map that helped get us back on track. So we stopped here to have a beverage and then we were off to eat dinner at this cute cafe below.

Lost, and no that is not snow.....it was cold and rainy.

The cafe where we ate dinner.

A french bakery across from our cafe.

Happy now that we have full bellies and know where we are. Mode of transportation.....subway.

We found our way back to our hotel and felt that it would probably be in our best interest to hang out around a familiar area. So we spent the rest of the evening at a few different cafes enjoying drinks and conversation.

Yummy French Bordeaux

Tuesday morning we got up bright and early to hit a cafe for a croissants, crepes and coffee. We had planned on getting to the Louvre Museum early to beat the crowds, but we found out from our waiter at the cafe that it is closed on Tuesdays. I was SO bummed, my travel book that Dave picked up said that the Louvre was closed on Mondays. We are going to have to write Frommer's a nasty letter. We did enjoy the view from the outside and since it was a nice morning we decided to walk to Notre Dame Cathedral. We were tight on time because we had to catch the high speed train back to Germany at 1 PM. We tried to cram as much as we could into such a short trip, but there are still some things I would have loved to see and do. Maybe next time.