The Start of an Adventure

      Our first day in Paris, and of course the full day before spent traveling, began a series of many discoveries and "adventures." After our 4-hour layover and 8-hour flight, we at last made it to our destination--exhausted but excited. As someone who has never travelled internationally, even the airport was a bit of a culture shock. There were people everywhere, very few of them speaking English, and they all seemed to know exactly where they were going and appeared to be in a hurry about it. We fell right in step though and lugged our bags onto the metro. 

      It took about twenty minutes to get to our hotel stop, and along the way I got my first glimpses of the city. This portion was nothing like I expected--it was dirty and te buildings were pretty boring and covered in graffiti. I assumed that this was just a rougher part of Paris and kept my expectations high. 

      Our hotel, the Herse d'or, is in the Bastille district. There are a lot of shops and tons of traffic around. We walked around searching for lunch and got rained on. The Parisians seemed unaffected by the weather however, so we didn't let it stop us either. 

(Bastille)

      Later in the afternoon, we hopped on the metro once again and travelled near the Opera house to by our tickets for te museum. This district is much closer to what I expected Paris to be like--the architecture was absolutely beautiful and the buildings towered over the charming streets. We once again got heavily rained on and learned the value of a hot cup of coffee in Paris. Finally the weather was too much and we decided to head back to the hotel. 

(Opera house)

   After a dinner with Kim Zerkel, where I was very please to find some American-type food as well (I wasn't exactly ready to jump head first into French culture), we visited the palace and park where Louis XIII got engaged. 

      Exhausted, wet, and cold, yet still enthrall and excited in Paris, we went to bed to regain our energy for the rest of the trip! 

Lesson of the day: Crosswalk lights mean it! If you don't wait for the walking sign, you will most assuredly get run over.  Paris drivers have places to be.