Day 1-Arriving in Paris

Friday Aug. 29

I took a shuttle down from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake City Thursday morning after dropping RJ off at Preschool. I said good bye to Sammie (Jared’s mom) who was kind enough to fly out to watch the kids for us. I then tried to hold the tears back as I gave Savannah a hug good bye. She was screaming her head off. It was very sad. I made it down to Utah in 3 ½ hours and had another 2 hours to wait to board the plan. My plane went straight from Salt Lake to Paris. It took 9 ½ hours and was happily uneventful.

I took a sleeping pill but was still unable to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. The plane was completely full so there was very little room to move about and stretch. I was thankful when we hit ground arriving in Paris at 10:40 am, Friday. My baggage was one of the last to unload from the plane and I was the last to find my way to the waiting shuttle to take me to the hotel.

On the shuttle my first views of Paris were from the Freeway. I first saw an IKEA and then a McDonald's. The traffic was very heavy and their was tag all over the halls lining the freeway. It reminded me a lot like Oakland, CA. After passing an accident on the other side of the freeway, the traffic picked up. No different then the States.

Our hotel was situated on a little one way street in downtown Paris. It was a very nice, small, 4 star hotel that I would very highly recommend, if you could afford it. The company was paying for our stay or we might not have been able to afford it. I took a three hour nap after checking in as I waited for Jared to arrive. I was so tired and drained from the day’s events.

Once Jared arrived we walked down to a nice little French restaurant. I had the duck which was excellent and Jared had some sort of sea food, I really can’t remember. The atmosphere was everything I excepted. From outdoor seating along the cobble streets with candle light to the accordion players serenading the pedestrians. The musicians seemed to route restaurant to restaurant playing and asking for money from each table.

After our salad and entrées we enjoyed a delicious desert. It was some find of cream puff but it contained a vanilla ice cream in the center instead of regular cream. And then the top was drizzled with the most delicious hot chocolate sauce I have every had.

The dinner setting was so much different then what you would find in the states. The mood was slower. They didn’t rush you from one course the next. The bread appetizers was heavenly but not extremely filling like when you go to olive garden and fill up on bread before the main course. The portions were smaller but not tiny. After three courses I did not fill full or stuffed at all. I believe their food is prepared in a much more healthy way then our food in the States is. And when we were all finished we sat around for the check and even had to ask for it. They were in no hurry to rush us out for another guest. The dinner took about 2 ½ hours. Probably the longest meal I have ever had.

After the meal we walked around the streets of Paris for an hour, before I was just too tired and had to get to bed. My first impression of Paris is that it was just like any other big city. Lots and lots of tall building all pushed together. The first floor of each building was some sort of shop and the tops were all businesses or apartments. People were out at late hours enjoying the night life. I wasn’t too impressed at first. It looked somewhat like San Francisco or what I would imagine New York to look like. That night we looked at the map and realized if we had walked the opposite direction we would had found the river and the beautiful buildings you would normally think of when you thought of Europe.

The sign of our hotel all lite up. You can tell from the little street that it was very busy with people at 11pm. Luckily our Hotel room was in the back of the building and very quite.