Merci Beaucoup!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Justine ordered Escargot

We traveled from London to Paris via "The Chunnel" a high-speed railway that is above ground half the time and under the English Channel the other half. I passed the time chatting with Justine and Alexa, both from California, and Beth from Fort Lauderdale (another person to visit in Florida, yay!) The time went by quickly and a short 3 hours later we arrived in Paris. We arrived at our hotel, "Hotel B&B" by 5 p.m. Our rooms have been getting nicer with each passing country and we were pleasantly surprised that these rooms had lofts upstairs with two twin beds and a double bed downstairs. I was assigned to room with Gabbie and Brenda, both from Jersey, and Amanda from Texas.

Notre Dame at Sunset from the Seine

I appreciate how in each country, the first thing we do as a group is figure out the public transportation together and the location of our hotel in relation to downtown. We did this by traveling to Notre Dame Cathedral. After oohing and awwing at the soaring towers and stained glass panels of Notre Dame, I crossed the bridge (Notre Dame Cathedral is located on a small island!) to the Left Bank for dinner with Justine, Alexa, and Beth. We ate directly in front of Sorbonne, the prestigious Paris university that is lucky enough to have the Pantheon just a few blocks away. Our waiters were all very patient with us and helped to improve my notion of the "snotty French." They taught us a few phrases in French and even offered to take our pictures. We weren't prepared for just how the slow the French take their meals so we had to hurry to meet up with our group back at Notre Dame cathedral for our evening cruise along the Seine.

View of the Eiffel Tower from the Seine river

We hurried to meet the rest of our group in front of Notre Dame Cathedral for a cruise along the Seine. We chugged along past the Louvre and the Eiffel tower. The Louvre was so massive that it was impossible to take a picture of the entire thing. The Eiffel tower was beautiful seen from the boat and I was completely taken by surprise when it started sparkling. Apparently, once an hour, on the hour, the entire Eiffel tower lights up and sparkles like a giant Christmas tree for about 5 minutes. We ended the night with drinks at a small Scottish pub whose veterans were deeply involved in shouting out trivia questions.