Paris Day 1

Bonjour,

Bright and early on February 19th Jacob and I left the palace at 5:45 a.m. to catch our bus into the city center of Edinburgh. That consisted of a half an hour bus ride and then we had to catch the Airlink bus to take us to the airport which was another half an hour bus ride. Jacob and I decided to fly AirFrance rather than Ryanair (discount airline) because we were too chicken to fly such a sketchy airline. Come to find out that AirFrance probably isn't much different compared to Ryanair except that we were allowed one piece of luggage which we didn't take advantage of anyways. We boarded our Cityjet by walking on the tarmac and up a flight of stairs. Actually walking outside and walking right onto the plane was a little odd. To our delight no one sat next to Jacob and I so we had 3 seats to ourselves. After our hour and a half flight we arrived in Paris, France at the Charles De Gaulle airport which is Paris' main one. We got off of our plane and had to take a shuttle to the main terminals which shows how huge the airport actually is.

Next it was time to figure out how to get to our hotel. Thank goodness I printed off the directions off the hotels website or it would have been a huge disaster. The directions suggested that we take the train into the city and that in itself was a challenge because Jacob and I never had taken the train before. We finally found out that we needed to take Train B into the city so it was time to get our tickets. Getting our tickets was a hassle because they wouldn't accept any of our American debit or credit cards so we had to go to an atm and get change. And not only did we need change for the machines but we needed exact change. They have something weird around here where everything needs to be exact change. Finally we got our tickets and boarded our train. There was a man on the train who had a mini boombox and sang some songs during our ride. Then he begged everyone for money which was annoying and we gave him some just so he would leave us alone. Once we got off the train our directions told us to take the metro so we got on our subway and we were on our way. Once we got to the stop where we had to switch subways we realized that the new subway we wanted to take wasn't in service (just our luck). Anyways we figured it out and finally made it to our hotel called Hotel Des Boulevards.

Thankfully the receptionist spoke enough English that we could understand eachother. We were in room number 17 and expected to have a bathroom in our room. Not the case. We had a queen sized bed, a sink, and a bidet which we were not going to use. There was a common bathroom on the floor below us which had a toilet and shower. The good thing was that only 3 rooms didn't have bathrooms so the common bathrooms were kept very clean. After dropping our bags off we decided that we were going to brave the 3.5 mile walk to the Eiffel Tower. On the way to the Eiffel Tower we found the "red light district" of Paris which I was not very fond of. I walked through it so fast especially because it was really dark in the alley.

We walked to the Louvre and saw it lit up at night. We didn't go in but it was pretty to look at. Then we walked to this bridge called the Pont Des Arts. This bridge is famously known for people who are in love to come and put a lock on the bridge and either chuck the key in the water or keeping the key so they can unlock it when they come back years down the road. I had read about this bridge prior to this trip so I made sure to purchase a lock so Jacob and I could add our own "love lock" to it. We carved our initials into the lock and the year. We chose a spot and locked it onto the chainlink bridge and chucked the key in the river. This bridge was probably one of the coolest things that we saw in Paris.

Next we walked to the famous Eiffel Tower. It was night time so the tower was all lit up and completely gorgeous. Although the closer we got to it the less appealing it became. There were rats running around the ground because of how much garbage there was. There were about 50 men trying to sell mini Eiffel Towers which got very annoying because every 2 seconds someone would beg us to buy one. The one thing that surprised us is that there were very little souvenier shops which was actually disappointing. We didn't go up the Eiffel Tower due to my fear of heights. I felt guilty because I am pretty sure Jacob wanted to and he didn't want to go alone. But we had a great time staring up at it.

We decided that it was time to go back to the hotel and find a place to eat dinner. We ended up taking the metro back because walking another 3.5 miles did not seem at all pleasant. We decided to eat dinner at none other than Pizza Hut. The main reason being the fact that we couldn't read any of the menus at other restaurants because they were all in French. Needless to say this pizza was the best pizza we have had in a long time. We are not sure if it's because we miss American food or if it was because the pizza in Scotland is thin crust, no seasoning in the sauce, and barely any cheese. It was kind of pricey for a chain restaurant but it was totally worth the money and we wanted to eat about three more of the pizzas!

That night we headed back to our hotel and prepared for another early morning....but we had no idea what was in store for us.

Love and Miss you,

Hayley and Jacob

All of the locks on the bridge

Jacob putting our lock on the bridge

Me throwing the key into the river

A huge ferris wheel

The Eiffel Tower

The disgusting rats at the Eiffel Tower

Jaocb and I at the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower sparkles every once and a while

Jacob

Myself

Really bad picture of the Louvre