Day 9: Dans le ville de Paris Whoops! We got a little bit of a late start today at 11:00 when Amber said it was time to get up. We got up and had a quick brunch and then packed up all of our dirty laundry (yes, we were tres domestique today) and walked it down to the local lavier automatique (Laundromat). Here we were greeted by an automated system that took a while to figure out, but in the end it was really easy to figure out. There is a central control panel that you insert your money and pick the machine that you need and it will start automatically. The water here is all the way from 30 degrees Celsius to 95 degrees (That’s some hot water). We got all of our clothes washed, dried and folded and returned to the apartment. The dryers here dried all of our clothes in 20 minutes, so the whole experience took only about an hour. We got back to the apartment at about 1:00 and I took all of the stuff that needed to be ironed, and got the iron and board out and took care of that while it was on my mind, plus I needed something to wear out tonight. We at a really early supper tonight at about 4:00. Amber fixed penne pasta with Bolognese sauce that was outstanding. We have found a new type of sauce for pasta! After being so domestic, we showered and go re-dressed and went out on the town. We had reservation for the Eiffel Tower at 8:00 so we had until then to just explore the city. We headed out and found a Haagen Dazs where we had a really good desert made of 3 different types of ice cream and I don’t know what all… but it was GOOD! We kept walking and eventually found our way to Trocodero and right over by the Eiffel Tower. We got there a little bit after 6 so we had almost 2 hours until our reservation so we just strolled up the Champ du Mars and took in the sites. We happened upon a creperie and ordered a crepe with sugar (For those of you who don’t know, a crepe is a really thin pancake about the size of a car tire, folded in quarters and ours was filled with sugar but you can get anything in it you want) and took it and munched on that as we made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped at a lot of the small souvenir boutiques and again were bombarded by the “non-official” guys. Twerps. About 7:45 we decided to head over and go ahead and get in line for our reservation time (Thank goodness we got there when we did, because we made it just in front of a big group going up to the top). We made it through security and made our way to the inclivator (because the bottom portion of the tower doesn’t go straight up). From there we had to wait in line AGAIN to get on the elevator all the way to the top. Once at the top, the view was breathtaking (and REALLY windy). We made it up to the top by 8:30 and the sun was going down, so it was right in our faces, but we were at the top of the Eiffel Tower so we made do. Amber and I also had a glass of champagne at the top and just took in the view (I’ll post all of our pictures once home but I’ll include a couple tonight). We met another couple celebrating their 10th anniversary as well, so we told them we’d see them back in 10 years! We slowly made our way back to the different levels (as you start at the top and work your way down) and eventually made it back to ground level. We decided from there to head over to Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame is so we hopped the train from Champs du Mars to the Notre Dame station. We came out of the station and walked across the bridge towards the cathedral. We got just a couple of pictures of Notre Dame but it was starting to get dark (at 10:00), finally we decided to head on back to the apartment and get ready for tomorrow. We’re hitting the museums the next few days so we can’t stay up as late and sleep in as much so it’s off to bed and we’ll see what tomorrow brings!
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:14:13 +0000