Paris day 1

We got back last night from a short, three day trip to Paris. We took the train which was pretty nice. Although we learned that with international train journeys, you do need to treat it more like a plane than a train in that there is security and they have a check-in and start boarding twenty minutes before it leaves. We didn't realize this going there and we had some problems with the buses getting there such that we missed our train. So we talked to the guy behind the desk and even though it was a non-transferable ticket, he transferred it for us without a fee. Yeah! So we got in to Paris about a half an hour later than originally planned. Not too bad but then we weren't able to go to church. Bummer.

The Champs-Elysees. You can barely see the Arc de Triomphe in the middle. This is about half way of our walk.

By the time we got to the hotel, checked in and back into town, it was getting dark. We didn't really have anything planned for that afternoon other than to just walk around. We went to a park near the Louvre. There was a huge ferris wheel all lit up and a walkway with little shack shops also lit up. It looked all wintery and festive. We kept walking and the little shacks turned into big stores. There were a ton of people and the trees along the street were all decorated. We finally came to the Arche de Triomphe. Turns out we had walked down the Champs-Elysees, a long way down it. The Arche was huge but they were doing some sort of military thing in it so we couldn't walk through it, just around the back. I never did figure out what they were doing.

The cute shops.

We stayed in a cute hotel in the northern part of town in an area called Monmartre. It took a little while to get to all the sites but the hotel was near the metro and the area was cute. It was on a street with a whole bunch of fabric stores which were fun to walk past. They provided breakfast (which I believe all hotels should. I don't believe in staying somewhere that doesn't) which was surprisingly filling as it was pretty much just a croissant, yogurt, juice, and hot chocolate.

These cool spinny things a little back from the walk way. Jason had to try one.

We didn't have any problem getting used to the metro system. It's pretty much like all other systems. It's pretty old though. We were shocked when we noticed that you have to unlatch the door yourself for it to open and you can do it before the train comes to a complete stop.
The stations weren't the cleanest and there was a ton of graffiti. On the plus side, there were no topless women on the billboards. Maybe they are more of a summer thing. Another funny thing about the system is the maps. They actually show the lines superimposed on the map of the city. Most system maps just have straight lines for the routes so you don't actually know where they are in relation to what's above ground. This was nice but a little odd to see the lines take turns.

At the start of our walk before it got really dark. The buildings in the background reminded us of Philadelphia (they are what the library in downtown Philly was based on)