Ramblings of an Indecisive Mind: Part I: Day 1

J'adore. For reals.

Paris is pretty beautiful. I even gasped, jokingly, when I saw the Eiffel Tower ... but it wasn't really a joke. It is pretty amazing looking!

So, let me back up a bit and start from the beginning. We left for our adventure on July 9th at 7pm. We had a late night flight on Air Transat that was fairly uneventful. I ate some half decent penne and watched Just Go With It with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler (predictable, but cute) and started my book (The Help). We landed in Paris early in the morning, grabbed our luggage while chatting with Veneza, Matthew and Gabriel (friends of our friends who were getting married in Croatia). We had no idea we were going to be on the same flight, so that was fun. We hopped in a cab and headed for our hotel which was about 25 minutes from the airport.

Upon our arrival at the hotel, we checked in and were given a key to our room. We thought that was pretty sweet, considering it was only about 9:30am, and check-in wasn't supposed to be until 3pm. We head up the three flights of stairs and walk into our room. This is what we saw:

And this is what we were expecting to see (as per their website...)

Different? I think so! Where were the bold, brightly coloured curtains, striped walls and damask carpet? All those things that were the sole reason I chose this hotel! Not in our room, that's for sure. I was trying not to sulk and played it off like I didn't care and we really weren't going to be spending much time there anyways, but the hubs knows me too well. That, and he probably didn't want to hear me complain for the next two days about wishing we had a renovated room (which according to most reviews, ALL rooms are supposed to be renovated and I can say for sure that the Hotel Peyris Opera website only shows their funky rooms and not the old, outdated ones).

So, I went back downstairs and sweetly said to the man, "I hate to be a pain, but the room you gave us looks nothing like what your website shows online. Not that it really matters, but we did pick this hotel simply for the way the room looks." Call me superficial, but whatever - I wanted one of those rooms! He kind of rolled his eyes a bit, looked confused, ~~pretended he didn't know English~~, searched his computer and finally said, "Another room will not be available until 2pm." Ok, done! We returned our original key to him, said sayanora to the first room, put our bags in storage and headed out to see Paris!

Without a map. Eeek. And it was Sunday. Double eeek.

So, we ate breakfast. Pretty sure the waiter thought I was nutso for leaving him a 4€ tip. I am still unclear as to whether tipping in Europe is common practice, but he seemed to be quite happy with that, so I'm ok with it.

Then, we walked and walked and walked - saw some beautiful things, although we weren't sure what they were....

We kept walking and we'd see signs like this:

Not confusing at all, right? We'd pick one, walk that way, then come across another sign just like this that had the same thing we were looking for and an arrow pointing back towards the same direction we came from!

Most things were closed - I guess because it was Sunday. If they were open, I am pretty sure I would've been in shopping heaven! There were tons of little boutique stores everywhere, but sadly, all I got to do was window shop

We made it to the Seine River, snapped a couple pics and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel and see if our new room was ready.

So tired at this point....

We got back to the hotel, got our new keys and bam - stripes, colour, damask!!!!

We napped, showered (finally!), and got ready to head out to see the Eiffel Tower. When we were leaving, there was a different guy at the desk who was so helpful. He gave us each a map, highlighted where exactly the hotel was, explained how to use the Metro and sent us on our way.

We took the Metro and twenty minutes later, we stepped off the train, followed the crowd and finally saw it! Yay!!!

We took so many photos of the tower; not lit up, lit up, sparkling, just the hubs in front, just me, us, us kissing. Ridiculous really! I'll spare you most of them, but here are a few of my faves.

We ate dinner at Cafe Trocadero, which was in a little strip of restaurants right near the Eiffel Tower. The french onion soup and creme brulee were amazing!