📍Paris, France 🇫🇷

Day 1: After stuffing our faces as quickly as possible, we quickly left breakfast in Brussels and rushed to the train. We made it to the train and we were off to Pairs!

We arrived in France and had to wait in line for Metro tickets to get to our Hotel, Hotel Korner Eiffel. While waiting, a woman who was clearly MIA the last two years was standing ON TOP of us. ZERO personal space. When we finally got tickets, we had to go through a little gate (standard metro gate where you enter your ticket and the little doors open for you to go through). Well, the gates were VERY quick to close and the lady that was practically hugging us got stuck while trying to go through. HAHAAA!

We safely made it through the gate, unlike others, and we were finally on the way to the hotel. We quickly put our stuff down and headed out to explore. Seeing as my mom is Paris‘ #1 fan, she gave us a very detailed itinerary to follow. We went to the Luxembourg Gardens, but we got there a bit too late and they were closed. We could see the gardens through the gate, but it was not the most perfect start of the trip. Audrey changed that by getting herself some macaroons.

We then walked through the Latin Quarter, stopped by Notre Dame, and walked over Pont Neuf Bridge (at this point, I took a little tumble…the curb was higher than it looked and I went down). We did a quick stop at the Louvre (but did not go in), walked through the Tuilerie Garden, and ended up at yet another Christmas market.

The pasta at the Christmas market was made in a cheese block and that deserves a full video on this blog (and perhaps a medal of some sort).

We were in a bit of a rush to get to the Catacombs and Audrey hadn’t finished her sausage. We were taking the metro and she wasn’t sure food was allowed on board. I had tasted the sausage and it was not going in the trash.

We made it to the Catacombs on time and the sausage survived the journey. Time to see some underground bones. We went to the biggest catacomb in the world! It’s 800 meters and took about 30-45 minutes to walk through. Per the internet, the “population is six million.”

We had a full day already, but we couldn’t be in Paris and not see the Eiffel Tower. Cue our photo shoot. Side story: we were walking to the Eiffel Tower and passed two cops. I think they had just busted one of the street vendors for something and so took their goods. As we passed them, they said something in French, which we clearly didn’t understand, and then proceeded to hand Audrey and I a Paris magnet. Thank ya cop, apologies to the busted vendor.

Yes, the Eiffel Tower is a Paris must, but so are crepes. We did the most tourist thing and went to a café close to the tower and had ourselves very overpriced, but delicious crepes, soup, and mulled wine.

And on that note, our day was complete! We walked back to the hotel and crashed.

Day 2: Junie, Audj, and I started our day with a walk to Rue Cler and a quick stop at the tower to see her during the day. We came across what felt like a local bakery and I had a very delicious quiche. We stumbled across a little market so we tasted the crepes (strictly to compare). Turns out, the cheaper ones taste just as good.

We walked to Champs-Élysées and roamed around for a bit. My mom had told us about a Stranger Things pop up, so we made a quick stop there as well.

We had been wondering around for a while and it was pretty cold. We ventured to find a cafe, which was somehow harder than it should have been, and once we did things went very wrong. First, I ordered a hot chocolate and half way through, I found a bug. Next, Junie had ordered an avocado snack and the waitress somehow thought he asked for mozzarella and cheese? Common mix up. Audrey wanted to fit in with the series of unfortunate events, so she joined in by spilling her entire juice all over her clothes, the table, and the floor. Cafe Richard wasn’t for us, but at least the avocado was pristine.

We met up with J and went to the Arc De Triomphe for some afternoon views.

We made our way to Sacre Coeur, stopped at Moulin Rouge, and then got a little baguette in town to have with some cheese I brought. I was in fact walking around the city with a block of cheese in my pocket and was just waiting for the right baguette.

We went back to the hotel (well most of us did, J explored some underground shops, bars, etc.) to rest a little. The hotel offered afternoon croissants as a snack so, of course, we had some.

J found an amazing restaurant for us to go to, but if I went one more day without laundry I would have been asked to leave the country. So, J and I did laundry while Junie and Audrey went to the restaurant and brought food back to me. J wanted to eat at the restaurant so, after laundry, he had a quick, probably peaceful, and quiet meal at Exotica.

And that wraps up our two days in Paris. We had a lot of steps, saw a lot of things, and ate some good food.

Outtakes…(not pictured: the fact that our most expensive meal was a crepe haha, whoops.)