I am back kids and bottom line is... I loved it. It was AMAZING! It was a great trip. I cannot say enough to describe how awesome it was. Instead of babbling about it... I will tell the story.
Day #1.
Arrive in Paris at about 7 a.m. My passport does NOT get stamped. I was pissed. Not a great start to my awesome weekend. Whatever. Get on the train. Get off the train, at the wrong stop. As I try to exit the station, my ticket doesn't seem to work (apparently you have to run your ticket through the machine again to get out). So this grampa guy tries to do me a favor by letting me "piggyback" off of his exit and although I follow him out the gate quite closely, my backpack gets stuck in the closing doors. Great... all I need is to get stuck in some French jail. Low and behold, the man helps me rescue my backpack... I know he was regretting helping me. Close call.
Once I find my way back to the hotel...or should I say, by the time I find my way back to the hotel, it is about 10:30 a.m. I told you I got off at the wrong stop! Anyway... I go to check in and the room won't be ready until 2 p.m. I check in my luggage and scurry off into the city to explore and do general recon. It it chilly and rainy in *gay Paree*. I didn't wander off too far before I decided to try to get lunch. They didn't start serving lunch at most restaurants until 11:45 a.m. So I went about trying to get some good pictures. The architecture alone could use up most of my 2 gig memory chip. 11:45, time to eat. So I did. By the time that meal was over, it was about 1 p.m. and I decided to go wait in the hotel lobby. I was cold and very tired. So I sit. I don't realize it, but I doze off... that is until mr. hotel manager guy wakes me up telling me that I can't be sleeping in the hotel and that I must move on. I realize that this dude thinks I'm some gypsy or something... trying to catch some z's before hitting the streets at night... Hah! I tell him that it is HIM I am waiting on, to get my freaking room ready. He apologizes and goes to check on my room.
I get to the room. Drop my stuff on the ground and immediately jump in the shower. I can't figure out how to turn the heater on, so instead use the hair dryer to warm the room up. I try to take a nap but keep having nightmares about cheese? That I believe is a "work" issue that I have. Anyway, Tony told me that Mabelle and Emma were running late. Well... by 9:30 p.m. I was getting worried enough to call Tony back when they walk through the door! Yay! Our adventure can officially begin! After they take a few minutes to decompress and wind down, we head off to dinner. It is now 11 p.m. We go to a local restaurant, and although we were basically ignored at the door for a good 15 minutes, we get seated. Let's not forget that smoking is allowed, practically condoned in ALL public places. I feel this is their way of weeding out the Americans. Gross! We are sitting at the table for about 20 minutes, no lie, before the waiter comes to greet us. No shit. Then he hands us menus, in French of course. Now, the menu outside was also in English, so why does he have to mess with us like this? Mabelle and I go back outside to decide what we want to eat for dinner. We memorize the menu so that we can also advise Emma. We order. For 34 euros we get a starter, a main dish, dessert, coffee, a glass of champagne and a bottle of wine. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Well... our starter gets there at about 12:30 a.m. I got escargot. Very good. Then our main dish comes at about 1:15 a.m. I got a rack of lamb. Delish! Dessert came at about 2:30 a.m. I got some sort of pistachio ice cream... it was ok. All the mean while, Emma and I are drinking all the alcohol on the table. Emma is cracking me up and poor Mabelle is close to sliding under the table from embarrassment. We didn't get outta there until about 3 a.m. Oi vey, the foreshadowing of our entire weekend! Off to bed, we have a 7 a.m. wake-up call!
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