Friday, July 2, 2010

Accidental trip to Paris

On our way out to Egypt, we got the surprise of a lifetime: a HUGE DC storm. We boarded our plane and sat on the tarmac for HOURS. Finally, after I was entirely bored out of my mind and thought my stomach was going to eat itself because I was so hungry, we took off. We were originally scheduled to have a 3 hour layover in the Paris airport, but because of the storm and our significant delay we missed our flight to Cairo. There is only one flight out to Cairo daily..... Secretly I was THRILLED! Because that meant that the airline paid for our hotel in PARIS for one night. PARIS, FRANCE PEOPLE! The city I have dreamed about since I took French classes in Jr. High.
And it was just as wonderful as I had imagined.
Lincoln had already been to Paris, so he knew how to organize it in order to see the most possible in our short 6 hours of time we had left in the day. We quickly checked into our Hotel then left to see the sights.

The subway into the city:

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Notre Dame. It was breathtaking.

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I was completely in Awe...

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It was just as gorgeous on the inside.

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And the details were spectacular!

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In NYC, they have hot dog stands everywhere, but in Paris they have crep stands everywhere.

We had the chocolate, banana, and coco crep. It was delicious. My mouth is watering just looking at these pictures... {not pictured was the yummy bagguete sandwhich we also ate for dinner}

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Mmmm... nutella...

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H & M!! I love H&M. {and Yes I resisted the urge to shop, we were limited on time and DC has an H&M, but still so great to see it in Paris}

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Mopeds and motercyles where everywhere.

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Classic tourist picture. Asking someone else to take a picture of us with our camera always turned out with the background clear and we were super blurry...

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The Louvre

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Mona Lisa!

Ever since I read the Da Vinci Code I was dying to see it. It was not like I had imagined. I thought it would be bigger. Maybe it was because this was the closest we could actually get to the painting... but still.

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My first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. I was ecstatic!

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The Arc-de-Triomphe.

I honestly felt like it was a "Triomphe" to see it after our long walk over from the Louvre to get there...

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The breathtaking sights from on top of the Arc-de-Triomphe

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Beautiful, beautiful city... Oh Paris, how I love you.

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After 6 hours and a lot of walking, we caught a cab back to our hotel. I was actually amazed at how much we used our Spanish while we were there. If they didn't understand English, some understood Spanish. Also, for the most part you could generally understand what people were saying because of the similarities in the languages. But it was too bad that all I remembered from my French class was, "Zut Alor!" (oh crap) and "Quelle huere es-til?" (what time is it?) and not to forget the, "Je'taime" (I love you).

I loved Paris, and I can honestly say it was the best part of our trip (sorry Egypt), the surprise of it all made it exciting and not to mention a dream come true...

9 comments:

Natster said...

Oh I love that you were able to go on this little adventure to Paris! How wonderful!

M. said...

ooooh my goooosh, I am so jealous, that's my DREAM. Glad you got such a great experience. I mean, quite a silver lining on that story :)

Chelsea said...

Paris is sooo, sooo great. And trust me, nutella crepes can be your total downfall if you live there for awhile ;) What a fun surprise that you got to visit and I'm excited to see more pictures from Egypt!

Alyse said...

That's so fun! We'll be there in about a month! Can't wait! Thanks for the preview! :) Sure love you guys!

Janny said...

Who would of thought? That is the coolest surprise EVER!

Natalie | Make Today Great said...

Oh fun!! That happened to us on a much less exciting level - we went on a weekend trip to Seattle and got stuck in San Fransisco. We called it our bonus day.

We're going to Paris in August. Totally excited!

Marinda said...

Beautiful pictures. I'm glad you had such an amazing time. We just got back from Paris yesterday and your trip sounds quite a bit better than ours. We saw about the same stuff + all the kids stuff, but took us 4 days - just shows what adding three kids does to a trip to Paris. Glad you were able to go BEFORE you have kids! Well done.

Lindi said...

How I miss those crepes. I ate those WAY too often. Glad you had a great time there. Your pictures are AMAZING. I love the pics at night. So pretty.

Lacey Ellen said...

Gorgeous Gorgeous Pictures Ali!! That is really so perfect you got to go!!!