Day One

Today was our first day here. The transition from the airport to the hotel was very smooth- I’m glad we paid the extra few euro and went with the hotel’s shuttle service. The room wasn’t ready right away, so we left our luggage there and went to Monoprix to get our toiletries. Monoprix is comparable to Target, just with less stuff (they don’t sell electronics, books, etc.) Even at their equivalent of Target, the clothes are absolutely adorable and look like something straight out of a J.Crew catalogue – there were plenty of stripes, scarves, and berets to buy. Stuff is really expensive here- a small stick of deodorant cost me $10! Even with a converter, American hair dryers and flat irons put out too much voltage for the European plugs, so I had to buy those products here.

Après-ca we went to a little café and had breakfast. I had a buttery, flaky, delicious croissant and Kristin had apricot crepes. We checked in to the hotel and took a nap. We got woken up by some short Indian man who works at the hotel and came in to our room to fill up our mini bar. I guess we forgot to put the “do not disturb sign”, so when we didn’t answer his knock (since we were sleeping), he let himself in. We thought he had left after that, but he came back with a plate that had 3 apples on it for us. We were still in bed and politely thanked him so we could return to sleep, but he decided to stick around our room and talk to us- who does that!? We were sleeping and he just barged in with apples and wanted to chit chat while we were napping.

Anyways, after that we went out and braved the métro (which is really simple and fairly clean) and went to the Longchamp store. The metro took us from the Bastille to this adorable shopping district that has huge names like Chanel, Dior, Cartier, etc. Kristin got a bag, which was around $100 US dollars. If you buy Longchamps in the US, they are around $150, so she got a pretty good deal. We had to stop and ask for directions a few times, but the locals were nothing but friendly and helpful. Out of the three of us, I'm the only one who speaks French, so it was up to me to not screw up people's directions.

Our first métro ride

Cute shop area. To the left of these lights (out of the frame) is the Chanel store

Paris streets at night

We happened to stumble upon Laudurée, the famous macaroon place, so of course I had to try a raspberry macaroon. It was really good and like nothing I expected. On our way back to the hotel, we decided to get dinner at a cute little café that was blasting country music and Michael Jackson / Britney Spears mashups. AWESOME. Kristin and Peyton each got French onion soup (They just call it onion soup here), and I got une sandwich au jambon for 4 euro. Our nap didn’t revive us, so we headed back to the hotel, which is very nice and rather spacious for Europe. We thought that we were on the European sleeping schedule already , since we were tired by 10pm. However, all three of us woke up at 2am for a while, then we were wide awake again at 4am. Jet lag is not my friend.

Affecteusement,

Katie