The Paris Girls Trip: Arriving in Paris!

The morning of the trip, I headed over to Courtney’s house where Mr. David, Courtney’s dad, would bring Gay, Courtney and I to the airport. We got to hang with Riley and then head to the airport.

At the airport we met up with QP (Queen Paula/Courtney’s aunt), checked in and headed to Philly!

Once in Philly, we met up with Jennifer, Elisabeth and Margaret. We ate a quick meal and got on the plane to Paris! Since I booked the flight only three weeks before, I was in a different zone/area of the plane than the rest of the girls.

I saw down and had an empty seat next to me with two French speaking ladies on the other side of the middle seats. Until about 2 minutes before the doors were closed I thought I was in the clear. I was going to have an empty seat, but alas it was not meant to be. Right when I thought I was out of the woods, a young guy came to sit next to me. We quickly realized we would not be about to communicate. He only spoke French and I only spoke (speak) English. We tried to communicate briefly with hand signals, but it was no use. We eventually gave up and laughed about it.

The flight was overall smooth and just as we were about to land the Duty Free cart rolled by. The gentleman next to me had a lengthy conversation with the flight attendant (in French – obviously) that ended in him handing her some money and she handed him a black t-shirt. After the cart rolled away, he handed me the t-shirt and made hand motions like “from me to you”. I said “thank you” many times knowing he probably had no idea what I was saying. I wanted to thank him properly so I went and got QP (who speaks French very well) to come and ask him why he bought me a t shirt and to thank him. After some conversation between the two of them, QP says to me, “He said you needed a shirt because it was your first time going to Paris” Evidently, our clumsy conversation was somewhat understood. :)

We deplaned and headed to the luggage carousel. My t-shirt buying friend was there (on his phone) waiting for his luggage and we got this awesome photo where I am actually wearing the shirt he bought me:

This trip already had a great start! I already had a t-shirt! :) We got our luggage and found our driver. I rode in the front seat making small talk with the driver as we approached Paris. We rode through countryside like land with cows, more suburbia areas and finally we arrived in the city. As we got deeper into the city the buildings looked older and smaller. It was a little surreal as we drove through the cities of Paris. The streets are very small and there are SO MANY VESPAS! Those vespa people are crazy.

We arrived at 35 Rue Chapon and unloaded the van.
My room was ready when we arrived, but their apartment would not be ready until 3 or 4 pm that day. (We landed at 9 am and were at the apartment around 10 am.) We were greeted by Sophie’s daughter, Lorraine. She had orange juice a chocolate croissants waiting for us! She was officially our favorite person in the world at that moment. She allowed all the ladies to store their luggage in their living room and let us hang out while some of us took naps and others rested. Lorraine really saved the day.

The next thing on the agenda was lunch at Louise! So we cleaned up and headed out to the streets of Paris. We walked by St. Eustache, a wire covered office building and visited with Nathalie at her work. Nathalie is a true French lady that is dear friends with Ms. Gay. We visited with her at her place of business before heading to lunch.

After a quick visited we headed to Louise. I cannot say enough about how delicious the food was at this small, French restaurant. (See photo of me after lunch…such a happy girl.)
<--------------------------------------------------
We headed to the Palais du Royal and found it quite different than Courtney remembered it (it had been 10 years since she was in Paris last), but it was still fantastic. We did not go inside, but did head to the gardens. This was when I learned that the French and I have different definitions of a garden. The main difference in our definitions is grass. There is no grass in any gardens in Paris (or not that I saw). They all use tiny rocks as ground cover. Check it out…

Images of the Palais du Royal:

On the walk home, I got my first view of the Louvre, an amazing old church, and the Centre Georges Pompidou.

It was quite a scenic day and it was not over yet! We headed back to check into the girl’s apartment. It was then we realized how we would communicate when I was at my place and they were at theirs:

It was perfect! We could speak through the windows. I was one floor below them, but they could easily here me when I called to grab their attention.

The girls unpacked and settled in. When it was dinner time, we headed out to find something to compare with lunch’s deliciousness. We ended up at Café Beauborg. It was right next to the Pompidou Center.

After dinner, many of us had our first crepe sucre and IT WAS DELICIOUS! We headed back to the hotel, had some girl time and went to bed early to prepare for our next big day. Right before I headed back to my place, it started raining. The girls fitted my feet with plastic bags and I made noise the whole way home. :)

Overall, it was a fabulous first day. I loved what I saw of my travel mates and Paris. I knew it was going to be an amazing trip.

FITBIT UPDATE: 10,265 steps, 24 flights of stairs and 4.22 miles walked. (Notes: 1. this was the lowest number of steps this trip except the day we flew out. 2. I changed my fitbit to Paris time so I knew it would be accurate.)

Love and Hugs, Lizzie