First day in Paris

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We arrived in Paris and got to the St. Michel fountain, where the free tour was scheduled to start, around 10 AM. We walked around for a little bit and Lise wanted to go to starbucks for food/coffee/the ability to go to the bathroom. It is difficult to find a bathroom in Paris, and when you do find one you usually have to pay for it. Lise’s parents had given me a book on things to do in Paris and it was very helpful during the trip.

We showed back up to the fountain around 11 AM just in time for the tour. Our guide’s name was Onno and he was a tall blonde guy from the Netherlands, which is apparently the “tallest” (highest average height) country in the world. I’ll go more in depth on stuff I learned from the tour in another blog, and I’ll include pictures of the tour to save myself some words. Highlights of the tour include the Eiffel tower, l’Academie Francaise, a bridge full of Love Locks, statues of Napoleon, and the Louvre. Lise and I had made Pitas with guacamole, ham, goat cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes that we ate halfway through the tour for lunch.

After the 3 hour tour, our backs were tired from carrying around our full backpacks the entirety of the tour, so we went to our hotel and checked in. Lise had done some research on hotels and hostels, and decided that a hotel was a better idea for our money because the hostels were almost the same cost and considerably lower quality. She had stayed in a hostel in Paris before for about 5 Euros less per night and she shared a room with 5 other people and there was no hot water. We learned from our previous mistake of not booking online and we got a really great deal on our hotel.

After checking in and dropping off our bags, we made our way to the Counterfeit museum (which will also have its own blog). After the Counterfeit Museum, we did a little exploring and went searching for the Defenseur du Temps, the defender of time. It’s a clock that has a warrior fight off different enemies every hour on the hour. Unfortunately, it was broken, so here’s a link of what we were hoping to see:

After exploring the area and the Defenseur du Temps being a bust, we visited a pretty church called St. Eustache for 20 minutes or so. We started to get hungry and did some research on cheap restaurants in the area with Lise’s Tripadvisor app, and we found a restaurant that was close by, cheap, and number 32 out of 6000+ French restaurants. When we walked by it wasn’t open, but the windows were, and we saw someone working so we asked when they opened and it wasn’t for another 30 minutes. We went to a tiny café directly next to the restaurant and split a fruity beer of some kind while chatting and waiting for the restaurant to open.

The restaurant opened at 7 and we showed up around 7:10 and it was already half full. “Half full” is a little misleading as there was only space for about 20 people in the entire restaurant. Lise ordered a “Gratin Normand” which consists of potatoes cheese and ham, and I ordered some ribs with honey. Both were very good and the restaurant was small enough that we could even watch them prepare the food in their tiny kitchen from our seat. On our way back home we tried to stop by a temporary ice rink in front of the hotel de ville (town hall), but we got there just as it was closing and didn’t get the chance, so we headed back to the hotel after a long day and fell asleep.

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Photos

St. Michel
Also known as Freddie Mercury

Fontaine St. Michel
Complete with tourists

Long line to go to the bathroom
At starbucks halfway through the tour

On your head
The statue looks like he's passing out food to the birds