Day 1 (the real day 1, not the day where we spent the entire day in a plane)

So we finally made it. Paris, France you are quite a beaut. Since I was a little girl, I have been obsessed with Paris (and when I say obsessed I mean OBSESSED). I had a mini Eiffel Tower on my dresser, and a large painting of the Eiffel Tower in my room. I had always imagined how glamorous Paris would be. How the streets would be teeming with stylish people in black + white striped shirts and berets. I imagined wafting the scent of freshly baked bread everywhere. And then, I was there. I stepped off a plane and I was in Paris. The place where I always dreamed I would go. They say Paris is the city of love, well they aren’t wrong. I fell in love with this city the minute I got there.

Time to Explore…

As soon as we got out of the taxi to our hotel, Damion and I were SO excited. We couldn’t wait to explore this new place (which is one of our favorite things to do together). So the first order of business was to get checked into our hotel. We find our room is on the first floor (SCORE) and it’s super close to the entrance which we were super excited about (less distance lugging all our stuff!). We open the door to our room and get settled in for the next 3 days. After getting changed into fresh clothes and putting on some red lipstick (just me, not Damion!), we headed out to find the Eiffel Tower. After taking a turn or two, we start to see the top of the Eiffel Tower sticking out above some of the buildings in front of us and I am in full fledge fan girl mode. Tip for the wise: When this happens, just embrace it. I will do my happy dance the whole way there.

After walking the streets for about 5 minutes we were there. Standing with our chins up staring at the Iron beauty. It is SO large, so we kept walking all over to try to get the entire thing in the viewfinder of my camera. We felt like total tourists, but we didn’t care. Damion and I were taking all the pictures we possibly could, unashamed!

I walked all around the Eiffel Tower trying to get the best angle.

I was loving it. All of it. I loved just walking (and If you know me, you know I hate anything that has to do with sweating).

Paris is just so pretty. The architecture is like nothing I have ever seen before. The arches, the stonework, even the fresh flowers are all so beautiful and unique.

Once we got a feel for the Eiffel Tower, we started wandering around with no place to be (which is so refreshing!). We came across this cute bridge and even made friends with a sad looking pigeon.

As we got closer to bridge, we saw that they had ice cream shops and pastry shops at the end of the bridge that faces the Eiffel Tower. They even had a carousel.

We made our way up the bridge to this awesome park where there were tons of people just sitting on the lawn enjoying the beautiful weather with their friends.

Then we climbed the stairs to the top of the hill to one of the most popular views in Paris.

We ate some strawberry ice cream and we had some fun with the two green statues along the way! (ps. I snuck some iPhone pictures into the mix!)

Then my husband convinced me that we needed to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. So I did. Sort of. (side note: me and heights DO NOT get along. I mean I am a stage 5 wall clinger.) We made it to the second level before I called it quits, but the views were amazing!

After getting some goodies from the gift shop inside the Eiffel Tower, we made our way back down the glass elevator to the bottom. I have to say I am thankful that Damion encouraged me to go up it. It really was a lot of fun!

But first FOOD!

We started walking back to the area where our Hotel was and we started getting hungry. In case you didn’t know, almost every lower level of any building in Paris is a cafe. So we thought we would do as the Parisians do and eat at a cafe. We looked at a few of the street menus and decided on a place called Cafe Lé Dome. Mainly because it was in a picture perfect spot, and they had food we recognized on the menu. Turns out, we picked a fantastic spot because the food was AHmazing. I had “Onion Soup” and I noticed that they didn’t call it “French Onion Soup” because DUH we were in France! Ha! Damion had this steak which wasn’t his favorite – but hey – when in Paris.

After eating, we realized how tired we were from all the walking and headed back to our hotel admiring all the prettiness on the way.

That concluded day one. We went to bed early that night because something AMAZING was happening the next day. We were getting up early to have our photographs taken by the PHENOMENAL Gabi Alves (www.gabialves.com) WHICH you will get to see in the next blog post! TRUST ME, you don’t want to miss that one! We dive deep into all the places we had our photographs taken and all about the new friend we made there. 🙂

 

Until then,

XO Chloé