The fact that I went to Paris twice within a week I find rather surreal, that's more in a week than I've ever been in my life! Because of the closeness of my visits, I am combining the two experiences into one. The first, with Joy, Brad and Harvey, was a night in the first arrondissement of Paris, a mere twenty minutes walk to the Eiffel Tower, and our own apartment with a little balcony.
The first evening we did very little, tired and traumatised by parking in Paris (my personal favourite was watching from our balcony as below a car slowly parallel parked in a space too small for it by bumping the car behind it gently-or not so gently at times- until the space widened).
Because of how little time we had, we enjoyed a little dinner on the balcony, and then in the morning saw the Eiffel Tower and had a picnic lunch beneath it.
We then wandered to the river and took in some of the scenery, before heading to Lille to meet my family!
That was the first way I saw Paris, the second way was somewhat different, and just as interesting! Arriving a few days later with my brother and his girlfriend to pick up their car from Paris, we were booked into a cheap hotel in the tenth arrondissement not far from the train station where the TGV had dropped us in from Lille. The train itself was somewhat of a disaster as I had booked my a ticket later than Necia and yannick; they were on the second carriage, whereas while I was in the same train I was on the twelfth. The problem was, there wasn't a twelfth. By that point necia and yannick were on the train so I panicked and hopped on the 8th. I spent half the trip waiting anxiously to be yelled at by a ticket collector even though the people all around me were talking about needing carriage fourteen, however no one appeared. I was amused by the announcement that came on halfway through the trip whichsomewhat apologetically told us there had been a mistake, and as far as I could make out (it was all in french) then proceeded to tell us that they had somehow lost carriages 9-18. Oops!
However we made it safe and sound with no further problems.
Our little hotel was surprisingly nice, and I had a view of the street which was nice although quite loud at night. We enjoyed wandering the first day, first off meeting up with our cousin Greg for lunch at a nice although rather pricey restaurant. It was so nice to catch up for a chat as it had been a long time since we had seen Greg. We also enjoyed our awesome although exorbitantly priced orengina.
Replete from our meal, we went to see the Arc de' triomphe which until then I had only had the somewhat traumatic experience a few days before of being a passenger of Brad driving around it -he had done wonderfully but it was still terrifying witnessing the true chaos and insanity of driving in Paris.
As we had plenty of time we wandered around Paris rather leisurely, passing by the Louvre and the ridiculous lines that plagued it. I took a picture of this mini Arc de' triomphe and had to laugh at it later as I hadn't noticed the rather inconspicuous man in the middle wearing an oh so fashionable umbrella hat.
There were other grand buildings along the river as we walked, we passed through Jardin des tuileries for shade and stopped for a while to rest. Lonely planet had informed us that there was a Grom in Paris, the only one in Europe outside of Italy so we were determined to go.
At last we reached Grom, and it was well worth the walk. My favourite flavour was the melon that was so fresh and delicious I wished I had bought two scoops of only that flavour! Yannick of course had to sample the chocolate.
Deciding we hadnt had enough Grom we decided the next day to go and see Notre Dame as I hadn't seen it for a few years, and get another dose of Grom as the store was nearby.
The lines were stupidly long as usual and we only saw it from the outside. My favourite view was in fact looking back once we had crossed the river. Even if the old saying says to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, I think in this case it was worth it.
Our Grom was entirely worth straining ahead however; necia had the day before had a Sicilian granita flavoured with lemon, which was almost like slushy icy
icecream, it wasn't creamy and was far more refreshing. The lemon was deliciously tart and I couldn't resist ordering one. It was without a doubt my new favourite Grom thing. Yannick of course went back for seconds (not that we didn't all greedily share his seconds in the end anyway). After getting as much Grom as we could, we went to pick up the car and truly began our adventure.
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