Freakishly Happy

This first part of our journey has taken us to Paris.  We boarded a night train on Tuesday night, at 10:30 going to Paris with a stop in Karlsruhe to change trains.

First off I'd like to say that riding first class is NICE.  Really really nice. The leg room. The cushy seats.  I do believe that we are getting a little spoiled.

 

 

The night train was a lot more comfortable than we thought it'd be. We had a 6 person room all to ourselves. The conductors were very friendly, almost chatty (if you can believe that).

Luckily, we arrived at Gare L'Est (Train Station East) and our first order of business was to find a hotel for the night.  We walked up and down the streets by the trainstation until we found one that didn't look too sketchy whose price didn't make our jaws drop.  We brought our things to our room and sat down to take a breather. The room was older, with hideous gold sparkly wallpaper, and cracked paint on the ceiling.  The bed was comfortable, and lucky us there was a bidet (which we were puzzled at. How do you use those things anyway? Gross.)  We bummed around for about 20 minutes before we decided that if we stayed there a minute longer we'd both fall asleep. So we decided to go out and forage for food.

Being the non-practical romatic that I am, I declared that we should go down close to the river (Seine) to eat.  Which was pretty silly considering that the prices doubled and tripled the farther we got from the train station.  We arrived at a very posh Brasserie, and decided that no matter the price we'd eat there, as we were both ready to chew off eachother's limbs in hunger.  The Brasserie had plush red velvet carpet, and beatifully tapistried chairs, with tassels that hung down from the seats and backs. We ordered Croque Madam sandwiches, which are essentially a grilled cheese sandwhich, with fresh bread and Camembert cheese that came with a salad and a fried egg.  Our hunger sated we went for a walk along the river to see what we could see.  We passed by the Place de la Concorde (I believe this is the place were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillitined) Notre Dame, The Louvre and many many other things that I can't even begin to name.  We reached the Eiffel Tower and decided to get pastries, because what better thing can you do on a lovely spring day?  We both got raspberry tortes, John's had a cream sauce, and mine a dark chocolate. We sat at the foot of the Tower, down by a pond that was surrounded by lovely purple crocusses and ducks, and enjoyed our dessert.