Roxane and CS take over Paris (part 1)

I know that many of you (expecially you, Roxane!) have been waiting for this story. As you can already gather from the title, this entry will be published in 2 posts. Sorry, but we've been busy bees as of late and the European Championships have been taking up some of our time, too :)

My TGV to Paris left at 08:02 that morning and I was so excited that was afraid I would miss it. Of course, O-X drove me to the train station on time and watched and waved as the train pulled away. I was on my way and would soon be meeting Roxane in a small, but cozy hotel in in the Montparnasse area of Paris.

I reached the hotel first and the receptionist was a bit baffled when I announced to her that Rox and I would be sharing the room. The hotel was fully booked, so we had no other choice anyway. But who needs two rooms if you're going to be chatting the night away, right??? "But Madame," she said, "You will have to share a grand lit (double bed). Let me check which room we gave Madame P." I couldn't care less, I told her. We've known each other since we were kids and had many sleep-overs. After checking her computer, we found out that the room had a grand-lit and a single bed. The room wasn't ready, yet, so I left my bags at the reception, went out for a quick smoke and returned to the hotel lobby to wait for Roxane to arrive. I had barely set my butt on the sofa and opened a magazine that I heard a screech of joy coming from the entrance. I dropped everything and we ran into each others arms. It was so good to see her again!

We checked her in, and went for a short walk to discover the neighbourhood. We went in to a few boutiques (Rox wanted to get a dress for her daughter) and chatted away. Around 1pm, we started feeling hungry, so we decided to have lunch at a small café before returning to the hotel to haul our luggage to our room. I had only an overnight bag, but Rox had packed for 2 weeks, so her suitcare was huge, not to mention heavy! Plus, the hotel didn't have an elevator. Luckily, we were on the 1st floor (2nd floor for North Americans).

The room was comfortably large by European standards, but definitely too flowery for my taste, and it had a bit of a strange layout. However, Roxane had managed to wear colours matching the room. How did she know??? Anyway, at first, we couldn't find the bathroom. I had left the door open because we still had luggage standing there and we thought that we'd have to use a "public" shower room. Whaaat?!??! While Rox ran down to the reception to enquire about our "missing" bathroom, I discovered it once I closed the door to our room. You see, when you came into the room, the door opened to the inside, and right behind it, was the door to the bathroom. So as long as the main door was open, it hid the other door. Whew! The view from our room was by no means spectacular, but it was well kept and flower pots were giving the viewer a hint of nature. It made us both smile.

We settled in and unpacked whatever we thought was necesary, and then we were off to discover Paris. We grabbed a map at the reception and asked for direction to the next metro station that would take us to Paris' most popular landmark: The Eiffel Tower.

As we got off the metro and headed towards the tower, Roxane was telling me how identical the replica in Vegas (the Paris Las Vegas) was to the real thing and that it was very big. Once we arrived at the tower itself, however, she was really impressed. I must admit that even after having seen the Eiffel Tower before, it still impresses me, too. Even more so when you stand directly under it. It was already about 3.30pm and our time in Paris was limited to 2 days, so we decided not to go up (the queues were still very long) and instead, just take a few pictures and then walk towards the Arc de Triomphe and then to the Champs Élysées.

We crossed the Seine towards the Trocadéro, turned at the Avenue D'Iena, then through small streets to Avenue Kleber and to the always busy Place de l'Étoile where the Arc de Triomphe stands.

Here are a few picts that we took on the way.

We finally stopped at one of the many street cafés on the Champs Élysées for a well deserved glass of wine before returning to our hotel.

That evening, we had dinner at a lovely, small restaurant close to our hotel. After dinner, we bought a bottle of wine to bring up to our room. We still had plenty of catching up to do! The last time these two girls saw each other was 9 years ago, remember?