Paris: day 1

Tuesday 9/11 12:45pm

Nice is conjested. Pretty to walk through the streets—felt a little like the charming parts of NYC. Pieces of old injected with new. And a beach city always has something different compared to other cities. There are a lot of satellite dishes in France. And in the cities McDonalds, Starbucks, even saw a Pizza Hut last night.  

6:15pm 

We arrived in the train station in Paris after experiencing our first food car on the train. That was a fun and vibrant little space amongst the cars of silence (and the occasional crying baby that seems to follow us on each train). It was simple to find the taxi line and be on our way to our hotel. I noticed as soon as I stepped out into the sunshine my energy lifted. I was in Paris!! I pulled out my camera and started looking for photo ops. Our hotel, Acte V, is on the edge of the Latin Quarter and the neighborhood is great. Our room is tiny, of course, but not as small as the room at the beach.  We had read about a wonderful restaurant from a well-known chef that didn't take reservations in a different part of town so decided to jump right in to the Metro system to get there rather early in hopes of getting a table. Camera around my neck, a map in each hand, I didn't care if I looked like a tourist. After all, I AM a tourist! We have found the Metro system here in Paris to be so easy to navigate and it is so efficient! We enjoyed a delicious meal, lots of vin rouge, and a fun Parisian scene. We ended the evening in the same fashion as Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picaso often did, at Les Deux Magots for a nightcap. Enough fun to ensure I was going to have a foggy morning the next day.