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21 December
Here's a blog post detailing what we did yesterday, since we were too tired to write a blog.
We got up at 4:30 from our hotel in Stockholm and went directly to Arlanda airport. I was feeling cautious excitement at the possibility of being in Paris by noon, and Charles was feeling cautiously grumpy at being woken up so early. We DID make it to Paris, and we took the train into town. Paris metro stations are easier to navigate than Japan ones because people aren't in such a pushy hurry, and because the signs aren't in Japanese. French is easier to read than Japanese in English.
We got to our hotel to find that it is PRETTY small. I could not swing a cat in here! If I wanted to swing a cat. It has a place to sleep and a place to wash, so it's okay really.
We went out immediately and had lunch at a local lebanese place. Nice! Then it was straight to the Champs-Elysses for a walk. We walked all the way along the lovely street, looking at the pretty Christmas market stalls and the big shops. It was pretty similar in feel to Omotesando-dori in Harajuku, the same wide street with big fancy shops and big fancy people. We had a good look at the Arc de Triumphe at the end, and agreed it was pretty good. Here's Charles wearing it like a hat!
Here's me eating it!
We just walked back down the Champs-Elysses again. Stopped at Louis Vuitton to see what all the fuss was about, but I still don't really like chequered bags.
THEN we took the metro to the stop near the Eiffel Tower, and saw the Eiffel Tower. It's really big and cool! There were lots of christmas market stalls there too and we enjoyed looking through them. Charles bought a crepe with nutella in it… delicious. At the actual tower, there were one thousand dudes selling stuff. Mostly they were selling miniature Eiffel Towers, which they carried around on huge rings and shook about. Some people were selling hats and scarves, because it was really cold, and some were selling animatronic barking dogs. Some really annoying dudes were selling roses which they kept shoving in my face. The WORST dudes were the ones trying to tie a string around my wrist and then get 2 euro for it.
Anyhow we saw the lights come on, but it wasn't super spectacular because it was so foggy! What a terrible day to go up the tower! Good thing we didn't go up. Saving that for a better day.
Then: home to our hotel! Yay what a lovely day! By the way, there's a REALLY NICE view of Paris from our window. Not like a spectacular panorama, but a nice view of parisian streets. Cute!
