Our first weekend in Paris.

Weekend 1: August 15^th – August 17^th 2014

Heads up – there will be pictures associated with this blog post and labeled as such on Facebook!

Also – feel free to vote on (on the side of the blog -->) where we should go for our first anniversary of being married coming up in November!

Friday, August 15^th

                Friday was a Holy Day, so being in France, it was a holiday. Friday morning we went to a small catholic church just about a 10 minute walk from our apartment to celebrate the Assumption. This little Anglophone (English speaking) church (St. Joseph’s) is about a stone’s throw from the Arc de Triomphe, so naturally, that’s what we explored next.

                The Arc de Triomphe is a war memorial, but also has a memorial/tomb with an eternal flame going for the Unknown Soldier. We were able to climb up to the top of the Arc and take in a great view of the city (pictures will be on facebook!).

                After the Arc we wandered around Champs-Élysées, which is pretty much the Rodeo Drive of Paris and extremely touristy and crowed. But we were on a mission. Ladurée One of the oldest patisseries in Paris (pastry shop) was just down the street from the Arc. We stopped by and got some of their famous macarons (macaroons) as well as a chocolate éclair (<also the word for lightning…maybe because they’re gone in a flash?).

                We then went to a tourist office to get some tickets to Disneyland Parc Paris for Saturday. After that we went on a walk just to explore the city. We walked down the Champs-Élysées and checked out the Grand Palais (a historic museum hall) and then walked along the river heading to the Louvre.

                We then decided to check out the Louvre’s park, which happened to have a carnival and live music. After getting a delicious carni-snack of a hot gaufre (waffle) with chocolate poured all over it, we decided to walk back home. On the way back we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries and saw the Place de la Concorde.

                (If you look at all this on the map, it doesn’t look like a very long walk, but for some Americans…it was!)

Saturday, August 16^th

                DISNEYLAND PARC PARIS!!! I (Stevie) really wanted to check out Disney Paris so we took the train outside the city to see Disney. Disney here only has two parks, Hollywood Studios and like a Magic Kingdom type park.

                We decided to start our day with the Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios and go from there. The Hollywood Studios park is very very small compared to Orlando, so there wasn’t too much to see there (of course Rockin’ Roller Coaster was there!). There was a really awesome ride  - Crush’s Coaster- based on Finding Nemo. You sat in this turtle shell of four people with two people back to back and the ride would spin the shell so at some points you were going forwards or sideways or backwards. It was all indoors, so you had no idea where you were going. It was based off Marlin’s ride down the EAC (East Australian Current). It was by far the smoothest and most unpredictable ride I (Stevie) have been on in a while. It was also very cute!

                When we got to Magic Kingdom, we decided to start at the back of the park and work our way around. Stuart was very happy that there was an Indiana Jones roller coaster that we got to ride on. Pirates of the Caribbean was also a must as well as the tea-cups, Space Mountain, and Star Tours. We’re pretty sure we picked the absolute worst day in the year to go to Disney though; because everyone is finishing up their long August vacations before school starts here. The park is not as big as Orlando, so the narrower sidewalks and floods of people didn’t help navigating around.

                The main differences that I saw between Disneyland Paris and Disneyworld are the size and language. The rides would be half English/half French. It was pretty great to hear C3PO in a robotic French accent. Also, there aren’t as many food stands around and they closed up pretty early. I don’t think there was a firework show or parade at the end of the night either. We stayed until 30 minutes to close and no one was lining up the main street like they do in Magic Kingdom Orlando. And by the way, Sleeping Beauty’s castle is here, not Cinderella’s.

                It was quite a fun filled day!

Sunday, August 17^th

                Originally we had planned on going to the Château de Fontainebleau for a day trip, but we decided to just explore other parts of Paris. We got up and went back to St. Joseph’s for church and then took the commuter train (RER) across Paris. We wandered the arrondisment (neighborhood/zip code) and eventually ended up at the Museum of Natural History/Jardin des Plantes. We ate some crepes for brunch (nutella for Stevie and ham and cheese for Stuart) and wandered the park. Within the park was a zoo, some museums, and the school for botanical gardens – or something like that. It was a really nice, quaint, pretty little park with a lot of families out on Sunday walks.

                After the park we just happened to walk across a Superhero exhibit at the local art/design school. The exhibit was housed in this really cool, modern artsy type building that houses a lot of other artsy stuff. The building is called Wanderlust. We were able to see A LOT OF COOL STUFF! We got to see some original cover drawings, movie props, and models. Some of Stevie’s favorite items include: the shield Chris Evans uses in Captain America 1, the Iron Man helmet/head from Iron Man 2, and the Smithsonian exhibit of costumes on display were Captain America steals back his old uniform in Captain America 2. Stuart loved seeing all the original artwork of various comics, artists, and covers. The museum exhibit had stuff on Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spiderman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, and so much more (all Marvel- of course)!!!!!

         We plan on going out to dinner somewhere in Paris tonight – but that is to be determined.

The agenda for next weekend…also to be determined

Affectuesement (love from),

Stevie and Stuart