We've Arrived!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Friends,

As I'm writing this, someone just rang our doorbell! Oh, it's the cable guy...our cable is a little spotty. I am sitting in front of our french doors looking out over the Parisian rooftops. It's about 64 degrees, and the wind is blowing, so it feels colder.

So anyway, here we are in Paris. Let me just say at the outset, that we have hit more snags on this trip in 24 hours than we've hit altogether in our last 3 trips. The first snag was when our airplane did not have movies on demand. All it had was a 1975 style screen up at the front. Scott had already picked out the four movies he wanted to watch, until we noticed this first snaf-fu. He was a "little" disappointed to say the least. They only played ONE movie in 8 hours.

We arrived in Paris right on time, no problems. I had talked Scott into taking the train from the airport, instead of the taxi. Told you I was cheap... also this was the trip when we were going to pack light. Upon leaving Florida, we realized we have packed more this trip than ever before. What's up with that? I guess it's because we are staying 2 weeks, and kept thinking of stuff we might need. This time of year in Paris can be COLD or HOT... you never know. After not too much trouble we caught the train at the airport to Gare du Nord. We were feeling pretty triumphant. Now all we had to do was catch the metro to Montmartre, no problem.

Not so fast. It was Sunday morning, and evidently, everything in the train station is closed, including the manned ticket booths. Without going into detail, let me just say, we walked and walked and walked, WITH SUITCASES, until we found some machines. We could not make any sense of the machines. We wanted to buy the same kind of weekly passes we had bought for the last 3 years, and now they were nowhere to be found. I ended up behind a barrier, with Scott on the other side, not knowing how to get back to each other... it was hysterical. When I tried to get back across to him, my suitcase got caught in the turnstyle...we were like rats caught in a maze. Not at all like we thought we would look. We finally got on the metro. We kept staring at each other, like, "What happened to our chicness?" How quickly we realized we were NEVER chic.

We finally made it to our metro stop, and AGAIN our suitcases kept getting caught in the turnstyles, (they are made for tiny french people, not GIANT Americans with GIANT suitcases). Now we had to make the walk UP the hill. Did I mention this was all my idea? Scott was about to have a coronary. While I took pics of the Eiffel Tower, he was lugging ALL the luggage straight up the hill. Oh...did I mention we had never called the apartment people that we were on our way? We were so spent, we stopped at a cafe for coffee and croissants. Once Scott caught his breath, we continued UP the hill, with our suitcases making a horrible racket on the cobblestone streets. We finally got to our building, and the guy that was checking us in was standing in the lobby. He asked if our plane was late...he had been there since 7am...it was now 10am!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just acted like we were on time. He was super nice, but then had to tell us that the elevator was broken! So now, they had to lug our luggage up eight flights of stairs. Our suitcases each weighted just under 50 lbs. FINALLY, he checked us into our apartment just great. Scott fell out on the bed, while Fred explained everything to me, while constantly looking over at Scott to make sure he was still breathing.

We unpacked, layed down, and slept. We got up later on, went to the Champs Elyesees to Scott's favorite hangout, and then on to Trocodero to see the Eiffle Tower. Suddenly, my body started shutting down. We went back to Montmartre and had dinner in a cute little piano bar that I've wanted to eat in for 2 years. For 10 euro each, we had onion soup, roasted chicken, french fries, and apple tart...not bad!

Note...I was wearing a short black skirt with a sleeveless top and high heels. Do NOT wear such a thing in Paris...it causes stares.

Back to the apartment. We went to bed at 7:30pm, woke up at 1:ooam, and then slept until 11:30 the NEXT MORNING.

More later...not sure about pics and video. My laptop has a three prong cord and all our converters only have 2 prongs. My computer is about dead already, so I'm using theirs. It's not as easy to work with. So sorry.

More later...must be off.

Teri

P.S. I have no idea if this post has a million mistakes or not. Next post I will try to be more careful. Still trying to get acclimated. :)