Paris- Day 2

On day 2, we had booked a food tour and that started at 10:30.  We were going to be taking the metro so we got up early to have time to figure out how to navigate the trains and buy metro passes and all that.  We were going to pick up some breakfast on the way there, but we ended up not having time.  But we figured our food tour started at 10:30 and then we would get some food.  Well, the tour did start at 10:30, but we didn't get any food until around 1:30!  We were starving!!! 

This was the metro.  I was really worried about getting lost all the time while in Paris, but the metro had tons of signs and google maps was amazing.  Thank goodness for smartphones!

At the start of the food tour our guide told us a little bit about the history of France and he walked us over to the "love wall" which is a wall that has "I love you" written in tons of different languages.  He even took all of our pictures under the "I love you" in English.  Do you see it?? 

Next we walked down a street that had tons of different shops and food places.  There were boulangeries (bread shops) and meat shops and cheese shops and Chinese food places.  It was crazy.  So our tour guide would take us into a cheese shop and get some cheese and tell us some fun facts and then we would move on to the meat shop.  Then after we had all of our food, we went and had a picnic.  

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Upper right - cheese.  Upper left- boulangerie   Bottom- macaroons.

This was our whole group on the food tour.  There were some interesting characters.  They kept us all laughing.  And they all thought it was crazy that we didn't dink wine.

We got to try all kinds of interesting(gross) food.  ha ha.  There was pig intestine, head cheese, blood sausage and all kinds of moldy cheese.  the bread was my favorite.

I took at least one bite of everything on my plate.  The blood sausage was the hardest thing for me but I did it without gagging.  ha ha.  Some people's plates were completely empty at the end.  I guess my palate is not as refined as theirs.  :)

Me and Laurel.  It was a really cold day that day so we were trying to decide if we needed to invest in some coats for the rest of our week.  But the weather warmed up and was perfect for the rest of the trip!

We stopped by a crepe place after we ate lunch.  I had a chocolate and banana crepe and Laurel got "salted caramel" which was just lemon juice and sugar I think.  I loved the chocolate and banana one, I don't remember if I tried the other one.  The inside of the creperie was covered with people's business cards (I think).  There was not an inch of bare wall left. 

Us with our crepes; the guy that made our crepes.

 

After the crepe place I was definitely full, but we still had to get macaroons and go to the candy store.  This was attempt #1 at trying macaroons.  Not my favorite.  And at the candy store, they had chocolate sculptures of a gargoyle, a boat, and the Eiffel tower.  The guy in the red behind the Eiffel tower was our tour guide. 

Someone told us this was the BEST view of Paris.  

After the food tour, we decided to go inside the Sacre Coeur which is a church right near where we were.  

 

Sacre Coeur.

There were nuns singing inside and I think it was an actual service.  We just walked around the inside and then we decided to find out where we could walk up the stairs to the top.

There were also a ton of people that were selling souvenirs.  When a van pulled up they all scattered so I'm guessing what they were doing wasn't exactly legal.  But it was amazing how fast they cleared out of there, and set everything back up when the van left!  ha ha

These were the stairs that we had to walk up to the top of the Sacre Coeur.  They were very narrow and kinda steep. 

View from the top.  We were so scared up there and the next day we were supposed to go to the very top of the Eiffel tower.  We were starting to get pretty nervous about that.  The stained glass windows were from the inside of the church.

After we were done at Sacre Coeur, we walked around and saw a lot of artists selling their artwork.  Some of it was amazing.  And expensive.  I didn't get any, but I really enjoyed looking at it all.  We decided to try to hit up the Musée d'Orsay on our way home, but when we got there it was closed.  Rats!

But I did get this cool picture with an elephant statue.  I thought the kids would like that.

Later that night we decided to head over to the Arc de Triumph. We packed a lot into our second day in Paris!

We walked up the stairs to the top and saw the night view of Paris.  And again realized just how much taller the Eiffel tower was.  We were nervous as high as we were, so we didn't know how things would go tomorrow...

Me and the Arch de Triumph.  

Eternal flame.

When we got back to the hotel we decided to hit up the bar and get a drink...a non alcoholic drink of course!  We had noticed by this point that none of the water came with ice so we wanted to order a fruity drink with ice to have something cold to drink.  The funny thing is that when they brought it to us, there was no ice!!!  ha ha.  So Laurel asked for some and they brought it to us no problem. It was wonderful to have ice again!

Us with our pretty drinks!

ICE!!!  

Ever since I got back, I have really appreciated ice so much more.  You don't know how much you will miss it until you don't have it for a WEEK!