Tuesday, July 24th 2007 First Day in Paris

Arriving in Paris was unbelievable. I kept looking all around me and was awed with the different architecture, all the quaint little streets with people hanging flowers from their balconies. Funny enough I had just seen Ratatouille in theaters and it made me look forward to Paris all the more. It's about a mouse who dreams of becoming a chef and becomes one in Paris.

At first when we left the airport, we took a ride on our fabulous couch (European term for bus) through the city. It is very comfortable with roomy air conditioned seats. Then after we arrived at our nice hotel we were given an hour and a half to rest. This same night we went up to the Eiffel Tower. I didn't honestly know what to expect. I had heard that it wasn't really that great. Our tour manager by the way who is a kiwi :) = New Zealender and our driver who is an Aussie = Australian were awesome from the start. The Kiwi whose name is Ryan distracted our attention by pointing to a place where Napoleon had supposedly put his name in with bullets (which by the way didn't really happen) when on the other side he suddenly told us was the Eiffel Tower. It was definitely one of those "wow" moments.

Going up the Eiffel Tower was really incredible. We got VIP passes since we are with Contiki so we pretty much headed up for the top quickly. There were hundreds of people waiting in line. Going up on the elevators with the whole group was so much fun. Seeing the sun set at the top was wonderful. Then when it was time to go down, we started running down the steps. All of a sudden I had a feeling that a million Paparazzi were taking our pictures because the whole tower was sparkling. I was in it at the time and couldn't really understand what was happening until I realized that these flashes were coming from the tower itself. I rushed down to see it sparkling on its own, without me in it, but the second I got down it was over. Being up there when it happens though was out of this world. I heard there was an engagement there that night too.
Paris is fabulous!
All the Best,
Inna