I spent a good part of the morning (which started at 3 am yesterday because I am on French time) doing a prayer of examen from June 10-24, looking at our trip. It was healthy for me.
I had this goal of having no meltdowns with George, and we laugh because that did not happen, and I got it out of the way on the first day. Note to self: Do not plan a scheduled thing on the first day because . . .
1) You don't know how tired you will be after 17 hours in transit over the top of the earth.
2) You do not know what the weather will be like.
3) You are not yet familiar with the bus/Metro system yet.
4) You cannot be flexible and spontaneous.
5) Your Data plan may not work as well in this new city as it did in London. So you might not know where you are because it is your first day there.
We had thought we might tour the Opera Garnier (20 minute walk from our hotel) before it closed on our first day there. We took a little nap of about fifteen minutes in our hotel and hit the streets, but we quickly discovered that our T-Mobile Data plan did not work with the Orange F plan they had a contract with. So, we had no idea where we were going, and our map was not detailed like GoogleMaps is detailed (and I had starred all our places). So we did manage to sort of find the area of the Opera, but it was no 20 minute walk, and we realized it was already closed. So, we went up to Printemps to see the view of the city from there. It was lovely.
We also realized that we were really hungry (Icelandair is a budget airline and gives you NO FOOD without you buying it). So we ducked into the familiar: An Indian restaurant! That was yummy. Then we used that wi-fi there to find a metro to the Eiffel Tower. As we left, it began to rain, but we had our umbrellas. We had no problem with the Metro, but without GoogleMaps working, we could not figure out which exit from the Metro. But we figured it out and then the RAIN POURED and even our umbrellas were powerless against the rain. But we saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance and walked toward it. We then realized that even though the stairs up were closed (we were going to do the Eiffel Tower stairs the following morning), the line to the elevators had probably evaporated with the downpour, and we were right. NOT ONE PERSON in line! We went right up in an elevator with only five people. It was great! (I hate crowds.) So we were enjoying when I realized we had to catch our boat down the Seine in an hour, and it was 51 minute walk away, and we still needed to get down from the Tower. Our Data worked there, and we realized we could catch the Metro there. When we got down, we could not find the Metro station there so we WALKED/RAN in the pouring rain with just our umbrellas (Note to self: BRING YOUR PONCHOS if it is going to rain a lot). So my meltdown commenced as we asked people where the metro was along the way. One man said we go down some stairs, but we went down and found nothing. So we kept running, and I kept meltdowning more and more. Mad at myself for NOT keeping track of time on the Tower, not writing out direction to get to the Metro from the Eiffel Tower (but we were not going to go our first night there so why would I have done that?), not bringing ponchos, not knowing the bus system. Mad a George for expecting me to know the time, for not knowing how to get to the Metro.
Anywho, we are in great shape, and we made it there in much less than 51 minutes and with four minutes to spare. :) It was a great WET ride on top of the boat with the Eiffel Tower sparkling at 10 pm. The city at night was amazing, even in the rain.
15 minutes up.
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