A common theme in my travels is that the actual act of traveling has been stressful. Getting to Paris was a whole new level of panic because this time I actually missed my train.
I woke up on Saturday morning at 6:00 in Lyon to pack, eat breakfast, and leave in plenty of time to catch my train at 7:30. I walked to the nearest metro station, but of course a train was stuck so that station was not in operation. I had to walk to the next metro station, which was kind of far and bit hard to find. From there I had to transfer to another metro, which was of course running late. In the end I missed my Paris train by about 7 minutes.
My had bought my original train ticket at a discounted rate, so it was non exchangeable and I had to buy a new ticket. The trains were nearly sold out, but the lady at the desk was luckily able to sell me the last 2nd class ticket so I didn't have to pay an arm and a leg.

I arrived in Paris at 11 and checked into our little apt that we rented for our stay. My friend from Guelph, Shveta, arrived around 4 (she was supposed to be here at 11:30, but she missed her first train too. We sure started this trip on the right foot!) We walked around Paris and caught up over dinner and drinks in the Latin quarter.

Sunday morning we woke up and headed out bright and early to conquer the city. We did just that! We walked from the Eiffel Tower to the arc de triomophe, down champs élysées, past grand palais to les invalides. By les invalides there was a huge protest against the new gay marriage bill. It was amazing to see such a huge group of people, but very sad that they were fighting for inequality.

We had a hard time getting back to the north bank because the police had a lot of road blocks set up for the protest, but eventually we made it across. We walked up to place de Concorde and through the palace gardens to the louvre. The louvre was closed by the time we got there, so we started making our way back to our apt near place de la Bastille.

Such an awesome day! The weather was so beautiful!! We were worn out by 9 pm, considering we almost walked 15 km in one day. We grabbed a quick dinner and settled in for the night and watched the devil wears Prada.