Paris day 1

We checked into our Paris hotel, took a nap, then walked around the neighborhood, which is called Monteparnasse. We ended up stopping at a French restaurant and I had another embarrassing encounter trying to speak French. The restaurant staff greeted us with bonsoir!...except I couldn't remember what that meant and panicked so I just smiled and kept walking. Luckily Tony reciprocated their greeting, which means good evening by the way. Duh. We were seated and a gentleman who looked like he was the manager came up and began speaking English with a heavy French accent. (This happens a lot in the next few days in Paris. Apparently we have that "American look" about us as many people just started off with English without even assuming we spoke French. So much for my stylish skinny jeans and scarves to try and blend in....)

I ordered a pasta dish named tagliatelle something or other. After we placed our order, another gentleman came over and asked me again in English, but with a very thick French accent, if I was having the tagliatelle. He had some extras such as cheese and a special pasta fork and needed to know who had ordered it so he could place it on the correct side of the table. Except I didn't understand a thing he said so I just stared blankly at him. "Mademoiselle?" he said awaiting my response. Tony piped in and said, "He's asking if you ordered the tagliatelle." To which I responded, "Oh si! Agh! I mean oui!" The Frenchman just smiled and walked away. Awesome. We both agreed the dinner was mediocre which was a bummer since it was our first meal in Paris.

At the end of the dinner I was prepared to ask for our bill using my Rick Steve's French Phrase book, which ended up being the equivalent of a baby blanket for me the whole time we were in Paris. "l' adittion s'il vous plait." Much to my surprise and delight the server raised his eyebrows and said "okay the bill! Very good! Nice accent!" Meaning I sounded like a French lady! Yes! Success!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel just in time to meet up with our car tour that we had arranged. It was through a company called Paris Authentic. It's a company that had these old open top French cars (you can see a picture of the car in the photo section) and drives you all around Paris at night which is breathtakingly beautiful. You quickly understand why Paris is called the city of lights. The driver was a young French girl who spoke very good English and explained some tidbits about all the sites we would drive past. One of the first things we noticed about driving in Paris is that they drive fast and aggressive! There are differences in their yielding rules too that could be very dangerous for the uninitiated. They have plenty of or roundabouts around and here's how the yielding system works. The person entering the roundabout has the right of way, rather than the way we do it back home. So apparently you just drive right into the roundabout and people are supposed to stop for you, then you have to yield to everyone else to try and get out of the roundabout. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but what it looks like is chaos. So our driver timed our pass by the Eiffel Tower at the top of the hour when for five minutes, the entire tower sparkles with thousands of lights flashing on the tower. Very pretty site! After we stopped and took some pictures, she drove us up to see Montmartre and the basilica of sacred heart which is the English translation for the french name Sacre Coure. It's on top of a small hilltop on the outskirts of the center of town. Beautiful view and a beautiful church. We were able to go inside and look around while a service was in progress. Back in the car, we drove past many other sites including the louvre' champs élysées, arc de triomphe, and Notre dame. The total time of the tour was 2 hours and gave you a true appreciation for how amazing of a city Paris is. We headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day of site seeing.

Sorry I'm so behind on blogging! I'll update you on Paris days two and three later this evening as well as Italy day one. Yesterday we arrived in Naples, Italy and took a 1.5 hour bus ride to the coastal town of Sorrento and it is BEAUTIFUL. In about 10 min we have a man named Raffaelo Moretti coming to pick us up and take us on an all day drive along the Amalfi Coast with little stops in villages along the way. So much more to update you all on! Soon, I promise!

Ciao bellos and bellas!