Today was the first day in Paris and needless to say, I already decided I want to have a second house here one day. It really is the City of Love because the second I stepped off the metro, I loved evert second of it. It is a lot like Georgetown on mega steroids. Everywhere you look there is a beautiful building with breathtaking black iron balconys that have swirls and curves and hints of gold with flowers draping over them. Then there are the little restaurants that are on every corner that are exactly as I imagined they would look. Lots of crammed tables lining the sidewalks next to the restaurants with big open windows to the inside of the restaurant so no matter where you are sitting, it feels like you are still outside breathing in the Parisian air. It sounds cliche but it really is a magical place. Hearing people speak french in the background wherever you are just makes it even better. They could be saying the most boring things but it sounds so pretty in french. Everyone was walking around with an ice cream cone, sorbet, a sandwich on long baguettes, and a camera in hand (at least all the tourists had cameras). I know Erin and I stuck out like sore thumbs since we stopped to take a picture of everything we saw...and I mean EVERYTHING! I was looking back through my pictures when we got back and I have to have at least fifteen pictures just of pretty balconies, not to mention the thousand pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower because you can see it just about everywhere you walk to and I obviously had to take a picture of it from every angle everywhere I went! I hope I get to go up into the Eiffel Tower tomorrow or sometime this week! After taking a million pics of the Eiffel Tower and getting to sit on the grass patch right in front of it, we finally went to find some food. I had a ham and cheese sandwich on a fresh baguette. It was long and skinny...and delicious! We didint know where to sit to eat our sandwiches until we finally ran across some random tables outside. So, we sat down. Little did we know that we sat at a table for a restaurant and a waiter came and gave us menus...while we were eating our sandwiches that were clearly from another restaurant. So, we felt bad...and awkward so we ordered dessert from the waiter. I had a little apple tart and Erin had crepes with Nutella and bananas inside. Yum!

Oh ya. Let me at least start a little bit at the beginning of today though (even though the Paris part is all that matters!). Today, I woke up around 1:00...I think the jetlag kicked in. After Erin and I dragged ourselves out of bed we finally showered and got ready and got to the metro by 3:30 and were in Paris by 4. We walked around Paris until around 9:30 and headed back home. :) I must say, leaving Paris was the saddest part of the day because I would just live there if I could. It was honestly that amazing. As American and touristy as I probably looked, I definitely felt like I fit in with the classy and fashion-y vibe you get when you walk off the metro. You can probably already imagine how I felt when Erin and I first stepped onto the Rue Champs-Elysses. I LOVED IT. Absolutely fell in love. Everywhere you looked was either a shop that had the prettiest window display, or was just such a swanky brand name (Chanel, Louis-Vuitton, Versace, Elie Saab... it was really fun window shopping at those stores :)) They also had a HUGE Sephora and other stores that we have back home like Gap, Virgin Records, H&M, and Abercrombie and Fitch...but let's take a minute to talk about Abercrombie and Fitch. It had the entrance of a castle. Literally. Erin and I were walking on Champs-Elysses and we saw huge fifteen foot gates with black and shinnery gold accents with HUGE, perfectly trimmed hedges just as tall as the gate. There was a velvet roped off line waiting to go in the gates to the store, which you could not even see from the sidewalk. All you could see when the gates open was a white gravel path with the same huge hedges lining the length of the path. At first Erin and I decided we wanted to get a tour of whatever it was becasue it looked so stately and gorgeous...then, we went up to the iron sign on next to the gate that said "Abercrombie and Fitch". Needless to say, we started laughing because we could not believe it was just an A&F. I think my jaw hit the floor when I saw that sign. It was pretty ridiculous! Then we walked around the shops some more and went into a parfumerie to buy some perfume for my mom. We were greeted by the nicest French lady who helped us try at least twenty different perfumes. I think I still smell of perfume, so many different ones that my nose is just confused. It was a lot of fun though and we definitely felt like celebrities by the way they treated us. It was really awesome. One of the other highlights of the day was when I went up to a girl who looked about our age and asked her how to get somewhere, I obviously asked in French and she just looked at me and said "uhhh no french..english only, ask French person". Made my day that she thought I sounded like I actually knew how to speak in French well enough to be mistaken for a French person. :)

Anyway after walking around for a few hours, we decided we should get some dinner since there are not many restaurants in Evry, where our school is. So, we walked back toward the Eiffel Tower and found a little restaurant with tons of pretty red tables outside. We both got omelets - mine with Ham and Erin's with mushrooms. (She ordered hers on her own too so I was very proud because the whole day I was ordering her food in French for her :)) It was delicious and after finishing that and our side salads, we ordered a celebratory dessert for being in Paris for the first time and having the absolute best time possible. We ordered a Peach Melba and split it. Basically, a Peach Melba is vanilla bean ice cream with warm diced peaches and peach glaze with whipped cream and sprinkles...oh and don't forget the toothpick with the sprakly thing on the end that stuck out of the top! It was awesome. Naturally, we took a thousand pictures of the dessert, us with the dessert, and us eating the dessert! Finally we headed to the metro, then gave up on the metro and got a taxi (and the taxi driver spoke absolutely NO english whatsoever so I had to talk to him and give him directions on where we needed to go in French the whole time, while desperately trying to remember how to say "right" and "left" in french!) and made it home around 11:30. It was an AMAZING day and I cannot wait to do it again tomorrow when Austin comes to visit me and Erin!

I am absolutely tired from such a long day but it was perfect and I can't wait for tomorrow! Taking on Paris, Day #2!

Au Revoir,

Tori "I'm moving to Paris one day" Marshall :)