So, our first day here in Paris involved the following tasks: luggage, obtaining a wifi connection, a museum pass for 4 days, a Metro (public transit) pass for 3 days, exchanging currency into Euros, finding/booking a hotel for 4 days, and then finding the hotel to crash land... We hadn't given much forethought to the time difference, but here in France is a 6 hour adjustment from our time there in the states. This translates to grogginess. Much grogginess as we schlepped our luggage through the streets and underbelly of the Metro system looking for connections between trains. (Having lived in Chicago, we figured it would be easy to connect from train to train; however, this is true only if you read French names well...)
We had to catch up on sleep before meeting up with Wendy's cousins, Hannah, who treated us to an incredible dinner at Le Bristol Hotel! It was an amazing evening of course after course of things I've never tasted before in my life (I still have a passion-fruit caramel in a pocket somewhere.) I will post images of our various servings as soon as I get an iPad camera dock.) I had the lamb w/ a seaweed crust and asparagus/greens gnocchi while Wendy had the whiting on a bed of spinach w/ a crisp almond tulle. I'll link to the menu for specifics.
We both bid Hannah farewell and walked the streets surrounding the Presidential Palace and Opera House. We spotted two shops we plan to visit today. Check in tomorrow for details. Thanks again to MakeWork for among this possible!
Day 1: Paris, France