Paris (the city not the Hilton)

We took the train from Mons in Belgium to Paris. It only took about an hour and a half and delivered us straight to Gar du Nord station. I knew we would need to take the Metro from Gar du Nord to our hotel, but I wasn't quite sure which metro stop we needed.

After a little fumbling around and a bathroom break, we decided to buy a book of maps on Paris and headed toward the information window in the station. My boyfriend, Aaron, was on map reading duty and I did all the talking. I don't speak French, but I can say a few phrases and ask people in French if they speak English.

The information desk lady was helpful and explained to us that we needed to on the Metro on line 4 and get off at St. Germain des Pres. Easy enough.

Since we live in Seattle, we don't really have any interesting public transporation, except for the bus, so riding the Metro or any type of subway is exciting to me. We loaded all our crap on our backs, and set off on the Metro.

It took about a half hour to get to our stop, but it was fun to see all the stations whiz by and look at the billboard advertisements.

When we got to St. Germain des Pres, Aaron's directional skills were put to the test. I was so glad that we had a map. I am hopeless with directions, so I just looked out for street signs and tried to read them in French without butchering the pronunciation too much.

We meandered down quaint Parisian streets filled with cafes and shops. We rounded a corner and turned onto Rue Jacob and saw a Christian Dior shop, so I knew we were in the high rent district. Our hotel was called the Hotel des Marronniers and the address was 21 Rue Jacob. We actually ended up finding it with no problem and were able to check in at 11am, even though the normal check in time is 3pm. What luck!

Our hotel room faced the courtyard and big windows. The room itself was quite small, but it had an ensuite bathroom and was decorated with dark red everything. The bedspread was red, the drapes were a red flower pattern, and the wallpaper was red stripes and even the bathroom door was wallpapered! It was all very snazzy and even had a tv, which wasn't much use to us, but it was fun to flip around and see what was on.

After getting settled in to the hotel room, we took a long nap. I was wiped out from all the travelling we'd already done. After we woke up, we decided to get familiar with our new neighborhood. We found a cute cafe down the street and tried to interpret the menu. I was on the lookout for anything that sounded like meat, because Aaron is a vegetarian. We ordered capuccinos and also two sandwiches that had "Fromage" (cheese is usually a safe bet) on a baguette with some other words that I don't recognize. When they arrived, Aaron was disappointed to find "Jambon" under his melted cheese. So we traded sandwiches and just took the ham off of mine. I was starving and it was very tasty.

After that, we wandered in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. It was sunny, but kind of windy as we walked along the Seine and looked at the river barges along the side. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, there was a mob of people at the base and really all over the whole area. The lines snaked around each foot of the tower. I asked Aaron if he would be crushed if we didn't go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He said he didn't much care, and I was very relieved. I had already been up in the Eiffel Tower on a trip with some friends. It's cool, but it's not worth waiting in line all afternoon.

After that, we got an ice cream cone and headed back toward our hotel. On the way, we discovered the street of shops. We did a bit of shopping (ok, I did A LOT of shopping - see yesterday's post for all the juicy details). After shopping, we were famished, and decided to go have dinner. We found a nice Italian restaurant (I know, I know, we were in France, we should have had more French food, but we just wanted something easy) and had pizza and wine. The pizza crust was good, but we got quattro formaggio pizza. I thought cheese was a safe bet, right? But they used BLEU cheese as one of the formaggios! YUCK! I sort of scraped it off and enjoyed the crust and the other three formaggios.

We considered having dessert, but thought we'd head back to the hotel and rest for a while first. Once we got there, we realized that we were exhausted and decided to hang out for a while before we went to bed.

I had this crazy idea that Aaron might ask me to marry him while we were in Paris, but since a whole day had already passed, I decided to test the waters with an offhand remark. So I said, "Wouldn't it be funny if we told everyone we got married in Paris?"

Aaron asked me if I even wanted to get married. I said that I would say yes if he asked me to marry him. He said,"Ok, then let's do it." What?! I told him he had to actually ask me in the form of a question. So he said, "Will you marry me?" And, as promised, I said yes.

He hopped up and told me to wait a sec while he rummaged around in his bag. He produced a silver band that said, "Your Ring Here" on the outside, and on the inside it says, "Love Always...Aaron". What a cheeky monkey! He told me later that he'd been planning to ask me for a couple months!

The rest of the evening, we sat on the bed and I have to admit that I didn't know what to say! We both had big dorky smiles on our faces and kept saying, "I can't believe we're going to get married!" over and over.

The next day, we had room service breakfast. It was delivered to our room on a big tray. It was so awesome that I took not one, but three pictures of the spread. We got coffee, milk, yogurt, baguettes, croissants, little cakes, butter, jam and orange juice. I was ecstatic! I love room service and I love breakfast. Plus, I was pretty damn elated about being engaged! So it was a great way to start the day.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. We went to look around at the Louvre and took a bunch of pictures. The lines there were really long, so we didn't go inside. I had already been inside on another trip. Mona Lisa isn't that exciting.

After the Louvre, we did more shopping. Then I had a Nutella Crepe. Mmmm. And then we did some more shopping. By the end of the day, we were both ready to collapse, so we ended up going to a Belgian themed restaurant that reminded me of Red Robin. Aaron had calimari, but it looked like mozarella cheese sticks and I had a salad and some fries.

After dinner, we went to a sidewalk cafe and I had mousse and Aaron had some type of after dinner drink that tasted like licorice. Ick. Then we saw Jason Schwartzman from "Rushmore"! Aaron spotted him, so we tried to be cool and follow him. He's really short in real life.

We got a picture of him, sort of. We pretended like Aaron was taking a picture of me and then got Jason Schwartzman in the background. It's not a very clear picture. The papparazzi don't have to worry about us horning in on their turf.

After that we went back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. We had to check out early the next day to catch the Eurostar back to London.

I wasn't a big fan of Paris before this trip. I always favored Germany and England over France. But after this trip, Paris will always be very special to me. I am still in shock that Aaron and I are engaged. He's my fiance. Mon dieu!