We not only made it to Paris, but managed to arrive ahead of schedule! It was smooth sailing from the moment we arrived at the airport in Toronto. Although Ian was a bit dismayed at my comments of "The airport seems quieter today...I've never gotten through customs so quickly...There are no cancelled flights on the departure board!" Luckily none of this conjured up any I'll luck for us. Our plane boarded so quickly that the pilot was allowed to depart early.
The flight itself was full of turbulence, which unfortunately meant both bumps and the ding of the seatbelt sign were interruptions to attempts at sleep. We both managed a bit of shut-eye, and I felt we were surprisingly functional given the mild sleep deprivation. We breezed through customs, which involved scanning our passports, stepping into what felt like a small holding pen to be reviewed on camera, the a quick stamp from the customs agent. I was unnecessarily disappointed no one asked for our purpose of travel or where we were staying, as I was of course at the ready with my answers. I got over it. We then navigate or way into the metro, which made some mildly concerning sounds that Ian pointed out were akin to a Geiger counter. I took point in navigation, which is a new role for me, and with some vague uncertainty, we made it to our hotel. We were too early to check in, so dropped off our bags and went out exploring.
The first stop was for food, and we were not disappointed with your first meal in Paris. The area we’re staying in has a good number of restaurants, and Ian spotted one called Fellows that looked popular. It ended up having amazing focaccia bread and pasta. We sat at the bar and were able to people watch both the other customers and the kitchen staff at work while we ate.
We decided to do some wandering around afterward, taking in some nearby architecture and sitting in a shady park to rest. The lack of sleep was catching up with us, and naps were had once we were able to check in to the hotel.
We then resumed our wandering, but with a destination in mind. First stop was a stationary store I had located online, as Ian is a fan of fountain pens. It was a bit more trouble to locate in-person using less than accurate location attempts by the offline app on my phone. We walked in a *few* circles, but managed to find it in the end.
We carried on to the Siene River, walking across to Île de la Cité, and island in the river. We walked through a park on the tip of the island, and it’s impressive how much better parks here are utilized. Much of the green space was taken up with people of all ages picnicking, playing cards, sharing a drink, socializing, and enjoying the scenery. After fully crossing the river and taking in some lovely boats (and a boat restaurant) we crossed another bridge back over.
And found ourselves at the Louvre! We did a bit of walking around the exterior and enjoying the architecture.
Feeling the hunger and exhaustion coming on, we made our track back towards the hotel, had some delicious pizza with more people watching, then returned to the hotel for an attempt to set our internal clocks to Paris time (a 6h difference) with some much craved sleep.
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