Erin: Day 1 - Paris, France

The day started off like any other… Hopping off a plane after a six hour plane ride.  You know, who doesn’t start their Saturday off like that? :)  The flight was great - it went fast, I watched three movies (well, one full and two partial movies) and had two meals - a roast beef dinner and a breakfast with fresh fruit, etc. - and watched the lights in the plane go from a white light to a blue light to a pink light and back to white.  I loved the color changes… Hadn’t seen that before!

Ok, so I land in Paris and I’ve got about an hour before Trina’s flight arrives… So, being in Terminal 2 means I have to switch to Terminal 1 to get her.  The only downside is that the shuttle takes 40 minutes to get there…  Seriously!  So, by the time I get to her Terminal and find the location where she’d be, her flight has already arrived.  We had planned to meet in the baggage area just in case we couldn’t find each other at her gate so I headed there.  No Trina.  At this point I’m racking my brain trying to think of solutions to finding her…  So, I head to the United Airlines counter and asked them to page her.  They did.  Moments later, a page comes over the intercom for ME!  haha… It was rather funny, we were paging each other in the airport.

We found each other finally and gave big hugs… We had ARRIVED!

Trina, just after we met for the first time after our flights!

The next step was finding the train to Paris.  We found it pretty easily and for eight Euros, we got our train ticket into Paris.  The train ride was relatively uneventful - there wasn’t a whole lot to see along the train track…  Mostly rundown places and neighborhoods that looked a little sketchy.  When we finally got to the Gare du Nord, we hopped off and found our way above ground.  Next stop was grabbing a cab and then we headed to the Paris Hilton!

The beds… separated merely by a tiny crack.  The comforters were SO tiny!

We unloaded our bags, grabbed our money belts (haha - we’re such security geeks) and headed out for some much-anticipated sight-seeing.  We went straight to the Eiffel Tower and stopped to take some photographs there.  We decided not to go up it because really, how many buildings do you need to go up to get the idea of a skyline?  Sorry, that’s my cynical travel side coming out…

The Eiffel Tower

Me in front of the Eiffel Tower

After we took in the Eiffel Tower, it was off to walk along the River Siene on route to Le Louvre (or is it La Louvre?)

The gravel walk alongside the River Siene

A look back at the Eiffel Tower…

The River Siene

We also happened across the site where Princess Diana was killed in that horrific car crash.  I captured some photos here even though the feeling is very somber, I wanted to show people back home how she was honored here.

The torch near Princess Diana’s accident location.

We walked through the Place du Concorde and saw the Obelisk and a few other really great architectural sites.  We were on a mission though and wanted to get to the Louvre to see the great pieces of art that we’ve only read about or seen on movies.

The arc in front of the Louvre.

The famous pyramid in front of the Louvre.

There she is… The Mona Lisa.

Venus de Milo Statue

For more photos, visit our Flickr set which we will keep updated throughout the trip.

Technorati Tags: Erin Blaskie, virtual assistant, virtual assistance, Europe, European vacation, European adventure, Paris, France, Princess Diana, Louvre, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Paris Hilton, Hilton Paris, Place du Concorde, Obelisk, River Siene, Gare du Nord, Eiffel Tower