Paris in 48 hours

I made a promise to myself when I was much younger that I'd get to Europe before I was 30 years old.  It seemed like a safe bet because 30 is so old and at the time it was so far away.  Of course, I figured that by that time I'd be super rich and probably have gone like 12 times.  But being a pretty cautious person, I figured it was a good number and very achievable.  Fast forward a number of years and I will be 30 next April and I had never been to Europe.  Woah, that happened fast.

One of the reasons we decided to take this opportunity in Dubai was so that we could travel.  Emirates Airlines gives Ryan great benefits, including super cheap travel for himself and for his family.  Earlier this week Ryan had a two day trip to Paris for work.  He'd been asking me to go along, but I had some appointments and a book club meeting.  After he mentioned it a few times, I decided to go.  I mean, appointments can be moved.  Trips to Paris with your husband don't come along very often.  So I moved some things around the day before, packed super quick, and called the kennel for Renard, while Ryan booked me a standby ticket his flight to Paris.  I woke up at 1am and headed to the airport for the 4:30am flight, which was unfortunately overbooked (the downside of flying standby.)  Luckily the 8:30am flight was wide open and I was issued a confirmed ticket pretty early on, which was awesome.  It was even in business class!

Ryan met me at the Charles De Gaulle airport and we headed to the hotel room, where all of the Emirates crew stays.  (Free hotel!)  Then we got ready and headed out for the evening.  We took the train into the city and stopped at Notre Dame.  It was closed for the day, but was still cool to see from the outside.  We then grabbed some dinner at a little cafe and then met up with our friend, Pierre.  Pierre  took us to the St. Martin Canal where we sat on the walls of the canal and spent the evening having a beer, catching up, and people watching.  It was nice to see a friend and do something relaxing and less touristy for our first, jet-lagged night.

Notre Dame 

Dinner

Sitting along the canal

Our second day in Paris was spent walking from site to site.  We wanted to take in as many tourist attractions as possible since it was our only full day.  And since it was absolutely beautiful weather, we wanted to walk.  We saw Notre Dame again, the Louvre, the Champs-Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, and pretty much everything in between.  We ate chocolate crepes and had champagne in the park.  It was an absolutely perfect day and I'm so glad I went.

Loving this weather!

FLOWERS!

Eiffel Tower Hat

Arch de Triomphe

The coolest part of the trip was probably the flight home, though.  For the first time ever I got to be on one of Ryan's planes!  It was his "leg" of the trip so he was the one actually flying most of the time.  He announced the descent and landed.  It was a pretty proud moment for me!  Plus, now I know that Ryan really does fly planes, which is great.  (ha)

In less than two weeks we'll be on a plane headed to Hamburg where we will start our two week European RV adventure!