After a 9hr flight, departing Vancouver at 1:30pm and arriving in Paris at 8:50am with only 30mins (maybe) sleep in flight – we were tired, wobbly really, but of course super excited about our 24hrs in Paris!

After a near hour wait in the customs line up, we were ready for a little excitement to wake us up. Well we got it. Just after getting our backpacks from the luggage carousel a police office started yelling to get out of the airport, leave your bags and exit there is a suspicious package. Me and Lana with our packs already on (thank goodness) joined the crowd exiting quickly from the area. People didn’t hesitate to leave – just started rushing out. You can tell the city is on alert. Lots of police around, army dudes with machine guns patrolling the airport, bags are checked anytime you enter any big store or tourist attraction (sometimes even metal detectors). Should that scare me? Maybe a little. If anything, it makes me even more aware for sure but at the same time gives me confidence that they are alert!

So with that jolt of excitement under belt we were wide awake again and read to metro in Paris proper. On route we discovered the weather was looking up! We had landed into basically thick pea soup. So much so we thought we were still in the air in thick clouds when we actually landed! You could barely see the tip of the wing. But the fog was lifting and we were hopeful the 31 degrees the ole weather app had predicted would work out.

Once into Paris proper we found our hotel and yahoo our room was ready for us although it was only noon. We dropped our bags and headed out for lunch. We found the best cafe ever – salads to die for and delicious French wine! Now this is Paris!

Ok bellies fully and wine enjoyed, we were ready to power though our sleepy states and see what Paris had to offer. We walked from across to the Grand Palais and Petite Palais with a stroll through the Jardins to Tuileries, to the Louvre and wrapped up at Notre Dame – checking out all the amazing buildings and bridges between! Lana enjoyed the Louvre, it really is a must do for Paris. I had been before so instead spent the couple hours hunting down a SIM card and holiday data plan so we would have a phone in case of emergencies. The day was fabulous – the temp got to a very humid, melting 31!

We wrapped up the evening with a picnic of cheese, bread, olives and white wine (drinking out of our very classy Canada tin cups) while we watched for the Eiffel Tower to light up! This is something everyone should have a chance to see. It really is pretty spectacular. Eiffel is currently sporting white light with sparkling lights going off all over every hour for 5mins. Very pretty!

Exhausted at this point we headed back to the hotel and basically passed out! I fell asleep texting my hubby goodnight and Lana fell asleep mid sentence downloading an app on her iPad. Tired or what! We slept like the dead. No rolling over or getting comfy – both flat on our backs for the count.

Lana slept so well she was up before me and getting ready for the day while my lazy bones laid in bed – it was only a bit after 6 in the morning and our train wasn’t till 10 so I was in no rush. Love that. Well turns out we were really, really, really in no rush. Lana’s watch was messed up and it was actually only a bit after 4am. What!? And here Lana was already ready for the day. Well a quick selfie and back to sleep for 3 more hours. Geeks!

We are now on day two, after getting up at the right time the second time, and on our all day train down to Saint Jean Pied de Port where we start our Camino tomorrow eeeeek!

Brande