Paris holds the key to my heart...

On Wednesday night after Seth and I had had dinner he went out of the living room for a few minutes. I heard him rustling around in the spare room and when he came back in, he had a Birthday card in his hand, wished me a Happy Birthday as he gave it to me and told me that he couldn't wait until Saturday so he wanted to give it to me now. I opened it and inside the card there was a piece of paper which said "dinner for two". Seth asked me if that was alright, as the Birthday present that he'd had in mind for me fell through (that being a tan leather handbag - I've been wanting one for ages, then a couple of weeks ago, I found a beautiful Fossil one, which was exactly what I really wanted and it was a bargain price so I bought it. Hence the present falling through). I told him that it was lovely. I obviously wasn't really thinking that clearly because if I had been, I would have wondered why it was that he had to give it to me on Wednesday instead of Saturday. He then smiled at me and told me that we wouldn't be going for dinner in London. Or in the UK. Then he pulled out a Paris travel book! I couldn't believe that we were going to Paris for my Birthday! He then told me that he had phoned my boss and arranged for me to have Friday off work and that we were leaving on Thursday night, so we would have all day Friday and Saturday in Paris. I know you're thinking it so I'm just going to say it, how amazing is my husband?! So on Thursday after work, we met at St. Pancras International station and took the eurostar, arriving in Paris 2 and a half hours later. Not bad! We did so much over the two days that if I gave you every single little detail this would be a really long post, so I shall try to give you the shortened version!

On Friday morning, we left our hotel and armed with our little map, we set off. The hotel location was perfect, we were pretty close to everything which was just what we needed. It was a beautiful day, cold but sunny with blue skies so it was a great day for sight-seeing. It seems that everywhere you really want to go to in Paris is within walking distance. We could have taken the metro to get to places but we wanted to be able to see everything along the way. I think we must have walked for miles over the two days we were there! Our first stop was the Paris Opera House. It is absolutely beautiful and all around the outside, there are bronze busts of famous composers. It is a pretty amazing sight to behold.


From there, we walked to the Louvre and took quite a lot of photos. The architecture in Paris is just amazing and we're pretty lucky in that we both appreciate things like that and love taking the time to look at it. I'm sorry to sound uncultured, but being at the Louvre really made me want to watch "The Da Vinci Code", as quite a bit of the film is based there. Seth and I went inside to admire the paintings and sculptures. Now, one thing you need to know about Seth and museums is that he loves them. I quite like them too, but he will read every single plaque next to every single painting and sculpture so that he doesn't miss out on anything. Well, maybe he's not quite that bad but close enough anyway! Luckily for me, all of the plaques were in French and neither of us can speak the language, so Seth was unable to do that this time! Instead we just enjoyed looking around and playing a bit.


At one point, we were in one of the alcoves where Seth was pretending he was riding a chariot and someone came in. I laughed more than somewhat! He will be really glad that I shared that. It's probably a good job that he doesn't even read this blog!

When we left the Louvre, we walked along the river Seine and decided to stop and get something to eat close to Notre Dame. Seth got a baguette from a small bakery and I got a chocolate and almond pastry. Seth then got a dessert and, um, so did I. A huge chocolate nutella and coconut crepe, which I struggled to finish.


So I think we've established that I'm a piggy. Don't judge.

Notre Dame was amazing and there were so many people taking photos, including us. I think it looked even more beautiful against the blue sky. It is just as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside but needless to say, you're not allowed to use flash photography inside so I didn't get any pictures except for this one.



Seth was joking that I was trying to take as many pictures as I could with lamp posts in them. I thought it looked cool.

We wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower just as the sun was going down so that we would get to see it in daylight and at night time. It was quite a walk from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower and I think we went a pretty roundabout way of getting there but we were just having fun walking and taking everything in. We may have been singing "Paris holds the key to my heart" from "Anastasia" as we were walking. We were in Paris, don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same! We timed it just perfectly and arrived just a short distance away from the Eiffel Tower just as the sun was beginning to set.



The atmosphere at the foot of the Eiffel Tower was amazing, there were so many people from so many different places, it's a really nice place to be just to take it all in. As it got darker, it got a lot colder and Seth and I were freezing as we were standing in line waiting for tickets to go to the top but we were singing, chatting and laughing the whole time. I tried to get Seth to applaud when the lights came on but needless to say, he refused. I can't imagine why!

The view from the top of the tower was incredible, it was beautiful to see Paris all lit up. I tried to take some photos but they came out a bit blurry. Just screw up your eyes and they look okay.



We stayed up there for a while, walking around and seeing the views of Paris from different sides of the tower. We didn't really want to come back down but when we could no longer feel our fingers we decided that we probably should so we came back down to earth where I took more photos.

A friendly American couple approached us and offered us two tickets for a boat cruise. They were going home the next day and wouldn't be able to use them so they gave them to us which was really kind of them. They then asked us to take a photo for them, in front of the Eiffel Tower. Seth said that it would have been really funny to have taken their tickets and then not taken their picture! Although it would have been pretty funny, if not a little bit mean, I took their picture for them. They had a fancy digital SLR with a massive lens. I am always so scared when people ask me to take their photos on those cameras because they are so big and front-heavy that I am really worried I will just drop their camera. Luckily for me I didn't drop it and their camera remained intact!

Even though it was quite late, we decided against taking the metro and we walked back to the hotel, mainly along the river. All of the buildings look so beautiful, lit up at night time. As we were walking, flashing lights came on on the Eiffel Tower. We just stood there and looked at it for a little while as it looked incredible.


This picture was just one from the internet because mine didn't come out very well, but it's just so you get the idea! Being there was just amazing. So that this post doesn't end up being any longer than it already is, I'll tell you more about it in the next post!