Here we go
taking it back 6 months to our honeymoon in Paris.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007: Departure Day and December 20, Arrival Day!
I spent most of Tuesday night packing and re-packing. Our luggage weighed a LOT! Traveling overseas in the winter months is tricky. We wanted to take only 1 suitcase because we were going to be using the Metro to get from CDG to our hotel. This would bite us in the butt when we had to pay $50 for an overweight bag on an international flight.
We woke up, had breakfast, showered, did some last minute rearranging. Dan had to run our urns back to the florist while my cousin got packed.
Everything was finally packed and I gave my parents instructions on what items needed to be returned to our house when they headed back to Maryland. We gave everyone hugs and drove off headed for MCO. In the rush of it all, we forgot to look for an offsite parking garage! I was so mad because I knew we were going to pay a couple hundred dollars to park at the airport. Oh well, we had no choice at this point.
We got to MCO, parked in our expensive parking place and headed inside to 1st check my cousin in and then to check ourselves in. This is when we find that we are over the weight limit with our luggage. The lady asks if we have another bag and I cringe at the thought of lugging mega luggage through DTW and CDG. I always pack a duffel bag in the bottom of our luggage when we are going somewhere that we will be buying souvenirs, so we technically could have put stuff in there. DH says its okay and well pay the overweight fee.
After we all checked in, I told my cousin I thought there was a
Disney store in the airport. This plush Simba was important to her and I understood that. We found the Disney store and managed to find a baby Simba. Yay, she has her gift for her boyfriend! We hugged goodbye and headed to our gates.
Dan and I found our gate. We were super early so we headed off to find food. I think we had pizza and Freshens fro-yo. I decided we needed to bring some cash with us just in case. This was another dumb idea because we ended up changing it at the airport in Paris for a horrible exchange rate, which I was fully aware of but chose to go ahead with the plan.
Before we left MCO
The flight to Detroit was uneventful. Once we landed, we decided to get dinner since it was evening by now. We found a Chilis, which we loved. We had to charge up all of our electronics, especially the laptop and our cell phones. Luckily we were seated at a table with an electric outlet. We ate dinner and called all of our relatives to say goodbye. We would be gone for Christmas so we wished everyone an early Merry Christmas. I also finished our Christmas cards during dinner. I ordered photocards from Shutterfly so I really wanted to get those out.
After dinner we had to prepare for our international flight. I told Dan to take out his contacts and we both slipped into some more comfortable clothes. At this point I was so excited for my husband to be making his first overseas trip!
We finally boarded our flight to CDG. The flight was rather uneventful. DH and I both tried to sleep, but I dont think either of us did. He was too busy playing with the entertainment system. I was too. I think a lot of people were enjoying watching Ratatouille as we crossed the Atlantic. I had a conversation with a younger woman while waiting for the bathroom and she thought it was so fitting that it was one of our options. I think I put it on in French and slept for a short while after that.
I dont remember much else about our flight except when the sun began to rise (
it is now December 20). I was so excited when we began to see land again! So I again started telling Dan stories about my last trip to France because we were flying over the areas I visited on that trip (Normandy/Brittany). We were served breakfast and shortly thereafter touched down at CDG. I was giddy to be at CDG again because I am a huge U2 fan and the video for Beautiful Day was shot on the runway at CDG so I kept telling DH that Bono had been RIGHT HERE before.
On the plane after we arrived at CDG:
I love the interior of CDG
We got our luggage--we had the 1 HUGE suitcase, a smaller carry-on suitcase, backpack and my purse-- and had to dig out our winter gear because it was COLD that morning. We then had to find the RER train station. DH and I speak very little French so we had to decode things. Speaking some Italian and Spanish makes decoding words a bit easier. Ive never encountered a French person who was hesitant to speak English to me. On the way to the train station, we stopped by the currency exchange place and got totally ripped offbut we had Euros now, yay!
Once at the train station (which is inside the airport) we tried using the automated machines to no avail. We had to wait in line to purchase our tickets into Paris. Im fairly good with navigating the Metro in Paris so I found the best route for us and we purchased our tickets. Our train had very few people on it so it was a beautiful ride through the countryside and into Paris. We called our parents from the train to let them know wed arrived safely.
RER Station @ CDG
Paris Metro Map- We had fun choosing our routes around the city.
The most difficult part of getting to our hotel was walking with our luggage. I made a bad choice about which station to get off at. It was not close to our hotel so we had to lug the HUGE suitcase through the tiny streets of Passy.
We had quite a time finding our hotel. Id read it was tricky to find. Luckily, I found a lady on TripAdvisor who had just stayed at Les Hauts de Passy. I emailed her and she was kind enough to answer my questions about the hotel and neighborhood. I happened to forget her tips after a sleepless flight! We managed to find our hotel and I was in
love!
Les Hauts de Passy, exterior
Our hotel was located in a neighborhood, not a touristy area, but a genuine Parisian neighborhood (Passy). The street we were on was a pedestrian street that had a market every day! Of course, there was also a McDonalds on the end that DH wanted to eat at all the time, but the McDonalds also had free Wi-Fi so it worked well for us. Im also a Coke addict so it was good for that as well.
Our street
Can you see the McDonald's at the very end?
We checked into our hotel and the gentleman at the front desk was polite. He spoke to us in English and had no problems with doing so. We asked him about Internet access and were told we could purchase a card with minutes on it. We then ventured up the scary elevator to our room. Our room was nothing to sing about. It was a basic European hotel room. We had a bathroom (w/ shower), bed, desk, small closet, and TV. Nothing fancy, but just what we needed. We had intended to do things to keep ourselves awake, but we ended up falling asleep until evening. We woke up, went to McDonalds for dinner, tried to get the Wi-Fi to work, went back to our room and crashed again. This worked to our advantage because we were able to get up in the morning and not really deal with jet lag too much.
Our hotel room, excuse the mess
*Lifted from Tripadvisor as I forgot to take pics... Our room was identical, maybe even the same room.
Our tiny bathroom
So thats the end of day 1
it gets better! We didnt spend our entire honeymoon asleep or at McDonalds I promise!!
Up next
Day 2: Notre Dame, Do you speak English? gypsies, Subway, Pompidou Centre, crepes, Notre Dame at night 
) I would love to hear about your experiences at 
