Christmas in Paris: Part II

Good morning everyone! I hope you are having a great start to your weekend. I can’t believe how insanely fast time is flying over here. I guess it seems even speedier being six hours ahead and all!

The past few days have been so out of my normal routine. I have been staying up extremely late, eating basically whatever I want (mainly pastas, breads, crepes, and desserts… whoops), then walking most of it off by exploring the city by foot and metro hopping all day long. At least that’s what we keep telling ourselves!

Since I have so much to share with you, I am going to try and condense it down to the highlights. Where did we leave off? Oh yes, Christmas.

We arrived to Paris early the morning of, and you can read all about our day if you are interested. Last you heard, we were off to explore the city in search of bright lights, and I think we did a great job finding them!

(By the way… I need to revisit a disclaimer in case you missed it):

All of the pictures used on Day 1 were taken on my iPhone. While packing at home, I couldn’t find our memory card for our point and shoot camera, and I eventually gave up looking and left without it. We ended up purchasing a new one yesterday, and I can’t wait to share those photos with you. Until then, enjoy the smart phone technology… Sorry!

Champs-Élysées (or the Avenue des Champs–Élysées) is one of the most famous streets in the world. The avenue runs right around 1.2 miles from the Arc de Triomphe to Roue de Paris with a strip of upscale shops, restaurants and cinemas in between.

I have mentioned before that Scott has been to Paris a handful of times, and this strip is something he really wanted me to see. I am sure it is always a special place to visit, but walking down the illuminated rue of shops felt extra magical on Christmas.

We entered smack dab in the middle of it and found ourselves ooh-ing and ahh-ing over anything slightly spectacular. The first thing that made us stop was a group of street performers. They were pretty good, and I have to give them some credit for getting out there in the cold on Christmas to put on a show!

En route to the Arc, we couldn’t help but to stop into L’Atelier Renault, home to a unique collection and display of boutique luxury cars. Some of them were insane. I mean… really.

Check out the seats and tires! We’ll take two please.

Before we knew it, we made it to the end (of one side) and had fun taking pictures in front of the Arc. Yup… we’re tourists.

(Through and through.)

We turned around and gave a good effort at trying to find something for dinner on the way to the other side. As soon as we said we would stop, however, we both instictively kept going in order to get closer to the bright ferris wheel in the distance. Eventually this beautiful sight stopped us in our tracks, and rightfully so.

Past the color changing Christmas lights lies an even more festive display of twinkling lights in a garden and marketplace in front of the Roue de Paris. The displays were absolutely stunning!

After the lights, we ran into strip of outside tents selling arts and crafts and bought a few Christmas ornaments. On Christmas day, we kind of had to. Sooner than later we made it to the wheel.

We were hoping it would still be up and running at the late hour we arrived, and to our surprise it was. Nothing sounded more romantic at that moment than a ferris wheel ride overlooking Paris and it’s bright city lights on a holiday.

It was so, so wonderful and I still cannot get over seeing the “real” Eiffel Tower appear in the background of our pictures.

Okay, okay… ice skating in Paris on Christmas was right up there on the romantic scale too. We found a rink at the end of the marketplace and had an amazing time making fools of ourselves!

Ha! Confession: we really didn’t go ice skating. For about $30 (after we spent the same amount on the ferris wheel), we decided to forgo the ice skating and take pretend pictures from the side instead.

For what it’s worth, it looks just like Scott is going right into his tenth lap, right? Gotcha!

(We thought we were hilarious. Probably just super geeky. It’s fine.)

It was anything but traditional, but our Christmas dinner took place at Pizza Pino around 11 p.m. Scott ordered a pasta dish I happily helped myself to a few bites of and I ordered some kind of vegetable salad with chicken instead of tuna.

I was really excited they understood my “French” speaking request and that it came out right! With four (spread out) years of French classes under my belt in high school, and then college, you would think I would have retained more. As the days pass by, little bits and pieces are slowly coming back, but I am not making any claims or promises. Now I just need a month here!

This year’s Christmas was definitely one for the memory books. We missed being close to and celebrating with our families and friends, but in return will never get sick of saying… “remember that time we spent Christmas in Paris?” *Still pinching myself.*

More stories to come… (and can’t wait to share them with you!)

Have a wonderful weekend!