Family in France! Day 1

Bonjour family! (and friends, though these trip entries are especially dedicated to our family who we wish could all be here with us now).

I'm going to do my best to share a little every day (or so). We're thinking about you and love you all :)

Well.

The Colpaert's in Paris!


I made my way to Paris and met them at 2pm at a metro station. I was so overjoyed to see them that I slightly broke down in Dad's arms. Happy tears are good tears.

Poor them though - between them all I don't think they got a full nights sleep, but they were in good spirits and we got to the hotel and started right away!

Could not have had more beautiful weather. We went straight to the Eiffel Tower:

Everyone agreed it was much bigger than they expected. Dad was upset he wasn't able to touch it (as he had promised...) as it's up high on some kind of cinder block thing, so we settled for this picture to humour you:

Just kidding. We're going back tomorrow morning to climb it - or take an elevator...

We had a late lunch in a little park near the tower. I made sandwiches for everyone and brought strawberries and instant coffee, which was a hit (-ish) with even Pipi.

We sat on benches in the sun amongst many a raven, and had this view just opposite us:

From there, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe, and stopped for some French coffees (with cream) which were a hit with Dad and Donna:

We finally arrived at the Arc, and made our way down the Champs Elysee:

At one point, there were a half dozen cars and other screeching vehicles that blazed a path through the street, and I'm convinced it was Sarcozy being escorted somewhere...

We had a lot of fun walking down the Champs, seeing all the big, fancy rich-people stores, including Swavorsky (spelling? too tired to check...) where we went in to walk up the sparkly staircase:

Around this point everyone was getting quite tired, so we head back to the hotel and out for dinner at a beautiful restaurant, where we had a delicious meal and the creme brulee knocked the pants off everyone.

Some wine - a cheers to a beautiful day and a beautiful family.

For fun I thought I'd get a little summary of each day from everyone, so I started with Dad and asked how it was, typing word for word what he said:

“How was my day? Nervous, excited, but controlled. Long plane ride, very uncomfortable, no room to stretch or nothing, did not sleep, am extremely tired....let's see, got to see Katie, the best part of it all, everything came together, train ride plane ride...went walking, saw the wonderful Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, very historical. Got to walk down the Champs Elysee, and went into the Swavorsky (SP?) store, saw all the big shopping names, all the big money stuff. Very nice monuments there. Took lots of pictures, very memorable. Meal? The meal that Katie fed us was top shelf. A couple days ago...” (he starts to mumble something about geese and is asleep before finishing the sentence.)

Poor guy. I think I should follow his lead though.

Love and miss you all so much,
Katie