Tourist Time in Paris!

Admittedly, Tracy and I had a rough couple of days adjusting to the 7-hour time difference, but we were troopers about it and decided to to a ton of stuff the first full day we were there. We walked to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees, through the Tuileries to the Louvre, to the Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, and the Sorbonne. Phew! It was a long day and our dogs were a-barkin'.

Along the way, we bumped into our other assistant friend Emily, who was on our flight, and set off to look for a good place to find phones. I was successful, Tracy and Emily were not as lucky. It is definitely difficult trying to explain to someone (in French) how your unlocked phone should function after a new SIM card is put in. We left feeling slightly downtrodden. Next, in an attempt to actually be productive, we parted ways from Emily and went off in search of train tickets. So we hopped on the metro and headed over to Gare d'Austerlitz to see if we could catch someone at a counter before they closed. Unfortunately, they had already closed upon our arrival, so we decided to try to purchase them at the automatic machines. I couldn't because my US debit card doesn't have the magic "chip" that all of the cards here have. Zut! Then Tracy tried to buy hers but the machine asked her for her pin number, which she didn''t know. Merde.

After all of that hulabaloo was finished, we headed to the Eiffel Tower to take some obligatory tourist photos and marvel at its size. Unfortunately the stairs were closed and the lines for the elevators were ridonkulous, so we decided to forgo the observation decks.

Next we began our walk back towards the St. Michel area (by Notre Dame) for a well deserved pint at my old Irish pub haunt: The Galway. A lot of people say that Irish pubs are overrated because you can find them everywhere and they aren't anything special. I beg to differ. I love the laid back ambiance, the quick-witted bar tenders, and the fact that most people who frequent these establishments aren't pretentious. Plus they tend to almost always have live music. Good beer, good people, good music. Irish pubs, you just can't beat 'em!

So we grabbed a couple pints, listened to some live acoustic versions of everything from The Beatles to Buddy Holly to Muse to Lady Gaga, and decided to call it a night.

Good News Bears.