The Adventure Really Begins…

Our last few days in Paris were awesome, but not exactly what you would expect a of couple on their honeymoon. Friday morning we woke up and decided to go on a tour of the Parisian Catacombs. So in the late 1700s, a bunch of Parisians who lived around this one cemetery started to get sick. The solution was to exhume all of the bodies from said cemetery and move them to an abandoned quarry/mine. Over the next 50 years or so they did the same thing to a whole bunch of other cemeteries. If that’s not weird enough, the guy who was in charge of all this had the bones of all these dead guys arranged into a weird display. There are literally millions of peoples bones in this set of underground tunnels stacked up for people to pay to see. Erin and I were pretty interested in checking it out, but honestly it really creeped me out… Erin had a good time though.

Afterward we grabbed a beer to cheer me up. The bad thing about the tour was it let you out in a different part of Paris than where itstarted, so we don’t know where we are and just had a beer. An hour and a half  and about 3 miles later, we were finally back on the right track! We were lost but still got to see a lot of the city we otherwise would have missed. We treked a little while longer over to the Eiffel Tower, took a bunch of pictures in the park surrounding it, and then shot up the lift to the top. The view from the top was amazing, but when its only 40 degrees at the bottom its muuuuuch colder at the top. We spent about 3 minutes checking out the view and then went back down. We grabbed a nice dinner nearby and then walked to another super nice restaurant right on the water to grab a quick drink. They had a heated outdoor seating area so we were able to sit outside and watch as the Eiffel Tower lit up (it glitters for about 5 minutes on the hour after dark).

Since we stayed up pretty late the night before, and we had done most of the stuff we had wanted to do, we took it pretty easy on Saturday. We wanted to check out Jim Morrison’s grave (Erin is a huge Door’s fan). This was easily the longest walk we’d have to make this week, but after stopping along the way at a amazing little pastry shop and a falafel window we were feeling good. We went to a really good restaurant right next to the Sorbonne for dinner then had to head back to the hotel early to pack up to leave for Cairo the next morning. This day easily wins the award for best food day!!

This morning we decided to reward ourselves for walking all week by taking a taxi to the airport. More expensive, but better than carrying our 6 bags for blocks down busy Paris streets. The flight to Cairo went well, and our ride was waiting for us before we even went through customs which made things extremely easy. Driving to the hotel was another story. Driving in Cairo is ridiculous. Lane lines are merely decorations. Picture rush hour on the beltway, but instead of 4 cars packed into 4 lanes there are 6 cars packed into 3 lanes plus the shoulder, and people sprinting across the street whenever they can.  At one point, after stopping at a red light and then speeding through it, the driver turned around and said in Egypt red means “go”. Erin was like “Oh, that’s different”. To which the guy responded “No, I make joke.”

We just checked into our “luxurious 3 star hotel” (I’m assuming the Middle East has a slightly more lax ranking system), and start checking out Egypt tomorrow. Should be a good time!

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Bonjour World!

The past few days here in Paris have really flown by. We’ve been constantly on the move, trying to catch as many sites as possible before we leave on Sunday. We’ve been lucky and had amazing weather so far this week (sunny and mid- to upper-40s) so rather than taking the metro from place to place, Erin and I have opted to walk. I think we’re averaging around 7-8 miles a day which isn’t too bad, and it lets us pop into any interesting shop, bar, or bakery we see along the way.

After our 7 hour “jet-lag nap”, we shower the 7 hour plane ride off and hit the streets. We decided to walk up to the  Basilique du Sacré-Cœur which is a huge Catholic church at the highest point in the city. On the walk over we picked up a baguette and some cheese and ate on the churches massive steps which overlook the city. The area around the church was pretty cool. It had these narrow streets that were blocked off from cars and were full of people and shop owners hawking all sorts of stuff. After our little grub sess, we walked back, stopping briefly to grab a beer. All the French people we’ve come into contact with have been extremely nice, but our conversations are usually pretty awkward.

French Waiter: Unintelligible French
Me: “Uhhh…” (sideways look to Erin) “Bonjour?”
Frenchie: More French (shoots us both uncomfortable looks)
Me: “Uhhh… two beers?” (throws up the hook em horns)
Frenchie: Smiles and nods “Deux bieres”

It’s much easier when there’s a menu because we can just point, but often times we resort to the “two beers” approach.

Wednesday we decided to get up early and check out a few museums. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then shot over to the Musée d’Orsay followed by the Louvre. Erin is definitely the artist in the family, but I still have a good time at these places by people watching, trying to make Erin laugh by cracking lame jokes, and consistently repeating “This is my favorite one!”. We both liked the Orsay better than the Louvre, so we kind of sped through the Louvre catching the major highlights (still  think we were in there for a few hours) and then headed over to Notre Dame before it closed. So far, Notre Dame has been the highlight of the trip. The inside of the church was amazing. We walked through the inside, lit a candle, took a few pictures, and then headed outside to wait in line to go to the top. At the top you can see the entire city. It was here where Erin learned shes in love with our new camera. She took a ton of pictures from up here (I promise we’ll post some soon). Erin learned two important things at the top: 1. A chimera is different than a gargoyle because gargoyles act as spouts for rain water while chimeras are decoration and 2. Erin loooooooves chimeras. You’ll see from the pictures we end up posting that she took a million of these guys. Afterward, we took Heuer’s advice and got crepes. I don’t understand how something so simple can taste so so good.

Today, we took the train out to Versailles to see where the King lived in the 1600-1700s. Dude knew how to decorate. There was gold everywhere. We did the walking tour with an audio guide to check out the king’s digs before heading back to Paris. When we got back we went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe for another view of Paris from above as the sun was setting. On the way back we grabbed a few sandwiches for dinner to eat in the room before calling it a night.

So far the trip has been exhausting, but extremely fun. We can wait for the rest of Paris. A special shout out to Cari who gave us the awesome Paris museum passes which got us into all of the above for free. Thanks Cari!!

Basilique du Sacré-Cœur

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The Celebration Never Ends

What a crazy few days its been!! Our wedding day went off perfectly, and Erin and I have been in a mad scramble ever since to make sure we got everything packed before we took off. The events started Friday night with the rehearsal at the church followed by dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill. The drinks were flowing, the food was outstanding, and the company was top-notch. After a few post-rehearsal dinner drinks, everyone was off to bed to prepare for the big day.

On Saturday, the events started out at 2:30 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in D.C. The church was gorgeous, but couldn’t hold a candle to how stunning Erin looked (if things get too cheesy around here let me know). After a quick Catholic ceremony (oxymoron?) the wedding party took a few pics around the church, then hopped in a limo with our photographers to take some pics around town. Let me tell you, this was a blast. Our photographer is amazing, and we can’t wait to see how these pictures turned out. You can check out the samples here, here, and here, and we will post them all as soon as they’re ready! Highlights of this were, taking pictures as we were swarmed by tourists around the Lincoln Memorial and stopping off for hot dogs.

Around 6, it was finally time for the reception, and  the Carnegie Institution was an amazing place to have it. Erin and I want to thank everyone who came out for making the day so special. We had a blast. After the reception, the party moved back to the Beacon Hotel around the corner where boxes of left over booze was carted into the lobby. You know it’s a good party when everyone I talked to the next day said something to the effect of “Man last night was awesome, but I have no idea when I went to bed”.

The day after the wedding, we spent all morning and early afternoon saying goodbye to all of the out of town guests as they packed up. After a way too short nap, we began to pack. When we began planning this trip we decided that we wanted everything packed up for our trip the weekend before our wedding to try and reduce the stress of having a wedding and leaving the country for a year right after. In theory, this plan was foolproof, but as it turns out, much harder to implement in reality. We started packing around 6 on Sunday and finished about 20 minutes after we were supposed to have left on Monday morning. The good news is I don’t think we forgot anything. The bad news is I don’t think we forgot ANYTHING.

When we landed in Paris, we realized quickly we made our first travel mistake: we forgot the printout of our hotel info, and we had no smartphone, internet access, or French speaking ability to aid us in our quest. We did what any true Americans would do in this situation… we winged it. I knew what street the hotel was on, and the general area (and I use “general” in the loosest possible terms). After taking the train from the airport and hopping on what we hoped was the correct transfer metro line, we got out with our 6 bags and walked 5 blocks to our hotel. It really couldn’t have turned out any better, but it definitely taught us a lesson… nothing can’t be fixed by just winging it.

After a quick nap to brush off as much jet lag as possible, we’re getting ready to head out on our first Parisian adventure. I think the plan for today is kind of just roam around the city and soak it in. Tomorrow we’ll begin checking out museums and the such. We can’t wait to really begin our trip, but we already miss all the folks from home. We’ll write another one of these in a few days that will hopefully be filled with more adventures and hopefully be much more entertaining!

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