The Cold and Rain

Well today it was a rainy cold Paris day. Josh and I bundled up in our warm layer of clothes under our jackets and donned our ponchos and headed out. It was also windy so we walked around looking like marshmallows when the wind would fill up the plastic.

One thing that the rain couldn't ruin was this amazing sandwich that we had for lunch today. It was from this little counter place that our friends told us about (thanks Rory and Jeni) and it was to die for. Because it was a counter there was no where to sit and the rain made a park out of the question, so we decided to each in the subway like a homeless person-right beside a homeless person actually. By the time we were done with it we were plotting how we were going to get back down here to have it again for lunch tomorrow.

Just as Expected

Today we hit Paris and I'm definitely wishing that we had put this stop on our itinerary earlier. There is so much to see here and it is a pretty big place and nothing is really easy to understand. You need to be on your A game and right now we are coming in right around B-. I don't know if they take joy in making it hard for tourists, but I know at least one person at the train "information" desk took great joy in being incredibly rude.

Lets use baggage lockers/storage as an example. People that live here don't even know that it exists in the station. In other train stations everything is clearly marked with arrows and signs that lead you just where you need to go. In Paris' Gare du Nord station, for baggage lockers/storage there are 2 signs- one randomly along the tracks and the other right beside the stairs that lead no where but to baggage storage so you don't see them unless you know what you are looking for. When Josh and I came back to get our luggage we had trouble finding it and we had left our bags there not 7 hours earlier.

Overall our experience in the station was negative but once we had the transportation system figured out and we had our tickets bought (2 hours later) we left the station and it just went up from there. Paris isn't as magical as I imagined in my head but it is kind of close. I don't think our weather is going to be great here and a couple of things we wanted to see are closed but we did find out that the Impressionist museum is free right now so things are looking up for us.

FYI - I need everyone to prepare themselves for all the things we didn't see while we were in Paris-I don't want to hear anything about it.