The Holidays and Paris

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a great holiday season! December was another busy month for us. Tyler had six games in a three week span. It was a really good month for his team though. They won several big games even beating the number one team in the league. It was a great game to be at - the arena sold out, the atmosphere was so much fun and Tyler played amazing. You can go on my Facebook wall and see a highlight video from the game. It is a really cool video but I apologize for the uncensored lyrics... They really don't care about that kind of stuff in Europe!! :o) (I shared it publicly on my Facebook just before I posted this... so even if we aren't friends via Facebook you can still go to my profile and see it!)

Christmas was quiet for us but that's ok. We enjoyed watching every Christmas movie we could think of, eating way more than we should have and, most importantly, getting to Skype with our family. Christmas is one of the hardest times to be away from home but being able to Skype with family makes it easier. Technology is pretty amazing!

Tyler had six days off after Christmas and as most of you know already, we went to Paris. I kind of delayed writing this post because right after we got back, the tragic events in Paris happened. We left 36 hours before it happened and I just thank God that he was protecting us and we were able to leave. The grocery store that was held up was less than a mile down the same street our hotel was on. Tyler and I took a long walk the first day we got there, just to take in everything, and we were right in the area of the grocery store. It is crazy to think just days before we were right there.

Although is extremely sad what took place, I am so thankful that we were able to go. Our trip to Paris is definitely one of the most amazing things Tyler and I have ever experienced in the eight years we have known each other. Truly unforgettable.

We arrived around lunchtime on New Years Eve and decided it would be best for us to figure out the metro system rather than paying an arm and a leg to get to our hotel by taxi. We would be taking the trains during our visit to get around the city anyways so we figured we might as well just start learning it right away. After purchasing our metro passes and getting directions on which trains to take to our hotel, Tyler and I headed to the train platform. The train came within in a couple of minutes and as I am walking into the train, the alarm goes off to notify that the doors are closing. When we traveled in Italy by train, the alram would go off for at least 5 seconds before the doors closed. Well that isn't the case in France! Those doors snapped shut leaving Tyler on the platform and me on the train. I started frantically pushing the button on the door trying to open it back up. But it would not open and I am panicking watching him as we start to roll away. The reason I was panicking: I have no cell service on my phone in France. I only use my phone through Wi-Fi. I am always with Tyler and when he is away, I am just sitting in our apartment using Wi-Fi to iMessage and Facetime him. So here I am..on this train in Paris.. no phone.. and I've lost Tyler. People were looking at me like I was crazy and my mind was racing trying to figure out what I was going to do. Luckily the train stopped after about two minutes (and I would later learn that all of the trains stop that frequently in Paris as well as trains running through the same route every 3-5 minutes) and I got off. I saw a girl about my age and asked her to use her cell phone. Thankfully she was super kind and let me use it and I was able to call Tyler and let him know where I was. The next train showed up 5 minutes later and he was on it. Needless to say, our trip started off really exciting and I made sure to hold Tyler's hand/arm the rest of the trip when boarding the metro!

We checked in to our hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around the area of our hotel. We had talked about going to the Eiffel Tower to ring in the New Year. How cool of a story would that be to say we were at the Eiffel Tower at midnight on New Years?! Well, we decided we didn't want to deal with all the crowds and drunk people. Haha. We are getting old ;) There were tons of restaurants around our hotel so we figured we would find a nice restaurant and a get a bottle of champagne and ring in the New Year on more of a low key note. Well, it got even more casual. Instead of finding a nice restaurant, we ended up finding a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. When we saw it we both were just like "YEP. We are eating here!" We miss the variety of food we get back home and neither of us had eaten at a Mexican restaurant in months. The food actually ended up being really good and Tyler and I just sat and laughed and talked for a couple of hours. We grabbed some champagne and rang in the New Year. Not only are we old but we are simple. And I love that about us! 

Over the next several days we saw all the main sights in Paris that we could think of. We, of course, went to the Eiffel Tower first. You think you know what you are going to expect when you see it since you have seen pictures of it your entire life. But when you actually see it in person it is a completely different feeling. It's kind of overwhelming actually being able to see something that everyone in the world says they would love to see. And even though you know its huge, it is even bigger than you can imagine! Seeing this massive tower was such an incredible experience. We went back and saw it several times but the first day we saw it the weather was incredible. It was a beautiful day and just perfect. And if you didn't already see my Facebook status, I got to play a part in a proposal! An American couple must have heard Tyler and I talking as we were walking through the park in front of the Eiffel Tower because the guy was like "Hey, could you take a picture for us?" and I said "Sure, no problem!" As I was backing up trying to get the Eiffel Tower to fit in the frame, I immediately knew what was happening. I could see on the camera screen that the guy was fidgeting in his coat pocket and I am thinking "OH MY GOSH THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!" But he must not have trusted that I was going to snap a million pictures because he told his girlfriend to hold on and ran over to me and told me he was going to propose. I was like "DUH I GOT IT" ...Haha no, I didn't say that, I was nice :)... So I got to take all these pictures for this couple getting engaged in front of the Eiffel Tower that they will have for the rest of their lives. I seriously felt so lucky I got to take the pictures for them! What a romantic proposal! I wish I would have gotten their names so I could creep on the picutres via social media :) 

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower by night <3

We went to the Lourve Museum and Tyler and I didn't realize how big it was! Neither of us are really into art but we walked around for a couple hours appreciating everything we saw (and we only saw a sliver of it!) Everything was truly beautiful. The Monna Lisa is in the Louvre so of course we had to see it. But it is honestly a little bit of a disappointment. So many people are just crowded around it that you cant even take the time to look at it. We worked our way up for just long enough to snap a few pictures and then get out of the way for the other people pushing their way forward. It is still pretty cool to say that we got to see it though!

The Louvre

We did so much in Paris. We walked along the Champs-Elysees several times and went in many of the stores, got macaroons from the famous Laduree and saw the Arc de Triomphe. We saw a couple of churches - the Notre Dame and the Sacre-Coeur. We bought a lock and wrote our initials on it to be locked on the Love Lock Bridge. Went to the Galeries Lafayette. And ate/drank all the American things we could find: Hard Rock Cafe, Pizza Hut, Chiptole (insert angels singing), Starbucks (four times), and even found a great Sushi spot since we haven't found one here. Needless to say we ate REALLY healthy in Paris. And you would think we would have tried to find the best French restaurants while we were there but NOPE. These Americans took advantage of anything Americanized that we could find!!

Macarons from Laduree

Arc de Triomphe 

Notre Dame

Love Bridge

Galeries Lafayette 

The last night we were there, we took a boat and dinner tour that lasted 2 and a half hours. Its basically this huge boat with glass ceilings and windows and it takes you around to see all the sights and you have this fabulous meal. It was so fancy and romantic! It was definitely one of the main highlights from the trip. We truly did have a great French meal and it was cool to go around and see how everything looked at night. It will be something I never forget. 

Boat Tour

I absolutely loved Paris and it is 1000 times better than I could ever explain. I think if any of you ever have the opportunity to go, you should definitely do it! It was such an incredible experience and I am so thankful we got to go!

I can't believe January is already half over. These next months are really going to fly by! Laurie (Tyler's mom) is coming out in just a few days to visit us! And then I am traveling back with her to the States where I will be home for three weeks! I CAN'T WAIT! By the time I am back in France it will already be mid-February and there will only be a few months left in the season! It will be time to start making summer plans soon!!! :)

Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!