PARIS!

I thought Belgium was absolutely amazing. And then I went to Paris.

Oh. my. gosh.

We loved it! We got there the first day and checked into Le Grand Hotel Paris. It was a five star hotel that would normally cost a minimum of 800 euros per night. Good thing we didn't have to pay for that! After checking in, we walked down the road to a cafe and I got a ham and cheese sandwich. I tasted it and immediately knew I was going to like it in Paris! I can't even describe how delicious it was! After that, we went and rented bikes with the whole family. They have bike stations every few blocks and you can rent bikes then check them in at another station around the city. It took about 45 minutes for us to figure out how we could rent the bikes with our credit cards. I saw a French man bike by and take a picture of all of us standing around the bike renting station. He probably put it on Instagram and said, "how many Americans does it take to rent a bike?!" We drove around the city and got our first glimpse of the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, and then rode up to Notre Dame and went inside. The city was beautiful and the weather was in the 70's so it was perfect. That night we went to dinner at our hotel and then biked around again that night and saw the Eiffel tower at night. Tyler and I were riding along and all of the sudden it started sparkling! It was so neat and so romantic, and actually really surreal! I kept thinking to myself, "I have seen this in movies and picture my entire life, and I'm actually here!"

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the famous restaurant in our hotel called Cafe de la Paix. It was soooo good. I asked for hot chocolate one morning and they brought me hot milk with about 8ounces of melted chocolate where you would pour in how much you wanted. They had an omelet station, the best bagels you could want, and crepes. They also had fruit and all sorts of pastries. After breakfast we rented bikes again and went to the Eiffel tower. Tyler went ahead of me and bought me a ticket, and when I tried to get in front of people to catch up to him I got screamed at by a French guard. He simply couldn't understand that my husband had my ticket. One thing I can confirm - the French are extremely rude! We went to the top of the tower and it was really high. As we rode the elevator the very top I was glad that I wasn't afraid of heights! When we were done taking pictures and looking at Paris from the bird's eye view, we went to a crepe stand and got lunch crepes with ham and cheese and ate them near the Eiffel tower. Talk about surreal again! I felt like I was in a movie. After eating we drove our bikes to the Arc de Triomphe and the boys rode their bikes amidst the 8 lane round-a-bout with the cars. At that moment I wished I had a higher life insurance policy ;) We turned in our bikes and went shopping on the famous Champs Elysees. We got a macaroon at Laduree; my first one ever. They only have those macaroon shops in Paris and New York. After looking at the amazing purses and clothes, we took a metro to the part of town with the Sacre Coeur and had a delicious dinner at a charming little restaurant. I got a yummy salad with homemade garlic potato thins and Tyler got pasta. Walt also bought everyone some cookies at La Cure Gourmande. WOW they were good. I ate an almond cookie. After that we hiked a million stairs to get to the Sacre Coeur and sat on the steps overlooking the city. 

The next day we woke up late and went shopping for a bit while the boys rented a car for the following day's trip to Normandy. After meeting up with them, we got sandwiches at a cafe then we went to the Musee d'Orsay where we saw some paintings by Vinvent Van Gogh, and a beautiful painting of Peter and John running to the tomb after they found out that Jesus had been risen. I absolutely love it and first fell in love with it because Walt and Carol put a copy in their house a couple years ago. They went to Paris and saw it for the first time, there and put it up in the their house. It's amazing. On our way back to the hotel, we found a bridge where people make wishes and then put a lock on the bridge, and throw the key in the Seine. That night got dressed up and went on dinner cruise down the Seine river. We got some fun pictures as we passed the Eiffel tower and had a delicious meal. On our way out, one of the agent's wives was extremely drunk and dancing with the band. It was very entertaining, and made me glad I don't drink so I don't act like a fool! One of the things she yelled was, "insurance is so boring!" Ha ha I am sure her husband was quite embarrassed. After getting off the boat we took buses and got to go to the Eiffel tower at night. It was very neat and the sparkling lights were beautiful.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and took the metro to pick up our rental cars. Our first stop was Versailles and it was so unbelievably detailed and beautiful that I couldn't believe they could decorate and build such an elaborate mansion so many years ago. The mansion started out as a hunting lodge, and then each king built onto it. We toured around the palace and then took golf carts to tour around the vast grounds. They were very well groomed and huge! We saw Marie Antionette's house. After we were done looking around, we took a 3 hour drive to Normandy and we started out at the museum there to understand how the attack went that day on Utah Beach. We looked at the museum artifacts and watched a movie, then went out to overlook Utah Beach. It has a very solemn, peaceful feeling there. It's so calm and peaceful, and then you remember the people that died there and turmoil that occurred to defeat the Germans. My grandma Stimpson was there on that day, and it made it even more special for me. After looking around we went to Omaha beach and there were monuments there. We also went to the cliffs that the Rangers had to scale to take out the Nazi guns. There were craters everywhere from bombs. It had a very solemn feeling as well. There was grass and flowers growing in the craters which was such a contrast to the war that created them. It was absolutely beautiful. We left there and stopped at a little house that had some war vehicles and other things from the war, including a metal fortress with bomb shell blasts in the sides. Our last stop was the graveyard. It had actually closed several hours beforehand so we had to sneak in. It started pouring as we were walking through the dirt road, climbing the fence and through the woods. I felt like such a rebel and was so glad we didn't get caught, but we had to see the graveyard because who knows if we will ever go back to Normandy again in our lives! We stopped and McDonald's on our way back to Paris and it wasn't very good. After eating Parisian food it didn't quite do it for me, plus the meat wasn't like it is in America. We didn't get back to our hotel until 2 am! Tyler was driving one of the cars and I had to keep myself awake to keep him awake so we wouldn't crash. They parked the cars on the streets and had to wake up early the next morning to return the cars. The rest of us slept in. 

Tyler and I woke up the next morning and had lunch at a nice little cafe along the way the Louvre. I'm convinced that you can eat anywhere in Paris and the food will be amazing. We got a blueberry muffin and some sandwiches. After that we purchased tickets to the Louvre and walked around the giant museum! The headsets were out when we tried to rent them so we just walked around without them. I think we would have learned more with them, but we were also able to make it through the entire museum because we didn't have headsets telling us about painting. It was really cool. My camera ran out of memory halfway through the museum so I had to take the rest of the pictures on my phone. Note to self - use a bigger memory card next time! After the Louvre we were starting to feel tired and the walking around from all week started to catch up to us! We headed back toward our hotel and went shopping at the little shops along the road. I bought a Paris sweatshirt and Tyler looked for a biking jersey. He thought he found a white Tour de France shirt that he liked, but then held it up and it had red polka dots on it. Not quite his style! We also stopped at La Cure Gourmande again and I got some caramel, cookies and suckers to take home. We went to relax at our hotel and then got ready for our last dinner at the hotel. This time they took us to the grand ballroom and it was absolutely stunning. The architecture was so intricately decorated and beautiful. Dinner was delicious and the entertainment was even better. The Paris Opera house was across the street and they had a woman and man come sing opera to us. My favorite was when they sang the Phantom of the Opera song. It was unreal. We also had can-can dancers come and dance around! It was definitely a night to remember.

The next morning we woke up, had our last delicious breakfast at Cafe de la Paix, and headed to the airport. The flight was directly from Paris to Salt Lake City, and it was almost 11 hours. It was such an unbelievably amazing trip and I feel so blessed to have been able to go to Belgium and France. I love to travel and it is so wonderful to be able to see such cool places around the world. It is a trip that I will forever cherish!