We arrived in Paris on time, and because we parked at remote parking, took a shuttle to the terminal, and walked a short ways to customs.  Luckily, the line wasn’t too long, and we were through in about 10 minutes.  The walk to the train station wasn’t long either, though we got there to find a very long line to purchase tickets into Paris on the RER train.  Luckily it moved quickly, and were through it in about 25 minutes.  We had some trouble getting the tickets to work to get through the access gate, so may have accidentally stolen a ride, but it was that or leave Nala on the other side by herself!  The train was full leaving the airport, and got completely packed with people standing as close as they could for most of the ride.  Luckily we’d scored seats before it left the airport, so we didn’t have to deal with all of that.  It was about a 45 minute ride into the city, and Nala slept the whole way.

I thought I had a good idea of where to get off from there and what train to take, though had trouble finding what Metro train to take to the hotel, as my phone has had an issue lately where it goes to the darkness light setting, so I couldn’t use it to find directions.  Nala was extremely tired, so I found a dark spot to request an Uber to the hotel, though the area by the train stop was congested and busy, and I could never connect with the driver.  We ended up finding a taxi driver who spoke enough English to put the name of the hotel we were staying at in his GPS, and made it to the hotel in about 15 minutes.

I was very relieved to finally be there after a long flight/night, congested train ride, and a stressful situation trying to get to the hotel.  We were able to check in early, and after being sent to a dirty room 26, were reassigned to room 36, which had a very nice view of the Eiffel Tower, just a few blocks away.  I showered quickly, and we decided it’d be best if we both slept a couple hours before venturing out.

After a two hour nap, even though the top of it was fogged in, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower.  Getting through security to get into the square under the tower was quick, and we found the line to purchase tickets, though it was very long, and electronic signs showed that only the middle level was open, but not the top.  By the time we reached an agent about an hour and a half later, we were happy to find that all levels were open.  After waiting a few minutes for the elevator, to the mid-level, we got off there, though the clouds were pretty low, and it was chilly.  We continued up a second elevator to the top floor, which while was even more socked in, was still pretty. We weren’t too disappointed, as we knew that we’d be back at some point with the rest of the family.

We were pretty chilled by that point after hours of being outside, and it was getting close to dark, and we hadn’t eaten in a bit.  We stopped by a grocery store and picked up a baguette to snack on while we warmed up, along with a couple beers for me to try.  We spent an hour or so in the hotel warming up, snacking on the baguette, and sampling my first beer (me only).

Finally warmed up and ready to adventure a bit more, we headed out again, found the Metro stop nearby, and took it a few stops over to the Paris Opera house, which is the setting (cartoon) of one of Nala’s favorite movies, Leap.  It was pretty cool to see her excitement as we walked around it and got a few pictures.

We weren’t there too long before heading back toward the hotel, doing some sidewalk Yelp research, and finding a reasonably priced French restaurant a block from the hotel called La Terrasse du 7e.  There were plenty of tables open, they had an English menu, and spoke English well, which was appreciate, though also nice that it didn’t seem too touristy.    I was excited to try beef tartare for the first time, along with fries, which Nala helped with. She wasn’t terribly hungry after eating most of the baguette, so I let her have an ice cream sundae for dinner. All rules are off on vacation!

We were still a bit hungry, so stopped by the grocery store this time, but this time got some treats to snack on.  We finished off the evening having a second beer (me only again), and splitting a fancy donut, chocolate pastry, and giant pistachio macaron.  We also played some silly games (a simplified version of Pictionary), took goofy pictures, and called the rest of the family on FaceTime.  We were plenty sleepy and ready to snooze for the night at about 9pm local, so fell asleep with the awesome view of the tower out the window.