Moose on the Move!

What a romantic way to spend your first anniversary huh? Living it up in Paris on Bastille day. It was our first European adventure out of the UK and I have to say...we...had...a...BLAST! We finished work a little early on the day we flew out and headed off to Exeter International Airport to catch our flight. Our flight took just about an hour to get from Exeter to Paris. I still find this amazing. This may not sound like it is of much consequence to a lot of people, but it is pretty amazing to me when you consider how limited your choices are in an hours flight from Perth :)

For our first anniversary (I think it is considered the paper anniversary), we decided to get ourselves a combined gift. Our gift was a new flashy digital camera. We figured that we could get photo's printed on photographic paper (thus satisfying a gift representing the paper anniversary), and it would also be a great way to help take some nice photo's for the blog.

We arrived at our hotel at about 10pm and the sky was still light! Our room was on the eighth floor of a recently refurbished old hotel. Luckily for us there was an elevator. I think this is without-a-doubt the smallest elevator that either Elke or I have ever seen. It was fitted in the centre of the spiral staircase in the building and was just (and I mean JUST) big enough for the two of us to stand with our one suitcase between us.

The view from the eighth floor was awesome! We were up really high and could see over a lot of the surrounding buildings. We discovered that you could see both Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower from our hotel window. Very cool! The hotel was just a short walk from the Place de la Republique and about a twenty minute walk from the river and Notre Dame.

On the first morning (Bastille Day and our anniversary - a double celebration), we decided to take off down to the city center to where the action is and to see how the French celebrate their national day. The city center is extremely beautiful! Full of lovely old buildings, nice little cafe's and, on this day, festive French people driving tanks! (All part of the Bastille Day celebrations). There had been a long procession by the President that morning down the Avenue de Champs Elysees and throughout the day we saw fighter-jets and helicopters flying overhead.

We took in some beautiful sights like the amazing cathedral, Notre Dame (from the outside - the tourist line up to get in was incredible). Did you know it took around 200 years to build ?!? That is amazing! We walked around the markets looking at prints of various Parisian sights and checked out some of the street performers. We even got to see a guy playing a piano accordion in Paris. It is the kind of music that I always associate with France - may have something to do with the theme music of that old comedy 'Allo 'Allo.

That night, we went to find a good vantage point for watching the fireworks display and found ourselves an excellent spot on one of the many bridges crossing the river Seine. It was a beautiful display with fireworks launched off the Eiffel Tower and hundreds of people milling about and cheering with every colourful explosion. The mood was wonderful and there were people swing dancing in one of the open squares.

As well as the usual yellow all over lighting, the Eiffel Tower is covered in thousands of white strobe lights which are occasionally turned on and make the whole tower sparkle. It gives the impression that the tower is wearing a sequin covered dress. It is a really beautiful sight.

The next few days were spent just taking it easy and exploring around the city. We went to the Eiffel tower again, and this time, we climbed up to the second floor and got a birds eye view of Paris. The tower is a spectacular structure with breath taking views. The climb up to the first level was also breath taking (especially given our level of fitness), and therefore we decided to take the lift up to the very top (although that is the only way to go to the very top). From up high it is really obvious how light Paris is in colour. A lot of the buildings are made from an almost white stone that reflects the light, even the roof tops are fairly light in colour.

We took the ferries up and down the river Seine to our various destinations such as; Hotel De Invalides a very impressive building built in the late 1600s to house wounded soldiers.
Musee d'Orsay - Paris museum of 19th-century fine arts. Notre Dame (although we didn't go inside due to the huge lines). Arc de Triomphe, a memorial of those killed in WWI. And of course the ever present 'Aussie bar' that was showing AFL highlights (this was my first Aussie Rules Footy that I'd seen all season...carn' the Eagles!!!).

Everywhere we went the French people were friendly and helpful. We even saw a whole group of soldiers helping to push start their mate's Mirage 2000 jet outside the Hotel des Invalides. You'll have to go to flickr to see what I'm talking about :)

We ate lots of French food - Baguettes and morning pastries and Escargot (a.k.a. snails - tastes like algae smells). The implements we were given with which to eat the snails were impressive in their own right. We also noticed that none of the locals sitting around us in the restaurant were eating them....

Elke spoke a little bit of French, mainly "Parlez-vous Anglais?" (which means, "Do you speak English?"). I have to admit that I found it quite daunting being in a non-English speaking country. I had to try to avoid making eye contact with people a couple of times as I thought they were going to ask me something. Brave, I know!

Our second last evening in the city we decided that we wanted to try out our brilliant new camera on some night photography so we headed first to the Arc de Triomphe and then to the Eiffel Tower. We were pleased with the results and have posted a couple of the shots on flickr (click on any photo to go there). There were a lot of people out and we were surprised to see so many people just hanging out under the Eiffel Tower, even at two in the morning. It was really nice. We were briefly tempted to buy a multi-coloured flashing Eiffel Tower model - about 20 cm tall- but resisted the urge. They were so tacky that they almost became cool!!

The weather was fantastic for the few days that we were there. It was beautiful, sunny and quite warm and on our last day (Sunday) we went for a nice slow walk through the Jardins des Tuileries. Elke tripped over the curb crossing the street and rolled her ankle - hence the slow walk. There were a lot of people out and it was nice to just sit and watch them all go by - from a park bench of course, not the curb. There were children playing with old fashioned sailing boats in one of the fountains and people lolling around on public deckchairs. We ended up sitting in front of the Musee du Louvre, watching the evening sun turn it a beautiful colour and writing postcards home.

It was a really fantastic experience and a great place to celebrate our first year of wedded bliss. Like I said earlier, we really had a great time.