A Tale of Two Cities: Paris

Paris:

We arived in Paris in record time, on the high speed Eurostar train. We excitedly looked out the window at all the rolling green fields that led into the city.
For those of you who don't know, Scott took Andrea on a trip to Paris shortly before they left for Cambodia. While we were packing for our trip, they gave us about 12 Euros they had left over from their trip. This was seriously a life saver!!
When we got off the train, we didn't have any cash, and our debit cards wern't working! So we used some euros to call Union Bank, and got that taken care of! Then we used the rest of the euros to get on a metro to take us to a more central part of Paris. We got off at a place we chose at random, and began roaming the streets in search of somewhere affordable. (Preferably with a bathroom attached!) Miraculously, we found a little hostel on a side street that had one room left for the night. It was 90 Euro, but it was a huge room with 2 balcony windows overlooking the street, and our own huge bathroom and shower!! It was heavenly! And in the morning, our breakfast was in a cozy, pretty room and they gave us juice, tea or hot chocolate, and a baguette with nutella.
We put our stuff down and headed out into the city. Apparently our hostel was in the Latin Quarter, and there was tons of little pedestrian streets and cafe's. We found Notre Dame, and it happened to be Mass there also. They let people wander around during Mass, so we did :) We then walked along and found ourselves on a little island called Ile Sainte Luise. It was soooo pretty!! There was nobody out except us, and we walked along the cobblestone streets beside the river under the colorful trees. It was extremely picturesque, and really fun! :)
We had dinner that night in the Latin Quarter (crazy expensive, but very fun), and walked back to our hostel because it was already late!
Our first full day in Paris was Friday, and it was also our 16 Montheversary of being married! :) We spent the day figuring out how to use the public phones (you have to buy specific phone cards), and getting our hostel for another night, and finding an internet cafe, and getting in touch with Dave, our friend from college who currently lives in Paris. In the late afternoon we started our trek to the Eiffel Tower. It took us about an hour and a half, but we walked the entire way along the river and it was so beautiful!! We got to the tower at dusk, which was neat because we got to see it in the daylight, and then we got to see it light up!! The lines were insanely long to get up, so we decided not to. We crossed over to the other side of the river and walked for a ways more before stopping at a little French restuarant for our montheversary date. It was very fun - the fancy funny waiters were probably the best part about the whole experience, although the food was really amazing as well. Our entertainment for the eveing happened when one of those merchants selling blinking Eiffel Tower necklaces and key chains that moo came sauntering up the street. While most people shake their heads and lower their gaze when merchants approach, the table of Italians next to us seemed to think this guy and his merchandise were God's greatest gift! They had the merchant there for at least 20 minutes, trying out everything he pulled from his pockets and going "ooooooooohhh!!" and chattering away to eachother in Italian. One girl was modeling some magnetic Tower earrings, while another man was testing out the lazer beam, and yet another man was testing out all the sounds from the keychains. And these were very well dressed people at a pretty expensive little place!! The waiters in their tuxedos didn't seem to mind, and the merchant left the Italians, each with their little mounds of blinking moo-ing treasures in front of them!
(more to come later)