I practically had to beg Jason to include Paris as a destination in our trip, since his last experience over 10 years ago was uneventful in his memory. Being that he was a backpacker, roughing it in hostels, scraping by each day just to eat, he wasn’t gung ho on coming back. However, I think he would concede that this town is right up our alley.

This is the first time in a long while we’ve been in a city we can really explore by foot. Getting lost in the charming alleyways and vibrant boulevards of this town has consumed most of the past 3 days, and has been so exciting. This town as most people know is about its food, wine, Café’s, boutiques, beautiful architecture, amazing art museums and of course the people. We’ve been pleasantly surprised to find the “French” to be quite welcoming, anticipating the rude, stand-offish stereotype we’ve all heard about.  We even had a waiter today hand draw us a map to our next destination.

My Aunt Nancy and her husband Richie just so happen to be here, and we spent a fun-filled night cruising the town with them. The evening began at the Grand Palais viewing an interesting art installation that looked more like a construction site. From there we walked down the Champs Elysee, through the Louvre, eventually meeting up with their friend Carla who has been living in Paris for the past 4 years.

Carla is a queen in this town, seemingly knowing every person in each place we stopped that night. A very interesting part of the evening was visiting her artist friend Laurent’s art gallery. No doubt a creative mind, he had fashioned an entire world and story around his art pieces in this most unique art space – it was quite fun exploring the space.

Being that is stay’s light out until about 10:30pm in the summer, people don’t eat dinner until much later. That night I think we sat down at 9:30 pm to an authentic French meal. There was quite a lengthy process of picking just the right wines for our meal, which the owner personally hand chose (another friend of Carla). People take their food and drink here very seriously, as the owner seemed offended when I ordered a double espresso at the beginning of the meal to perk up. He actually came back with a chewable vitamin C as a remedy for my dreariness, which was very sweet!

We are enjoying this city so much that we have extended our time here. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Versaille for the afternoon, and the following day we’ll probably go to Champagne with Nancy and Richard to go wine tasting. Even with our jam packed long days, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this town. I was however informed by my cousin Sofi that Eva Longoria is getting married here today on 7/7/07, so maybe we’ll crash the wedding. . .