My favorite things about Paris

Our first day here, we jumped off the train, excited from the coffee and the promise of a great holiday in Paris and went on our way through the huge and very Parisian- looking train station to the Metro to find our hostel...

Well, after taking the train the wrong way out of town, being relieved that we had taken the train the wrong way when we saw the area we were in, standing in line to buy train tickets to get back into Paris, getting back to the train station where we started, getting a snack to calm our nerves, finding the right metro to get on (and going about five minutes two stops down the line), we arrived at our hostel.

This hostel was called the Peace and Love hostel... yes, I am not even kidding...
The sign was easy to find, and we walked past the big awning that said Peace and Love twice, but all we could see there was a pub and restaurant... Finally, a guy sitting there waved us in and explained that the hostel was here as well... We checked in with a very friendly girl behind the bar, and she gave us our room keys and showed us a tiny door behind the bar where the rooms were located... So, we squeezed through the staircase, barely able to fit with our bags up a whole bunch of stairs to our room... The place was absolutely adorable... It was painted in lavender and light pastels, and everything was just very cute with lots of personality... So, we walked into our room and found a bunk bed and a matress propped against the wall (because there wasn't enough floor room for it to lie down flat). My favorite part was the shower: It was directly in the room... no bathroom, no door, not even a shower curtain... you could see straight through the door... So, this wouldn't be such an issue if it was a private room with just me and Annika, but we were sharing it with another guy that we had never even met... We were both a little apprehensive about exactly how the showering system would work :) But we had a fun time laughing about it and taking pictures of us in our room :)

So, anyways, after we settled into our hostel for the first night, we decided to take a look around Paris... We ended up walking through the beautiful gardens near the Louve, down the Champs Elyse, and up to the top of the Arch de Triumph where we watched the Eiffel Tower light up for the night... It was an amazing night... At one point, we just looked at each other and gave each other a big hug... to realize that we were actually in Paris looking at the Eiffel Tower together... almost unreal... It was one of those moments (Jim Bob called them golden moments :) that I will always remember.