26

Today is my 26th birthday! Yesterday Mike asked me if my life was what I imagined it would be at 26. I thought about all the things I wanted to accomplish and I think I am very happy with where I am right now. I have a husband, friends, a dog, a house, a good job.....really I'm very spoiled. I think the only thing left on my list to accomplish for 26 is to publish some poems (in a real journal) and then hopefully to make a baby...hehe. Mike says he doesn't mind helping me to accomplish that one.

So, now I'm closer to 30 than 20! Such a strange feeling.

For my birthday so far I have received: 25 facebook messages, a new hair colour from Mike's sister, a new blowdryer, some clothes from my mom and tomorrow I'm getting another puppy!

Here's to another year!

Side note

I haven't yet gotten the rest of my Paris pictures, and I'd like to blog about my trip in order, so I'll have to wait a few days as I am currently in Port Alberni. It was a surprise visit for my Mom and Mom-in-law, as Mike just happened to have a few extra days off. The look on my mom's face when I arrived at 11 pm a few nights ago and surprised her was priceless. So, in the meantime in between my trip journals...here is a photo that I love of Ireland. It's my favourite Irish sky.




Ah. I so miss Ireland. It was beautiful. I want to live there.

Two Canadians in Paris

My 7 week European adventure began on July 2nd when we arrived in Paris. It was a long flight, made longer by the 3 hour delay on the run way in Montreal as we waited for a thunderstorm to clear up. Unfortunately, this delay shortened our already short two days in Paris, and caused my luggage to get lost and not be delivered until the night we were leaving. But, despite having to go shopping for essentials, makeup, clothes and some flip flops upon my jet lagged arrival at our hotel, we managed to see an amazing number of things in Paris on foot and had an incredible time together.

Day one:

July 2nd. We took the RER train from the airport to our hotel, the Dacia Luxembourg. I made a great guess as to where to get off and we walked only a few minutes before spotting it. We were located very close to the Notre Dame, the Pont Neuf, the Sainte Chappelle and the Pantheon, among others. So, we set out on foot at about 4:30 in the afternoon, once I was better equipped with a tank top and new shorts from the Paris Gap! (I had arrived in sweatpants and sneakers to 32 degrees). Luckily for me I had put my summer dresses in Mike's suitcase, so after swapping my sneakers for some new flip flops I was able to dress up in the evenings.

Our first adventure was to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was lovely and cool and HUGE! I was really blown away by the beauty of this church. I wasn't expecting the size and we really enjoyed looking around inside. Because we were short on time, we didn't climb the tower, but took some gargoyle photos from below. We then headed a short distance away to another smaller church, the Sainte Chapelle.
This one is known for it's stunning stained glass windows that tell the entire story of the bible.



The Notre Dame and my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.


Me inside the Notre Dame.

We enjoyed walking about and seeing the sights until our stomachs started grumbling. We chose a little outdoor cafe to have a seat and some dinner. We then headed back to the hotel, and I thankfully managed to find some decent socks along the way which made me very happy as I was wearing Mike's big sports socks and my feet were still swollen from the long flight. We entered our hotel, took a nice nap to try and shake off some jet lag (we travelled for a full 24 hours before arriving) and headed out again. We had planned on seeing the Musee d'Orsay that night, but were enjoying the sleep too much, so decided to have a late walk to the Eiffel Tower instead.

We left just before sunset and walked hand in hand along the Seine river. We underestimated the distance a bit, as we could see the tower as we walked, and figured it couldn't be too far away. But, over an hour later, we finally arrived. It was 11pm and I was worried that the upper floor would be closed, but there was still quite a line up and we were able to go to the third floor. The elevator was scary--like an amusement ride all on its own. We arrived at midnight to cheers from the park below as the Tower lit up with sparkling lights. It glows yellow all night but only has twinkling lights for the first ten minutes of every hour. It was really magical to step out of the elevator to the twinkling lights.

Once at the top we took our time seeing the sights of Paris. If you're only in Paris for a short time, it's a good way to see what the entire city looks like at night. Everything is lit up. We could see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.



Me at the top.

When we left, we spent some time lounging on the lawn in front of the tower. In the evening, there are many Parisians who sit on the lawn here and drink wine and watch the lights. We soon found ourselves hungry, though, and decided to see if there were any Parisian cafés still serving food at 2 am. Lucky for us, there were. We split a burger and frites and then took a cab home. I only remember swearing to Mike that if we survived the cab ride I would never call a cab in Paris again.




And that was day one. We went to sleep exhausted with a very long list of what we wanted to see in our one remaining day.