We woke up to a rainy morning. In fact.....it was probably the most rain we've seen. We couldn't let that stop us......we had things to do. (*Interestingly enough, the rain in Paris continued for several more days after we left and they ended up having massive flooding in the city. We got out of there just in time)
We pretty much had done all the sightseeing we had planned, so today we were just going to go out and randomly explore an area. Today we were also on a mission.....we HAD to get our souvenirs. My souvenir list only had Aaron/Shay, Cris, and ourselves on it. Paul's list had 6 PZ employees on it....well this is going to be interesting.
We got out the umbrellas and headed for Metro. It was really pouring rain when we popped out of the subway, but just added another excitement to our adventure. We looked around a few shops and picked up a couple of items, but now we were hungry and the search for lunch began. If you've never been with Paul while we try to find a place to eat......you're lucky. Seriously, it takes him an hour and walking 2 miles before we find the exact right place. That's why I always say "let's stop looking for lunch" an hour before I might actually be ready. This guy cracks me up.
So.......while we searched for that perfect place to eat........we snapped interesting pictures along the way:
We found a Pizza Hut
And this Pizza Hut was serving a hot dog stuffed pizza.
Uhmmmm.......no. I don't think so
We found a hot dog standing next to a restaurant that advertised serving American food.
After walking and walking and walking.....we found this place.
I had the most amazing pasta dish I have ever had in my life.....Tagliatelle Carbonara. It was like an egg noodle pasta loaded with thick chunks of bacon and a white sauce that tasted like bacon. It was OMG amazing (even Paul had a hard time leaving my plate alone).
Paul ordered duck, which he stated was very tender and very delicious.
So after we filled our bellies up......it was time to finish the souvenir shopping.
It was still pouring rain and we really didn't know exactly where we wanted to go, so we hopped on the Metro and headed back to our area. I had seen a HUGE souvenir shop down the street from our flat in the Pigalle section.....so that's where we went. It ended up being a great choice as we were able to pick out amazing souvenirs to take back home with us.
Once souvenir shopping was done, we had to go back to the flat and start packing. We were leaving early in the morning and there was so many things to get crammed into suitcases and organize....so we purposely planned this packing as part of our day. We also hoped to catch a quick nap because we knew that we were going to be out late.....going to the PAUL MCCARTNEY CONCERT!!!!
We got finished up with our chores a little earlier than we expected, so we decided to once again hop on the subway and pop out somewhere and explore. Unfortunately for us, when we popped up.....it was pouring rain again. We didn't have our umbrellas with us because we were going to go directly to the concert from wherever we were and didn't want to carry them with us.
But we're not the kind of people to let rain spoil our evening, so we found a café with a table outside under the awning and spent an hour enjoying watching the rain, a couple of beers, and great conversation. This particular café was in a neighborhood so it was interesting to sit and watch the comings and goings of the local people with all the touristy stuff.
Since it was almost concert time, we headed over to where we could pick up our tickets. We had actually purchased these tickets in Germany a week earlier on the internet from a ticket resale site in Europe that we had never used before, so we were hoping that things would work out. We found the hotel where we picked up the tickets and so far so good....they looked legitimate.
The concert arena was only a block away from the hotel, so since it was raining....we just headed on over there. The tickets worked fine and we got in the doors after going through 3 security checkpoints and a frisking. We spent our time before the concert looking at stuff, people, and buying our gourmet dinner for the evening. I think we had hot dogs :-)
We went and found our seats and they were pretty awesome.
Here's some pics that we snapped as the place filled up and the concert started:
Yes! That's us at the Paul McCartney concert in Paris, France!
What an amazing concert it was! I have to honestly say it was absolutely the best concert I've ever been to in my life. Maybe being in Paris added to the moment, but Paul McC seriously put on an amazing concert.
The concert finished up about 11:30ish....so we headed back across the street (along with every other person that attended the concert) and found the right train back to Blanche. Time to get to bed since we had to get up early to head to the airport.
The alarm going off at 6am was just too darn early. We cleaned up the flat a little bit, gathered our last belongings, and headed down that 5 flight of stairs thankful that we would never have to climb them again.
We had a different plan for getting back to the airport than the way we had arrived. This time we called an Uber and by the time we opened the door to the street, he was right there to pick us up. Good thing......it was pouring rain.
Using Uber was a great idea. The cost was half of what we had paid getting there and the time was also half. The only problem was our driver spoke no English.....so Paul and I were left to entertain ourselves. Most of our entertainment was looking out the window and saying goodbye to a place we had enjoyed so much.
After finally getting through all the mazes of the Charles De Gaulle airport, we finally made it to our gate with LOTS of time to spare. I think we had a couple of hours and unfortunately for us, there is NOTHING at the gates there to entertain you. No food, no shopping, no nothing. Since we were the first people at the gate, we found awesome seats next to the window and Paul promptly went to sleep. I entertained myself with my Kindle and taking a couple of pictures out the window.
Our gate before our plane arrived
I did feel a little safer after I watched this plane land and a group of people drive up and start inspecting the plane and checking the ID's of all the people working around it.
We finally boarded and started on the 9 hour flight back home. It seems like they are constantly feeding you and providing drinks on these long flights. However, we weren't quite home yet since our plane was landing in Chicago, where we would have a 2 hour layover.
Landed in Chicago and too about an hour to get through Customs and go through security screening again. We got to the gate and only should have had about 30 minutes to wait before boarding. I kept watching the sky and seeing it get blacker and blacker and blacker. I was hoping we would get out of there before that storm hit......but we didn't.
It hit big time and they closed the airport for awhile and delayed all flights in and out. Geeezzzzz......we just left a rainy airport over 9 hours ago and now we're stuck at another one?!?!?!
We finally got on our way about 1.5 hours delayed and made it back to good ole' Texas.
We added up the time for our journey and from the time we woke up to the time we got home......it had been a 21 hour journey. Time to get home and get in bed.
Au Revoir to Paris!
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