Day 5

Nate trying to get into the US Embassy for his passport.

We are off to a great start! Lost Nate's passport, missed our train... Here is the brightside (and a very one at that) - the US embassy actually had the passport! We are so thankful that someone turned it in because we would have been stuck in Amsterdam for the rest of the trip. Not such a bad thing but my heart was already in Paris this morning.

So... we are at Ben & Jerry's typing to you. No, Nate isn't eating ice cream yet (must be because of all the excitement this morning).

Hope your day starts off better then ours! Happy Friday! Happy long weekend for Labor Day.

The old gates to Paris just down the road from our apartment.

Warning! Im typing this on a french keyboard so i will not go out of my way on spelling. Also the Q is in the position of the A..not fun.. The good news is, we have arrived! The train we took from amsterdam to paris is called the thalys and moves at speeds over 125 mph.  At times it was moving so fast that it was tough to look out the window. The scenery was kind of dull with many areas looking a lot like the miserable I-90 stretch from Schaumburg to Rockford. Because of this, I started documenting all the grafitti I could find - there was a lot! Still the train was moving so quickly that it was hard to snap any good shots. 

The trip was about 4.5 hours long. After all the morning excitement, we both took naps and relaxed. About halfway along Nate decided to journey up a few cars to get some snacks. He returned with a small bottle of white wine, a heinekin, a twix bar, and a can of pringles. When i inquired about his selection, he said that he picked the items he could translate over in English. Lucky for him, the twix bar made the cut.

After arriving at the Paris Nord, we took our first stab at the metro system. It was a breeze, even with our luggage. We hope to have better luck this time around on the public transit system. Our apartment is on Rue de Clery. Not to be confused with the hot spot Rue de Cler (sorry Cheryl!). We are five stories high overlooking the beautiful street. The apartment is TINY but very cozy with internet, phone, TV, movies, video games (uh oh), and a beautiful porch decorated with the owners plants and flowers. If you are still stuck on the five stories high sentence, so are we, especially having to carry our luggage all the way up. 

Last night we laid low and made our very own italian dinner in Paris. There`s a grocery store just down the street from our apartment. The locals weren`t friendly but neither are the people in downtown Chicago so we won`t judge them just yet. Also, they do not sell peanut butter here!!!!!! This was a major disappointment for us PBJ lovers. 

We can`t wait to get out and explore. If you have any suggestions for our itinerary, leave a comment!

One last note - laying in bed last night, I started to think of all the different states people came from to attend our wedding (yes Mom, I couldn`t sleep..). Take a look at the list. Its pretty amazing. 

NY

DC

NC

AL

TN

AR

MO

IL (duh!)

WI

MN

SD

IA

NE

CO

TX

CA

and Brasil!

Thank you all! We miss everyone very much.