They say it is good luck if it rains in Paris on the first day. Well it didn’t rain on us but Paris certainly showed us how magical it could be. Katelyn got in last night after finishing her exam, saying her goodbyes to St Andrews, and rushing to the airport. She made it to the hostel with the help of some friendly Parisians and met Greg, Jen and Nick this morning. They were a bit weary from the bus, but we hit the town running.

We began the day by exploring a little of Montmartre and the Sacré-Cœur with Nick acting as our tour guide. We made our way past le Moulin Rouge and a few interesting shops. Then, we hopped on the metro to l’Arc de Triomphe and l’avenue Champs-Élysées. Our promenade took us to la Place de la Concorde, through le Gardin des Tuileries and over to la Musée d’Orsay, where we were impressed by the impressionists, pre-impressionists, post-impressionists, fauvists, cubists, and expressionists.

After that, it was back to the streets. Since Nick, Greg, and Katelyn had already been to the Louvre, we opted to just visit the exterior for Jen’s sake. She was quite amazed at the sheer size of the former palace and while we contemplated attempting to run through the entire thing in under 9 minutes like in The Dreamers and some other old movie, we decided it wasn’t worth getting arrested. Another time perhaps…

The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering along the Seine and exploring around Notre Dame Cathedral. All of this made us a bit hungry so we decided to head in to the Latin quarter for drinks and Crèpes. Needless to say, they hit the spot.

Since we still needed to check in at the hostel, we headed back to Montmartre to take a little siesta as well. Upon entering our new room with an amazing view, we were thrilled to discover that we not only had it all to ourselves, but that we had our own private ensuite bathroom and most importantly…a hairdryer! Just a few of the small luxuries we have been missing on this trip. Yes, it’s a hard life we lead, traveling around Europe.

Once Greg had showered down, Katelyn found him a bit more acceptable for a real, sit-down dinner—so they found a nice restaurant and had the best meal of their lives sitting on the sidewalk of beautiful Montmarte. Greg had steak with garlic and butter dressing while Katie had leg of lamb, despite her recent fawning over the young sheep back in Scotland. If only they didn’t taste so good.

Meanwhile, Jen and Nick opted for another French staple: McDonald’s, which is certainly gourmet in its own right.

After supper, we had just enough time to head back downtown and see La Tour Eiffel in all its nighttime glory. Oh yeah, and Greg asked Katie to marry him. And she said yes.