Paris Day 2 - My friend arrives!!

I started the day fairly quietly today, wandered into town and over to the Ile St-Louis where I found a cafe with, you guessed it, free wifi! I’m getting good at scoping out these places. While I lounged around I literally saw a man walk past wearing a beret and with a bagette under his arm!! - probably a tourist - they’re everywhere... terrible!! I might add I was stopped in the street by a French guy (not from Paris) who thought I was a local and asked me for directions... I helped him out with my map ! yay for me. Always good to go incognito - I bought a funky little handbag which is just big enough for my giant camera.. heh heh heh...

I wandered around Notre Dame taking a few photos of the gargoyles before heading off to Charles De Gaulle airport to meet Megan. I remembered my last visit here in 1996 when I met up with a friend from school in the garden on the east side of Notre Dame... she hadn’t spoken english with an english speaker for three months and spoke about a million words to the dozen... so cool! I sent her a text!!

Of course the ticket collector on the train told me the wrong terminal so there was a bit of going in circles, but I got to the arrival gate on time and with French customs being very laisez faire, Megan was through in about twenty minutes... literally skipping!! I think she was excited to be there - I was excited too!!!!

We dumped her bags at the hotel (after clever pre-warning she was happy with the room!) and headed into town where we wandered along the Seine, visited Notre Dame and walked past the Louvre, Place de la Concorde and along the Avenue des Champs Elysees. The stories are true - restaurants on the Champs Elysees will rip you off at any opportunity - the story is too long to tell here, and doesn’t reflect well on me as the tour leader... Needless to say we are the bigger people and I am now very clear on how to ask for TAP WATER!!!!

The good news for today was that I bought a cute pink t-shirt and a little black dress - my first Paris purchases!!! yay!!!!