Last Day in Paris

The last day in Paris was bittersweet. We took the last day at a leisurely pace and enjoyed every last minute of it. We woke up grabbed some breakfast and started to pack our things. We decided to hit up the Eiffel Tower one last time in order to make a serious attempt of going up in it. When we got there it was PACKED! There were more people than we had seen at any of our previous visits. We got in line for a pillar with an elevator. After climbing up the stairs of the Arc de Triomphe and being pregnant, I realized there was no way I was going to attempt to climb up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. After waiting in the line for about 30 minutes and not even making it an 1/8th of the way through the line, we decided to figure out why it was taking so long. Turns out, two of the four pillars were out of operation and our line was running, but the elevator was having issues and was going VERY slow. Cole asked me one last time if I wanted to try the stairs line and I stood firm on not going up the stair line. So....long story short we didn't go up the Eiffel Tower. We realized we would have to wait in line at least 3 hours just to get to the base pillar. Then they were announcing at least another hour wait to get to the top. I wasn't ready to spend my last day in Paris waiting in line at the Eiffel Tower. We took our last pictures of the Eiffel Tower and said 'au revoir.'

So we meandered our way back down to the Champs Elysees. We took a different route this time and stopped along the way for a drink and a break. When we got to the Champs Elysees we hit up the H&M. Since it was the last day and we still had quite a bit of shopping we hadn't done, we thought this was the perfect place to do it. This H&M is the biggest I have been in and it was awesome! Three stories tall, two for women's clothing and one for men. I bought a new purse, dresses, and a few other items.

After shopping we wandered down the Champs Elysees more, we walked down one side the other day, and now we walked down the other side of the avenue. Along the way we found a Peugeot car show room and a McDonald's. Although we didn't eat at the McDonald's, we went in to take pictures of the menu. For anyone that has seen Pulp Fiction, you know that the Quarter Pounder with Cheese is called a 'Royale with Cheese' there. As we wandered in they have a FABULOUS baked good cafe section that I snapped a photo of shown below. A french man commented on me taking the photo and said "you don't have these at your McDonald's in the states?" Um, no - I wish I did!!

After shopping we decided to head back to the flat. Cole was not feeling well and wanted to lay down. He had a headache and was feeling like he was going to throw up. Cole took a nap at the flat for a few hours and I planned out our route to the airport. We hadn't been to the airport in Paris yet and needed to map out what metro stations to use and ensure that they ran since we had to get up at the crack of dawn.

After Cole woke up we headed out to get some dinner. Our tour guide on the Fat Tire bike tour had recommended a local pizza place in the Montmarte area called the 'Pink Flamingo.' This place is sort of similar to Flying Pie Pizzeria but smaller. Translation: Awesome. We got the L'Obama pizza. It was a thin crust pizza with canadian bacon and a pineapple chutney. For dessert we had a strawberry basil sorbet. It was divine. We took both of these back to the flat to eat and to wait for our host to check us out of the flat.

After dinner and meeting with our host we finished packing our things. We managed to get all of our belongings including all of our new shopping finds and gifts back into the original two bags we brought. We decided we would end our Paris vacation right where we started it - the Sacre Coeur. We made the climb back up the stairs so we could watch the Eiffel Tower light show one last time from a different point of view. We wandered around the Sacre Coeur and looked at it in all of its lighted glory. Then we found a spot to watch the hourly light show of the Eiffel Tower. It was a romantic and lovely way to end the trip. I will miss Paris dearly, but it was everything I hoped it would be and I can't wait to go back one day.