OUR EUROPEAN ADVENTURE: Paris

I don't know if it's because I spent about 2 1/2 months there...or because I went during the off-season where there aren't HORDES of {obnoxious} tourists....or if it's because I got to know the city with a friend who would have made Buhl, Idaho exciting! But needless to say, I LOVE PARIS!

So, when planning this trip, even if it seemed a little out of the way, we just HAD to go to Paris!
And our time there was no exception!
I don't know if Esteban would say that he LOvEs Paris the way that I still do....but I know that he enjoyed it:)!

One more thing about us....is that we love planning to NOT have a plan.
Yes, we had the "must-see-sights" for each city....but we loved just wandering around in hopes to find the "real" city.
And thankfully, we did {or at least we're assuming that what we saw was a reflection of the culture of where we were...or it could just be a show for all of the suckers like us that are waiting for this...}! 
Some of our best memories are from unexpected finds like an "x-games" by the Seine, chess in the park, "chin-chin" with all 4 clerks of a little shop, an outdoor band concert and more.

Here are just some of the moments we were able to capture in the City of Light.

Oh....before I jump into the tourist pictures....here are some "candids" from our flight fiasco at the beginning of our trip.

In BWI before leaving...the US Airways line we waited in for about an hour only to be told that we had to fly out 2 days later, completely missing our first stop of the trip

At this point in the trip, all of this was a SAD thing.  

However, don't let the utter looks of devastation fool you...

..we were both still pretty psyched to be heading to Paris on FIRST CLASS!

And we made it!!!!

 

One day we stopped in a cute, little fromagerie (cheese shop) and with a variety of languages, sound effects and hand gestures, we left with a nice spread for a picnic!

We enjoyed our little picnic in the Luxembourg Garden where we experienced another taste....the French CHESS culture!

{Yes...my husband won that game:)!}

I'd like to think that this picture is not a result of the wrong setting, but a reflection of the heaven-like paintings and ethereal effects found in one of our favorite museums, the Orsay.

Some of the more exciting sights that we stumbled upon....

I'll end this post with probably the 2 most popular Paris icons....

Including all three pictures might seem a little excessive for this one, but I thought that our facial expressions were priceless {zoom in if you have a second}  and the one of both of us instigated one of our favorite quotes of the whole trip....."What did you win?" 

Doesn't she know that this is the Arch of TRIUMPH??!!

Whatever.