The Hour has Arrived

I'm just about to leave for the airport & so the great adventure begins.  I'm flying from Orange County to Phoenix (American Airlines) and then British Air to London and then to Paris with a 2 hour layover each time.  I'm expecting everything to go smoothly as the last two times I've flown over to Europe we've had delays that caused missed flights, had to change flights & lost a day of vacation each time.  It's now time for all to go smoothly!  Will arrive in Paris at 7 PM on the 30th, just in time for May Day.  Au revoir.

It's getting so close that I'm at that point of almost gasping for air as I almost didn't believe this would happen & it's time to fill in with a little background on how this trip came about.  Leas always wanted to go back to Paris but said she wanted to go with me & I promised we'd do it, but wasn't convinced it could ever happen.  Last year we just decided that life is short & we needed to do this &, if we didn't do it now, we probably never would so we started looking at apartments & found the perfect one so we put down our deposit.  The apartment is a third floor (no elevator) in the 4th arrondissment at the edge of the Place des Vosges and around the corner from Victor Hugo's house (now a museum).  It's a one bedroom and has a terrace with table and chairs so we can sit out there and have breakfast in the morning & bread, wine & cheese on the nights we skip a regular dinner (and that ain't gonna happen often considering the numbe rof restaurants we HAVE to eat at).  Leas has used the Ulman app to enter every place we want to go (plus or minus a few hundred) and we have a daily itinerary with our planned sights and the restaurants in those  areas. We will arrive Thurs evening & have a restaurnat close to the apartment planned for dinner and I definitely will get a lemon & sugar crepe from one of the street stands for dessert .  Friday, May 1st is a major holiday (Labour Day) so we plan to scout the area, get our Navigo metro passes and make a dinner reservation for later in the week at one of our MUST restaurants that we weren't able to contact online, Le Servan. All the major sites are closed but most restaurants will be open so we have a couple of possibilities.  I plan to buy lots of Lillies of the Valley as they're sold on all the streetcorners of Paris on this day & they're one of my favorite flowers.
Saturday, we'll take a Bateau Mouche, a barge on the Seine, as it's a great way to get an overview of the city along the river.  Sunday, we plan to go to the Bastille Market, a block from us, which is one of the biggest in Paris & we've been advised that we need to be there by 9:30 am so we don't miss the good stuff.  We'll pick up a rotisserie chicken & potatoes (cooked in the fat that drips from the chicken) for dinner that night along with anythin and everything else that looks good.  Then we'll walk through Saint Paul Village for the ambiance and shops, a couple of them look very interesting.  More update tomorrow!  Cannot wait!

5 Days to our big adventure-Sister Trip 2015

After a year of planning,the time has almost arrived snd Leas and I are both super excited.  We already have reservations for 2 lunches, 2 dinners, 2 shows and one out of Paris tour so now, all we need to do is pack and get on the airplane.  I'm going to try and keep this blog updated daily but won't make any promises as our schedule is very full.  I'll do my best and add as many pictures as possible too.  If there is anything special you want to know, just leave a comment and I'll do my best to respond.