Tourist Week

This past week Rebecca was here visiting. We did a whirlwind tour of Paris and ate a lot of crepes, baked goods and macarons. The week she visited also happened to be one of the coldest on record in Paris in decades. 

On the morning she arrived, it began snowing and it was the first time in at least 15 years that the snow remained on the ground here -- sort of a very lucky week to see Paris but also frighteningly cold, especially at the top of the Eiffel tower:

The truth is those smiles were frozen onto our faces. I was actually in a lot of pain. A lot. Rebecca suggested we look out for a bit and spend another 10 minutes in the gift shop warming up and then run out to look and then back to gift shop. Sounded like a good idea. 

This gift shop had the usual Paris souvenirs but had some odd ones as well. For some reason there were giraffe and zebra styled Eiffel Towers and a lot of cow-themed things. 

And then we decided to be really, really original and a little artsy. Evidence:

On our way out I literally could not feel past my ankles. It was a little dangerous but I like to live on the edge. We ran out and asked everyone where the closest metro was but everyone is a tourist there so they had no idea. Just a sea of useless people. Finally I asked a kindly old French woman to point us in the right direction. She was waiting for the bus so I thought she would know. She placed her finger to her mouth in thought and pointed us west, away from the centre of Paris and toward the Bridge on the opposite side of the tower. "Under the bridge there is a metro station. Yes. Yes. I'm sure of it," she said in French. 

Onwards we walked in minus 10 degree weather. After 10 minutes we saw the bridge, but no metro station. Ah, but there was a tunnel leading under it in front of it! This was it! We would be home in no time. I entered first. 

This was no tunnel to the subway but the home of a homeless gentleman and his possessions. I turned around pretty quickly. 

We walked all the way back to the bus stop and I asked a younger French girl coming from a side street where to go. She told us and, finally, after searching for 30 minutes we arrived at the metro station and went home. My heating was broken so it took us a while to heat up with Rebecca's hair dryer.