Paris!!!!

Ok, Paris is beautiful. I had a newbie's eyes when seeing the city (both Stephen and Hayley had already been) and I was in awe. It's gorgeous...until 1am after New Years Eve in the park, then it's pretty nasty! We arrived in our PT Cruiser around lunchtime on NYE, and found our hotel with ease, thanks to the Dotson's who bought us a GPS for Christmas! Lifesaver!! We were staying a block away from the Eiffel tower, so we headed there first. Gracie acted like a movie star during her photo shoot in the park, and we had worked up an appetite taking all of the pictures. We decided to eat a little cafe on the river. It was beautiful. The weather had gotten a little chilly, and Hayley and I were in skirts, so we cancelled the bike tour...but tackled the city on our own. We ended the day at the Notre Dame, and had dinner in the square just outside. It was a nice New Years dinner, and then we met up with Aimee and Craig. We decided to sit outside one of the cafe's for a drink and head over to the park before the tower "sprinkled." At around 11:50 we marched over to the park and caught the Eiffel in all her glory, sparkling so pretty! It was jaw dropping. We even were able to talk a guy selling champagne from 25 euro to 10...Stephen noticed the bottle was Andre, and Aimee strong armed him. He was no match for our wits...but the joke was on us in the end because it was hot and we didn't have glasses. We managed, don't worry! I was disappointed in one thing...the fireworks. They were so puny. I figured (dreamed) there would be this HUGE fireworks show and we would stand there in awe, unfortunately the only fireworks shot off were by teenagers at the front of the park...nice, but not anything special! We then walked back to the area we were staying in in hopes of finding a cool dance bar. We didn't find such bar, but were able to catch a group of metro-Italian DB's dancing and making out with each other (all dude's by the way) and one even tried to pick up Hayley. Once they started throwing rubber balls, we were out. We ended the night at the Hilton, where Aimee and Craig were staying. It was so fun to be able to hang out with them on NYE, and in PARIS!! Such a fun night...many memories made, and definitely nice to have spent it in the city of lights! The next morning we woke up and seized the day. We walked around to find a breakfast spot, and then conquered all of the touristy spots, including the Starbucks! Gracie even did some driving! It was an amazing weekend, and we had such a fun time! I hope all of you had a great NYE, and wish you all the best in 2008.

For the rest of the pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/katie.dotson/ParisFrance