Sunday: We woke up early and hopped on the metro for the first time to go towards Notre Dame. We were a little unsure of how it all worked with the tickets and the routes, but after a little bit of map reading (A Big Thanks to our 6th Grade Geography Teacher, Mr. Grow), we figured it out and we started taking the metro whenever we could. It was super simple! (We hear London’s system is not as simple…) Anyhoo, we heard an international mass at Notre Dame. The orchestra and choir were extraordinary! The church was magnificent. Some of the service was in English, but honestly, we didn’t get anything out of the homily since it was all in French. It was still a wonderful experience. We learned that the church will be celebrating its 850th anniversary next year! And we did not climb the 400 steps to the bell tower. I actually don’t think it was open, unfortunately.
After our visit, Jon “YELPED it” and found a mexican restaurant around the corner. It was definitely the kind of food we were both craving after having so much Parisian food. The guacamole was perfect! Playing it safe, I ordered a chicken and cheese quesadilla. Jon went all out and got the tamale – HOLY TAMALE! It was huge and he ate every single bite (except the corn husk)!
Our next adventure was to make it back towards Rue Cler and head over to the Eiffel Tower (hopefully on time) for our trip to the top! Luckily, we reserved our tickets in advance, skipped over the massive line (see video below!), and took the first lift to the 2nd floor and then to the top. The sky was clear so we could see so much. It was really windy up there, so I made sure to bundle up. (Please disregard the windblown hair pictures.) To get down, we took the lift down to the 2nd floor and I made the decision that we were going to walk down the steps to the ground level. I also decided that I was going to count the amount of steps we went down to get there. We estimated about 350 steps. To both of our surprise, there were 632 steps from the 2nd floor to the ground!
The last adventure of the day was a boat tour on the Seine. The ticket office/river was right behind the Eiffel Tower, so it was very convenient and the boat was leaving in 5 minutes! Good timing!
Next stop London!