I’ll start with some photos from yesterday that I was too tired to upload last night.

This morning we woke up around 9 a.m., showered then walked around the corner to the breakfast the hotel provides. We were a little disappointed with the selection, but it was free. Jacob ate a baguette with jam, yogurt and some orange juice. I had some bread, ham, gruyere cheese, yogurt and coffee.

From there we set off for the train station and headed over to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We walked along and checked out the shops. The sun was breaking through a little but the wind was very cold.

At the end of the street is the Arc de Triomphe. We took some photos and then sat on the corner of the Arc for a bit and just watched the cars go round and round. Its just one giant uncontrolled round-about but somehow traffic keeps moving. Jacob said he probably could have sat there for hours just watching the cars go round.

But we couldn’t sit all day, we had things to do!

We set off for the Eiffel Tower to get a look at it during the day. I didn’t wrongly accuse anyone of stealing my phone, so that was a bonus. We hopped on a train nearby to take that to Versailles. Unfortunately, we were waiting on the wrong platform and missed the train. So instead, we sat and ate some snacks while we waited thirty minutes for the next train. The ride to Versailles was pretty quick and I was amused by a young woman on the train working on a very elaborate snapchat story.

We got off the train and headed into Versailles. We decided to just walk around the gardens. By this time I was getting pretty hungry so we each bought a chicken panini and I got a hot chocolate. I fed the birds. They became my best friends.

We wandered the grounds a bit and compared Versailles to the Schonbrunn Palace  in Vienna, Austria. Apparently these were two competing palaces back in 1700s. We both decided we enjoyed the gardens at Schonbrunn more, but felt like our trip to Versailles was worth it.

We have noticed that historical sites, that are comparable to what we’ve seen in Paris and London are not nearly as crowded in other countries. Such as the Schonbrunn Palace. When we visited that in Sept. 2016 we were able to walk in and buy a ticket to tour the palace, no line – no wait. Here, you’d have to wait hours to get into Versailles Palace.

The Cologne Cathedral, which is absolutely amazing, is free and again, you can walk right in.

After walking to the Marie-Antoinette residence, we turned around and headed back to the train station. Jacob helped four eastern European women buy train tickets to return to Paris. The ticket machines only offer translation into English, German, French and Spanish. He was so patient and helpful, they thanked him many times.

After that we boarded the train and got cozy with the rest of the city of Paris on our ride back to our hotel. Jacob was worried we wouldn’t be able to get off at our stop so I told him I’d make a break for it. When we arrived at our station I said, “Excuse me!” and it was like the crowd collectively made way and pushed me off the train. It was incredible! Although, I didn’t need to do that because the train almost emptied at our stop…but I still enjoyed the moment.

We grabbed some snacks at the station and are back at our hotel now watching some French television show where children are bicycling in circles while they answer questions about science.

Tomorrow morning we are up bright and early again. We are catching a train at 6:10 a.m. to Frankfurt via Brussels. Tomorrow night we will be in Frankfurt and Saturday morning we pick up our rental car. Until then…