Arrived in Paris on their Independence Day!

After having an amazing 3 days in San Sebastian we have made it to Paris. Let us catch you up a bit....

After we last updated you from an internet cafe in old San Sebastian we decided to hike Monte Urgull after the rain thankfully died down. The views from the top of this mountain at the end of the bay were absolutely amazing. Because the clouds cleared a bit, we were able to take great pictures and see some amazing views of the bay. The weather was humid enough for us to want to go for a swim. We walked back towards our hotel, (Hotel Europa) stopped in at a near by grocery store and picked up sandwich meats along with warm veggies, and pulpo(octopus) with potatoes. After enjoying a great lunch on our balcony we got dressed and ready for the beach.

We didn't hesitate to pull out our beach mats and get set up for a game of paddle ball. The beach wasn't too crowded which allowed us to have quite a bit of room for a good game. We were able to enjoy our last day in San Sebastian soaking up some sun. Later that evening we went back out and did some shopping and had our last plate of tapas in Espana. We couldn't have asked for a better time. We will post pictures of the beach and San Sebastian tomorrow.

Today was definitely one of our longer/tougher travel days yet. We woke up at 4:30am ready to get to the train station early enough to catch a train by 6am. When we got there we were informed by a worker that there were no trains going to Hendania (where we needed to buy tickets to get to Paris) and that we could only go to Irun. So we got tram tickets to Irun. Once in Irun at around 6:45am we noticed this stations was a bit too empty and sure enough noticed that the ticket booths weren't even open until 7:15am. Jaz then asked another lady who was working the station by herself to see if this station even sold tickets to get to Paris. (We were told that both Irun, Spain & Hendania, France did). The lady at the Irun station told us we were at the wrong station and needed to get to Hendania. She told us to walk through town and find another subway that took us to Hendania and then from there see if we could get tickets to Paris. Brain wants to mention that he is truly greatful for Jaz speaking spanish because if she didn't we would have had an even harder time getting around. So we made it to the subway just within a minutes time of the train coming, got into Hendania and were able to make the 8:01am train to Paris, France just in the nic of time. (If this was too wordy just understand that we did a lot of train hopping)

The train ride was smooth sailing after that and we definitely did our best to get some shut eye. However it was a bit hard to sleep because we did have a newborn baby in our coach.

Once we got into Paris we looked for the nearest Metro station to take us to the Louvre Museum. We both knew that Jasmine's parents were blocks away and felt like we would be able to wing it. The metro took us straight to the Museum. In fact, we came up from right under it and the moment we walked out from under ground were surrounded by the amazing structure.

After about an hour and a half of getting in contact with Jas' parents and looking for we got to the loft and relaxed/showered. The loft is literally two blocks from the Louvre and minutes from the Eiffel Tower. After catching up with Jas' family and Brian calling his family (Shout out to the Gosney's) we were back out and headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. Jas' parents and brother had mentioned they were able to see a parade early today and they informed us it was France's Independence Day.... well little did we know that we got the firework show of a life time that went off at 11pm sharp. The Eiffel Tower Sparkled in the darkness as we stood a block away while the two ton amount of fireworks went off just to our right over the Seine River. It was a spectacular event and definitely one way to welcome us into their city. Or at least we like to think so. =)

Anyway... you may notice the long blog entry. Well, that is because we have internet now and its Free!! No more Internet Cafe's for us. It's almost 2am here time to sleep for us.

Miss everyone back home and talk to you all soon. It truly means a lot to hear from everyone following our blog. Thanks for all of the emails and kind words.

Brian & Jasmine