Monday 12/31/18
New Year's Eve in Paris
Our last full day in Paris, we slept late and left the hotel around noon to switch hotels and checked-in to our rooms at the Renaissance near the Arch de Triumph. The Renaissance was much closer to Milan and Christina's apartment (and our hotel on the Seine was booked for new year's eve). The Renaissance has very nice rooms surrounding a garden courtyard. Momma and Kayla had a second floor room. Troy and I had a floor higher. We had fries and drinks at the courtyard patio. With plenty of time before dark, we walked the route between our hotel and Christina and Milan's apartment, over to a grocery store and back to the hotel. I wanted to make sure we could find everything after dark. Troy went to sleep. Momma, Kayla and I walked to a corner restaurant and ate in the enclosed sidewalk patio.Later, we got dressed (tuxedos and all), stopped by the grocery store and bakery for bread (10 baguettes) and wine and champagne (50 euros champagne) and on to Christina and Milan's apartment. We had a great evening with everyone. The apartment had balconies on two sides: one facing the Eiffel Tower and one facing the Arch de Triumph. Milan's friends showed up and we had a full house all evening. They were very nice people. Great conversation. We did not feel out of place with our mostly-English and just two years high school French language barrier. Milan and Christina's family and party guests were very accommodating. The fireworks, although we were all thinking and hoping they would be on the Eiffel Tower side and that was the side we were waiting just before midnight, were actually on the side facing the Arch de Triumph so we all rushed from one balcony to the other. Unlike fireworks in Rome or Zermatt or New York, Paris' fireworks were the shortest fireworks we have seen for such a large metropolitan city. It was a good show and we enjoyed watching them over the rooftops, but they were shorter than we would have thought for Paris. After the fireworks, I had a couple of more drinks until I danced to uptown funk and then my family said we had to go. I professed my discontent with my family all the way back to the Renaissance where we slept for just a few hours before we had to get up for a taxi to the train station (It only seemed like a few minutes of shutting my eyes before Momma called our room phone to wake us up. Twice).
Here are photos of us from the hotel lobby and walking to Milan and Christina's apartment.
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| Baguettes, Wine and Champagne. |
It was a full apartment for the party. We were glad the Airbnb host did not kick us out, but we were relatively quiet the whole time anyway.
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| Happy New Year! |
Many thanks to our New Year's Eve party hosts, Milan and Christina. Thank you so very much for the invitation to join you, your family and friends on the last night of 2018. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and will never forget our evening with all of you. Merci beaucoup!
Page 2: London to Paris on the Eurostar
Page 3: Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower
Page 4: The Louvre and the Petit Palais
Page 5: Galleries Lafayette and Dinner
Page 6: New Year's Eve in Paris
Page 8: Our Last Day in England
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