Well the trip from the airport didn't go as smoothly as planned. I had booked a shuttle to pick us up and they said right after we land, we're supposed to be able to find a free phone to call and tell them we're here. After three calls, this man in a yellow cab convinces us that we are the customers he's looking for and right as we're getting into Paris, his boss gets on the phone with us to inform us all that we are not his customers and must be taken back to the airport or forced to pay 60 Euro. We went back to the airport. An hour after that, our shuttle finds us and we get to our hotel. It's defiantly not the four seasons, but hey we're in Paris so I don't really care.
We checked in, changed, and got right to walking. I wore these new "comfortable shoes" which will come into the story later. Walking down the Rue de Rivoli, we find the Louvre and do the long walk down the Champs Élysées, stopping for macaroons at Laudree and make our way to the Arc de Triomphe which at this point, is completely glowing in lights. The walk from the Rue de Louvre to the Arc took us over an hour because we stopped for hot chocolate and took a billion pictures of things like "The palace de Concorde" (where people like Marie Antoinette were killed) which has beautiful fountains and a giant obelisk from Egypt. Since so many roads lead to the Arc, it's really easy to take a side street and find your way to the Eiffel Tower.
When I was here last, I only saw it from far away when it was nighttime so seeing it tonight was so amazing. The size of it alone is so unreal and I love how it's visible from so many places around the city. Every first 5 minutes of the hour, it sparkles and glitters in flickering lights. After walking underneath, there are basically two major ways to go. One leads you back where we came from to the Palais de Chaillot or you can go the way we started walking, toward the Parc du Champ de Mars. Now at this point my feet are so swollen and blister-y from walking Ryan had to give me his socks to wear with my flats. We get all the way down the Parc du Champ de Mars, about 20 min of a walk, and I'm planning on taking him past the Hotel des Invalides, the Musee D'Orsay, and Notre Dame at night. Thinking it'll be a short hour or so walk back I was excited to finally lose these awful shoes.
All of a sudden, Ryan tells me no and that we really need to go all the way back to see some fountains. He is so persistent that no matter what I say, he keeps insisting we go back. Let's just say I wasn't the most pleasant of people. We walk about 20 min back the way we came and find a place to sit and watch the lights. Once it was over, Ryan stood up right away like he wanted to go. Me dreading the walk back, I get off the ledge and start to follow him. Like a movie, he gets on one knee while I...trip over a bush. he's shaking and crying, says something super fast and shows me a ring. In nerves, I kneel down too not really knowing how to react. (but was happy, of course!) the whole day just seemed so unreal, probably from lack of sleep, that this too felt like a dream. After telling him 3 times to repeat it, I just wanted to hear him say it over and over, and me staring at the ring for a super long time, I realized I forgot to say yes! I guess I just thought he knew that it would of course be a yes.
After talking for a while, we started walking back down the way we were going before this happens and as we were walking down my favorite bridge, the Pont Alexandre III, the Eiffel tower was glittering again and I said "we've been engaged for a whole hour!" I think then it became real. For Ryan, it was when I told him which pocket his Chap stick was in. Boys. Pizza tonight was the only thing we had energy to find for dinner. Tomorrow night we plan on getting a bottle of wine to really celebrate when we don't look like zombies!
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