Dec. 14th: we arrived in Paris

It was 33 hours between the time we left our house in Ohio on December 13th to the time we arrived in France the next evening! Thank heavens I fell asleep on the Eurostar train between London and Paris. It may have only been an hour, but it was a profound sleep, and I awoke refreshed.

We exited the station, jumped in a taxi, and I was hoping that my French would be good enough to speak to the driver and check in once we arrived at the hotel. It must have been okay, as the Parisians, so far, didn't answer me in English!

We checked into our room around 7:30pm and immediately went out in search of dinner. We ate a few doors down in an Algerian couscous restaurant. The weather in Paris was chilly on top of the hours we'd spent freezing in St. Pancras Train Station, in London, and soup sounded very good to us both. It was a hot and tasty lamb and couscous in a delicious broth. We followed that with a tasty chicken and veg couscous dinner. We ended with a glass of complimentary hot mint tea.

When we arrived back at our hotel1-1/2 hours later, we went into the bar/reception room/breakfast room,  where a four piece French band was playing. Akim was the name of the singer and of the band. We really enjoyed this band, and for the next two evenings, we looked forward to hearing Akim's stories and suite of songs, all in French.

1am arrived and we went to bed with a plan to head out for the huge Gauguin Retrospective at the Grand Palais the next day.