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Eurotrip Part 2 | France

I'm Jackie

Traveling wedding photographer + photography/small biz educator.

Mesmerized by the way two people love each other, each so uniquely.  I always leave room for dessert. Believe swear words are just sentence embellishers. Think indulgences are necessary in this life. 

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Love stories in all forms without the white dress... or maybe they wore white, it happens.

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Mont St Michel France December Fog Wedding Photographer

France. Is kind of a blur.

So much happened in 3 days on about 8 hours of sleep. Honestly we didn’t put alot of effort into planning the France portion of our trip. Not that Meg and I make much of an effort when it comes to planning anyway. That should tell you how ready for France we were  😉  Meg’s sister, Steph, asked us to meet her in Paris. So we did. But we came a day earlier than her. We had our first hostel experience. Not bad. Aside from Meg and I’s bags generally explode when we get somewhere. There wasn’t much room for that there. But so fun to connect with other people traveling from all over the world. Although I think our roommates probably wouldn’t have picked us as their favorites. We’re aren’t the quietest. And we came in between 2am and 4am every night and somehow managed to be up and leaving for the next thing by 8am the next morning. Sorry people of the world. Sleep is overrated! Well on vacation it is.

Also my french vocabulary is really limited to Hi, My name is…, and thank you. Oh and oui. 🙂 But Meg who told me she knew nothing and cheated her way through french in school did really well on interpreting for us. I’m still impressed!

We flew into Paris late one night and Steph landed the next morning before we even finished breakfast, not that we ate early by any means. And the French Adventure began.

Starting with us walking most of the city. From the hostel to Notre Dame, down the river to The Louvre, to the Champs-Élysée for shopping, Abercrombie & Fitch models, french onion soup and macaroons from Ladurée.

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After a day full of walking we took a taxi back to the hostel to relax for a bit and get ready for dinner and the late night show of Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge was AMAZING!! If you go to Paris go to a show. Don’t just go to the Moulin Rouge for a photo, go to a show. So much fun. And we had lots of champagne during it. 😉

We actually rested too long at the hostel that we were hurrying to get ready and head up to Sacre Coeur for a view of the city and dinner before the show. We rushed through a delicious french dinner and also to the Irish pub in Houston. Wine, escargot, steak tartare. Then we rushed out the door to make it Moulin Rouge and half way down the hill I realized I left my phone on the table at the restaurant. So I started running. In wedges. Made it to the top of the hill out of breath and stopped for a second to take a breath and I hear “MISS!” Our waiter Anthony had been running down the hill after us to bring me my phone. Anthony you are the best. I actually even yelled that. Meg and I are going back there for sure for more wine, escargot and beef tartare and to leave Anthony a HUGE tip.

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After the 11pm Moulin Rouge show (as mentioned in this contact form)  Steph convinced us to get “one drink” at an “Irish” bar next to Moulin Rouge. Seemed silly at the time since Meg and I were headed to Ireland 2 days later. But….. now we’ll always have O’Sullivans. Clearly it was a great time as we were taking 4am selfies in the taxi!

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We had already rented a car for first thing the next morning to head out to Mont St Michel. A 4 hour drive each way. So after a nap we somehow made our way to the market for more bread and cheese and found us a taxi to the car rental. Get more info from here about the service that we opted for. At some point that morning each one of us thought this was stupid and we shouldn’t go. But none of us voiced it. Thankful we didn’t as we wouldn’t have left Paris and Mont St Michel was incredible.

The car rental guys hated us as they weren’t going to let us return after hours and we didn’t want to drive in Paris more than we had to. Paris traffic is insane. And there are no rules. Normally this would be awesome, but if you could have seen us that morning you wouldn’t have recommended us driving anywhere, let alone IN Paris. The conversations that happened on the way to Mont St Michel are ones we’ll never forget. They’re the type that can only happen after a night of drinking and no sleep. I actually let Meg drive. I always drive. Meg hates driving and I don’t like others driving haha. But that morning. Meg pulled it together for the team. Which seemed fine until we got in the car. I began to reconsider the idea as she had a picnic in the driveway of the rental place. Although the looks we got from others coming in, renting their car, and leaving while we still sat there eating bread and cheese were priceless. Eventually we pulled it together and made it out of Paris. Paris France Driving

Driving up to Mont St Michel was amazing. It rained the whole day and driving through the tiny country towns we could start to see it in the distance in the clouds. Being December and it raining there was hardly anyone there as we roamed the small cobblestone streets alone. Exploring the Abbey. Stopping to take photos every corner. Each time we walked through a gate, or up some stairs was another sigh of OH MY GOSH! Where are we?! So glad we pulled it together and made it out there. The roadtrip home wasn’t one to forget either. Almost running out of gas and there aren’t gas stations every where in the countryside. Or really anywhere. Being so hungry we just pulled off a random exit driving in the dark what seemed forever away from the highway to a small town and stopping at a bistro to eat. Impulsive and spontaneous is our game. And the food was SO good. Honestly I still don’t even know where we ended up! Once again making it home at 3am with a 10:30am flight to Ireland the next morning.

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Truth. I almost left Paris without going to the Eiffel Tower. I mean, I saw it. From all over the city. Just didn’t go to it. I don’t know, I’m not drawn to seeing every monument or structure or tourist attraction. I’m all for making memories. And I’m glad we didn’t go until the morning before our flight. We managed to wake up after another nap of a night, get ready, pack our bags and get a taxi to the airport. But we requested a stop at the Eiffel Tower just for a quick photo. The driver took us RIGHT to it. We got out but we were WAY too close to take a picture. The rain continued as we started running down the street trying to get back far enough. Then some more to get a better photo. And then some more. As our taxi slowly followed us down the street haha. And from there we said bye to Steph and hopped back in the taxi. Our taxi driver asked us if he could take us somewhere, it would take one minute and would be beautiful. And we said yes. Well we said oui! He took us up a few streets over to an incredible view of the Eiffel Tower. And I ran through flocks of pigeons. The perfect ending to our French Adventure.

Then we were off to Ireland. Which happened to be my favorite part of the trip! Can’t wait to share that part with you! Til then…..

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*All of the photos are a combination of Meg & I’s from our camera’s, phones, and GoPro. But mostly our iPhones 😉 *

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