Paris, France :: Sister Weeekend

My sister came to Helsinki a couple of weeks ago and spent some time with us. I really wanted to be able to spend some quality time with her-no kids, no responsibilites-and knew the best way to get that to happen was to go away from home. When we started tossing around ideas of what we could do, I started looking into Paris. A weekend in Paris with my sister? Sounded amazing to me.


Also, Bre turns 30 this year. If I needed a reason before, now I had one. I booked our tickets and began dreaming about macaroons and sweet walks on cobblestone streets with the girl I grew up with (and without a stroller!)

It turned out even dreamier that I had hoped. I'm a nervous planner. Lucky for me my sister is a go-with-the flow traveler. The two of us complimented eachother quite nicely.  As far as a weekend in Paris can turn out, I think we couldn't have hoped for better. Sunny, beautiful weather. Not a single bad experience with any wait staff(I was nervous they would be annoyed with us americans.)  An awesome taxi driver who we became fast friends with (and we drove with him exclusively) and lots and lots and lots of macaroons.

We came home with funny stories, a few mishaps gone comical and with enough sweet treats and good food to keep us happy.

We planned out our trip ahead of time with our 'must see's' and then took off a few as the journey played out. But we made sure to visit the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Musée du Louvre, and many stops in between. We also made sure to have a nice sit down dinner where we had escargot, and duck and apple tart. We ate pan de chocolate from an outdoor vendor (the smells of sweet baking bread drew us in) and took our job of deciding who was the better pastry chef (Laduree, or Pierre Hermé macaroons) very seriously. So seriously that at one point a saleswoman asked us if all these pastrys and macaroons were "just for us two....for today?" Oui m'dame.

Just for us. Yes, we plan to eat all of this today.

S'il te plaît et merci.

Needless to say we had some deep laughs and some delicious food. Tired feet and pretty pictures plus, souvineer treasures and plenty of memories crammed in.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Thanks Bre, for being an incredible adventurer with me. I can hardly wait for the next.