Arrival in Paris

Tuesday we spent at Elise's house, we had fun late into the night, which meant when we woke up at 4a.m., we had about 3 and a half hours of sleep. We flew from Spokane to Denver, then to Montreal, then into Charles de Gaulle. Air Canada was a great airline, good movie selection, good food and even served us a bottle of wine. Neither Monique or I slept much , probably an hour. We arrived 8:30 in the morning Paris time, so we had a big day ahead of us. We easily met up with Kate and Laura, and were thankful that our bags were some of the first few off the plane. We took a bus to the train station. Once there, we were thankful that we already had euros and didn't have to go through the hassle and long line of the whole exchange ordeal there. It took a little over half an hour to make it to our stop at Les Halles. Having come up in a mall, there were a bunch of familiar clothing stores (H & M, Zara, Camieu), which we are all excited to go explore.
After we got up the escalator we were out on the cobblestone streets and it was beginning to sprinkle. After rummaging through our bags we realized that we forgot the umbrella Dad gave us right as we were getting in the car (later we REALLY wished we had the umbrella). We pulled out our maps, orientated ourselves and were off, not to mention that our bags were really heavy (Kate and Laura's were both over 60 lbs.)and were not designed for Parisian streets.
But long story short, after a few wrong turns and a few friendly French people who came over to us to help with directions, we made it to the apartment. The entrance is just a double door that has an access code. A man from inside opened it for us, and introduced us to the landlord (his wife). Neither of them speak a word of English. The whole getting-the-luggage-up-three-stories (on a very narrow and steep staircase) was really scary, but we made it without loosing any luggage (or people). We had made it to the apartment by about 11:00a.m. and were really hungry. So we quickly unpacked and headed out to find food. Just down the street we found a Kebab shop, so we ordered and were asked if it was for here or to go. We said it was to eat there, then we realized that there weren't any seats, but the waiter made some guys move and cleared us a table. When we sat down we realized that we were the only girls in the restaurant, and there were a whole bunch of Middle Eastern guys - who all were staring. But nevertheless, it was a great meal.
We then went on a walk, by now it was starting to rain pretty hard, we went by the Pompidou Center (which is just a couple blocks from our apartment) and then to Notre Dame. It was pouring really hard, and jet lag was starting to catch up with us, so we headed home. We were determined to stay awake, hopefully we could make it to at least 18:00 or 19:00. After trying to connect to the internet and taking showers, we turned on a movie, hoping this would pass some time. We turned it on and... didn't make it very far. I don't even remember the first preview. Monique said that she woke up and the Play Menu was just repeating. So we had fallen asleep by 15:30. We all woke up at 20:30. Monique and Laura thought when I said that it was 8:30 that we slept through the night, so they started getting ready for the day. So we started the movie again and began to watch. Most of us made it a good way through. We were all awake by 5a.m. and ready for some food, and to explore Paris.