Paris, France
Merry Christmas! It was great talking to our families today, but we still really miss all of our friends! Hope you all had a great Christmas Eve. We did . . . Because we got engaged!
Christmas Eve was a really busy day for us. We got a late start and didn’t make it to breakfast. We had time to walk over to Luxembourg Palace before noon. The weather was nice and sunny for the first time since we arrived in Paris and we spent a long time just strolling around the gardens that surround the palace.
After that we visited the Montpernasse Cemetery, which is one of the historic cemeteries in the city. We didn’t spend too much time there – mostly just walked through on our way to the metro station – but it was a pretty neat cemetery. I’ve never seen one so crowded before and there were some pretty interesting gravestones. From there we caught the metro to the Eiffel Tower.
It is even more gorgeous in person than I imagined. When we got there Josh said he wanted me to find the best place to take a photo, so we spent several hours walking around and trying out different spots. We finally found a nearly empty park right next to the tower with a few benches. Also, there was a beaver in the park’s pond – random right? But, I knew this was the right spot and I waited for Josh to propose.
Except he didn’t. We strolled around some more, stopped in a street side cafe for some hot chocolate, went to another Christmas market, bought a hat and generally wasted the day away. At this point I figured he either wasn’t going to propose or he had planned to but chickened out. I wasn’t too worried though, because I had a really fun day.
We made our way back to the best Eiffel Tower photo spot right before sunset. We talked, watched dogs and snapped pictures until dark. When the tower lights were turned on Josh suggested I take one more picture before we left so that we would always remember this spot.
I looked up to take the photo and when I looked back down he was on one knee holding out a ring. He said something (I later learned was “will you marry me” in French), but I didn’t really hear because I was screaming and grabbing that ring.
I almost had it on my finger before I stopped asked if he was asking me to marry him. He said he already did – in French. I said yes and we put the ring on together.
We hung around our spot for a while longer and took more photos. The first people we told were this Chinese couple who had been making out on a bench nearby all night. When📷 we were leaving we turned around and saw that the tower light show was starting. I thought Josh was taking photos, but he was actually videoing. He got me squealing about us getting married. It actually turned out to be a kind of cute video when I found it later. So, I think I’ll post it on Facebook as my incognito engagement announcement now that we’ve been able to tell our families on Skype.
Today, we didn’t do much. We went to Christmas mass at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was the celebration of their 850 year anniversary and the Arch Bishop of Paris came to do the service. It was broadcast internationally and we actually got shoved right up front, so we may have been on TV. Guess we’ll never know unless anyone was watching?
After that we just did some laundry and hung out around the hotel because I’m getting a cold and wanted to rest while we had the time and everything was closed anyway.
Tomorrow we’re catching a 7 am train to Amsterdam. We’ll be spending the day in the city and then catching the 7 pm night train to Prague. I doubt we’ll have internet on the train, so it may be a day a two before we chat again!
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