626s Corner: A Day out in Paris part 1

So I don't normally do the trip reports on the blog but figured it's easier to type it here than on three different websites. So here goes:
The last two years I have developed a huge love of Disney. I follow other trip reports on various Disney web forums and learn alot about the parks especially Walt Disney World. I love Florida. I love those parks but this year I was doing a masters and all my money went into that so when it came to the end of the masters I had holidays to take in work. I knew I wanted something Disney and couldn't afford Florida so I started pricing Paris and managed to find cheap flights and hotel for November so Paris it was. I had been before with a dance school but that was nine years ago plus I knew Disneyland Paris was celebrating it's 20th anniversary so it would be nice to see the changes over the nine years and what celebrations were going on. We left the 6th of November for Paris. The Flight was at 6.30 am so a nice early start but I was excited to see the airport had put up some Christmas decorations early:

and I found Mickey Mouse in the duty free:

The only other thing vaguely exciting at the airport was the near fight at the boarding gate. When we got to the gate everyone had started queueing so we joined the end not a problem but as we got closer this guy stood up from the chairs and tried to skip in front of the guy standing in front of us instead of joining the end of the queue. Big mistake, the guy in front of us wasn't happy about it and let the queue jumper know. We thought there was going to be a punch up and I jokingly told my travelling companion to expect alot of that behaviour because from what I had read there may be a few rude people in Paris. The flight to Beauvais wasn't to long it was only an hour and fifteen minutes and I slept most of the way. Once we landed we collected the luggage and met the taxi driver I had booked in advance. It took about an hour to get to the hotel and all we really saw along the way was corn fields:

Just as I was beginning to think that the driver was driving me home I spotted the first sign of Disneyland through the trees. It was Space Mountain:

We were staying at the Kyriad hotel and we went to check in but our room wasn't ready and wouldn't be ready until three o'clock so we freshened up, stored our luggage in their lockers and headed out on our first adventure. Up until four days before the trip I was going solo so I wouldn't have done this alone but once someone decided they were coming with me I spent half an hour the night before we left researching how to get around Paris and what sites I'd like to see so off to the train station we go. We got a 5 zone return ticket which cost 15.20 before grabbing a roll in a nearby shop and heading to the RER A to go to Charles de Gaulle Etoile. Once we got there we got off to see the Arc de Triomphe and explore a little. The station seemed to have alot of exits but there were signs with pictures of the Arc so it was easy enough to figure out what way to go. We came to steps and literally when we got to the top of the steps this is what we saw:

I guess we went the right way then. The detail on that thing is amazing and I thanked my camera zoom for being really good again that I was able to zoom in this close:

In my limited research we now thought we were on the Champ Elysees when I got home I found out we weren't on the Champ Elysees at all that that is on the other side of the Arc but whatever we enjoyed our walk. This reminded me of the French Pavilion in Epcot:

After our short stroll we headed back to the the station to get the metro line 6 to our next destination Trocadero. In the station we spotted this:

and were far to amused by it. My travelling companion asked had someone made a mistake at the top of the sign is that why it said "au Foch." I think the lack of sleep was making us giddy. I had only had three hours sleep the night before and I'm pretty sure she went to bed after me meaning she had less sleep. Anyway after a short stinking metro ride (it smelled like someone had been sick) we arrived at our next destination. Followed the signs, walked down the road a bit and "window shopped" at the stalls along the way:

Soon enough we saw our destination. The Eiffel Tower:

I wanted to go up to the first level for pictures but my travelling companion didn't although she was happy enough to sit at the bottom and wait for me. At that time it was about 2 o'clock and the queue was very long so I decided we would just take pictures for now, go see Notre Dame which we also wanted to see and come back later to the Tower and if the queue was shorter try then to go up.

I had crossed the street to try get a better view of the tower and could see where the Seine River boat cruises load from:

So after taking a few pictures I headed back towards the stations because I had seen the next station we needed on our walk down from Trocadero. This time we went to the Champ de Mars station and got the RERC to station Saint Michel Notre Dame. Again once when we came out of the station we could pretty much see Notre Dame from where we were standing. It was a very short walk across a bridge to the cathedral.