Orion made lunch reservations at a two star restaurant. In France the rating goes from zero to three – if you’re listed at all then you’re hot shit and it goes up from there. So hopefully you can imagine how nice and classy a two star is. I do believe it’s the fanciest place I’ve ever been. They had different servers for each task. There was one person taking care of our drinks, one serving the food, one taking the order and a Maitre ‘d.

They started us off with delicious bread and thinly sliced meat, both brought over on carts. The bread cart had several large loaves and she asked which one we’d like. Then they presented an appetizer – a foie gras creme brulee, with a dollop of green apple sorbet and crumbles of pistachios on top – needless to say, it was bursting with many flavors. For my entree, I had pea soup with duck – THE best soup ever and my favorite part of the whole meal. My main course was chicken. It was good, but not that special compared to everything else. Then they pulled around a cheese cart, of which I had two cheeses even though I was getting quite full. For dessert, a tube of Madagascar chocolate with a layer of ganache, then raspberry sorbet, then chocolate creme brulee. (You’ll have to forgive my memory and horrible descriptions, it was a fabulous meal and I’m not doing it justice). And for second dessert they brought around the cookie cart. By the time we left I think I had eaten enough for two days.

Oh yeah, about my chicken… the Maitre ‘d kept coming around checking on us and smiling quite a bit. After the main dish he asked how it was and gave me a frown because I still had a lot on my plate. I told him it was a little difficult to get the meat off (really I was just full and saving room for dessert). So what does he do? Calls over one of the staff and has her cut the rest of the meat off for me! I was shocked and extremely amused (he was very playful about the whole thing). Steve asked if I was embarrassed, I said no, he said he wouldn’t be either because the Maitre ‘d made the whole thing so comfortable and accommodating. Definitely the highlight of the meal.

A couple of notes about people and things in Paris. As I walk around showing off my arm tattoos, I get a lot of stares. This is mostly normal, but I think more frequent here. And I think the reason is that I don’t see many other young folk with half sleeves, or any tattoos for that matter. I’ve only seen a couple of older people with semi-large tats. Another note, Steve and I don’t normally drink soda, but while here we’ve been drinking a lot of Coke. It tastes so much better here because they use sugar instead of corn syrup. And my last note – it seems like every corner has a creperie. Every where we go, crepes. It must be the fast food of France?

After that large meal we headed back to the apartment for some serious digesting. We vegged out and watched two more episodes of Heroes. Later on, around 7-ish, we decided to head out to the Tour Eiffel. We took the Metro over to that side of town and exited at the Arc de Triomphe. When we surfaced from the subway I was astounded at how large it was – so much bigger than I had expected. The arch is on an island surrounded by a very busy traffic circle. We found our way to the stairs that go under traffic and up again to the island. It was a very beautiful, large monument.

Then we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. There are so many things to see in Paris, famous monuments, buildings, artwork, and none of it is quite the same as seeing it in person. So grand and beautiful, I’m so glad I came here to experience it all. And Steve was quite happy to experience it with me. He smiled a lot on our way over and he was very affectionate. When we got there we had to wait in a long line. While standing around he asked me how romantic the is Tower? I said it was at the top of the scale.

When we went up to the second floor he kept talking about how happy he was to experience France and things like the Tower with me. Then we went up to the third floor (the top). The view wasn’t that much better (it was dark now) and it had a metal fence. Steve asked if the second floor was more romantic, I said yes because it didn’t have the fencing, so we went back down. As we were standing there snuggling he said, “I’d like to do this for the rest of my life. Want to get married?” I said yes *huge smile*. “Want to leave here with an extra ring?” I said yes *huge smile*. He gave me the beautiful ring, we embraced, I cried, and he said I’m the first women to say I love you and really meant it.

With huge smiles on our faces, we had Orion and Rebecca take some pictures of us. Then we headed back to the apartment to celebrate our special day with the only cheap wine we could find. 😀