Merci Paris.

So it's been 3 days since we first arrived in Paris and we know the streets of 'our' area to almost call it home. We started off to a bumpy start, we spent 20 hours flying from Perth to Amsterdam to then enter Europe in some ridiculously bad weather. Any flights in or out of Charles De Gaul airport in Paris were completely cancelled, so we were stranded. After spending 5 hours sitting around Amsterdam airport, we were advised to forget our luggage (which was in Kuala Lumpa or Amsterdam or hopefully Paris) and get on a train. It was only a 3 hour train ride so we were pretty happy and as we left Holland we slowly started to realise why no one could fly. Even on the ground we couldn't determine the ground from the sky, everything was white, which was something completely breathtaking to me. Once we (finally) reached Paris we made the trip to CDG to find thousands of stranded people and a 4 hour line to attempt to reclaim our luggage.

Today we made the trek back to CDG (about 40 minutes from Opera which is where we are staying) and made a claim for our lost luggage but considering thousands of people are in a similar situation it could take weeks for us to find our luggage again. Luckily we have insurance, so we have been shopping up a storm to replace the clothes we are missing.

Paris is breath taking. It's beautiful and charming and every district in amazingly different in it's own way. We are in the 'red light district' so as you can imagine lots of sex shops and also the infamous Moulin Rouge. We have spent the last 3 days shopping, walking and eating and I am happy to report today was my first experience with escargot (we were impressed). Today it hit 0 degrees and it has been snowing for hours. There is nothing quite as beautiful as snow falling. I am in love with this city. I love it's mystery and wish I had more time to explore. Here are a few photos so far!

Above are the streets of our district, Opera. There are hundreds of little streets lined with cheap stalls, food vendors and cafes. Below are picture from a church we stumbled upon on our first day discovering the streets.

Below are a couple of pictures from our 'early morning' (like 9am but nothing is open before 10am) walk to the train station.

We found this amazing little Cafe just outside of Gran de Nord train station which had the BEST chicken and I was so impressed by the snails.

Finally, we ended the day wandering the streets to a shopping center a thousand miles away. Though it was a disappointment, it was great wandering in the snow, we came across this church along the walk which was beautiful and well worth the cold.