On Friday morning, we moved out of our one-night Airbnb and brought our stuff back over to Addie’s place. She had a test that morning, and we were heading to Paris later that afternoon, so we killed time by exploring more of Antibes.

We walked down to the shore for a bit, and Millie and Tate made a little fort with driftwood.

If you’re from the Des Moines area, the following sculpture will probably look familiar to you.

Apparently, the identical sculpture that sits in Des Moines’ Pappajohn sculpture park once sat in Antibes back in 2007. The Mayor of Antibes wanted a piece of artwork for people to enjoy while the Picasso museum was closed for renovations. He asked Plensa to create something. As luck had it, he was already creating Le Nomade for an art fair in Miami, so when it was finished, he sent it on to Antibes. After doing its job in Antibes, Le Nomade made its way to the fair in Miami where it was acquired by art collectors Mary and John Pappajohn, which is how it ended up in the Pappajohn sculpture park. Antibes missed Le Nomade so much that in 2010 they hired Plensa to create another one to be a permanent fixture. It’s a pretty neat little connection that Des Moines shares with Antibes.

When Addie got back from class, we still had some time before our train, so we stopped at a pâtisserie for some fresh macarons.

Of course, they were delicious!

After our sweet treat, we grabbed our luggage (just backpacks!) and hopped on our train to Paris.

We didn’t get our tickets enough in advance to get seats in the middle facing each other, which would’ve been nice. But we could at least see Chad and Millie still (they’re in the picture above on the left behind the lady with the headphones).

Once we made it to Paris, we hopped on the metro to get to our apartment. This was Millie and Tate’s first time on a subway. Chad, Addie, and I had taken one in D.C. during a college visit a few years earlier. We were thankful we only had one backpack each. It’s much easier navigating the subway without a bunch of luggage!

Our apartment was located just down the street from the Arc de Triomphe, so the arc was the first thing we saw when we came up out of the metro onto the Champs-Elysées.

We then walked the block over to our apartment. I totally lucked out when booking this place. I was having a hard time finding something that would work for all 5 of us in a good neighborhood without spending a fortune. Then during my search on Booking.com, one of those “getaway deals” because we had Genius status (which just means you’ve booked with them 5 times over a 2-year span) popped up. It was this amazing looking apartment in a prime location – just one street behind the Champs-Elysées, and a block down the road from the Arc de Triomphe. The deal seemed almost too good to be true, so I almost skipped it. I’m so glad I acted on impulse and decided to nab it while I could! The link is here to see better pictures of it. Unfortunately in the ones we took, we already had our stuff strewn everywhere.

After dropping off our backpacks, we took a 15-minute walk to the Place du Trocadéro to see the Eiffel Tower. Addie’s study-abroad roomie and a friend from high school whom she hadn’t seen in a long time were there the same weekend as we were, so they were planning to meet up with Addie by the Eiffel Tower that night.

At this point, it was past midnight and we were starving, so we made our way to the McDonalds on the Champs Elysées since it stays open until 3am, and it was only about a block from our apartment.

Below is my Croque McDo – a ham and swiss sandwich between 2 slices of English-muffin-like toasted bread. It was very good! I also really liked the fried potato wedges that came with it. This came in a Happy Meal with a frozen fruit pouch, a fountain drink, and a cute hard-cover French kids’ book for only 4 euros! That’s about $4.75. Not bad when you’re trying to do France on a budget with a family of 5!

After filling our bellies, we were ready to head back to our apartment and settle in for the night. We had a big day of exploring Paris ahead of us!