Paris, France (October 2008)

Day 1

Thursday Herr brought Tommy and Ruby to a kennel for our time away until Monday, when we can pick them up. Once he got back from work in Frankfurt, we hurriedly prepared for our departure on the night train. We had a private room that could have held three if necessary, but fortunate for us, it was just the two of us. We both woke up feeling rested, despite only four hours of "sleep", and found ourselves in Paris!

It was nearly 7 a.m. when we started wandering unable to find our hotel. Instead, we walked down to the Louvre and decided to see some of it. We did not see the Mona Lisa (we weren’t interested in fighting crowds), but the Louvre is broken into separate areas stemming from the pyramid in the courtyard area. We saw French sculpture and Napoleon’s apartments, which was just enough to appreciate our experience at the Louvre.

We followed the Champs-Elysees from the Louvre west to L’Arc de Triomphe. On our way we stopped at Fouquets for lunch in the shopping area of la rue, across the street from Louis Vuitton. Fouquets was a wonderful choice for lunch, and well priced (dinner, however, is expensive from what we could see). We decided not to go up the Arch and headed to the southern side of Paris to enjoy some macabre… in the catacombs…

Lots of skeletons in the catacombs, but it wasn’t very scary. I didn’t touch any of them (although I bumped into one or two, eep!), but Herr touched a skull. Creepy! After coming back to the surface, we made our way back to Montparnasse cemetery for a bit above ground macabre. The cemetery was full of dead people houses; it could have been a normal residential area if the houses weren’t so small. Herr felt we had enough of the macabre, so we went back to northern Paris to find our hotel.

Once we did find our hotel (after some harrowing adventures in la metro, grrrrrr), we couldn’t get up again. It was an early night after a lot of sightseeing for us!

We had seen some pretty interesting things though from prostitutes, gypsies, con artists (avoid the girls with gold rings), homeless people, and the scarves. Most Parisians were very nice to us though; I imagine my two years of French back in middle- and high-school helped (I was able to ask and understand more than I thought I could). In fact, we were treated very well!

Day 2

We started at the military school. The military school ironically has a peace monument across the street, as well as the iconic Eiffel Tower. By the time we reached the tower, all the tours and tourists were already arriving. We took the stairs up to the second level and fought our way through the thickening throng of tourists to catch some sites from up high.

I wanted to make it to Notre Dame for noon mass, so we struggled with the metro to get there in time. We caught the end of the mass, which was performed by two priests, then waited in line for the towers tour. After a half an hour, we decided we wanted food instead and headed towards the Opera house. Nearby is the Hard Rock Cafe, which we have visited several locations now. Unfortunately the food wasn’t very good, but the service was awesome.

We tried to look around in the Opera house (famous for the Phantom of the Opera), but it was too late for tours. Since it was so close to departure, we wandered the area around the Opera, also known for its shopping. Au Printemps isn’t far away, but we stuck to window shopping and ended up getting a few shirts. Shopping in Paris is awesome!

Despite the difficulties figuring out the metro and general business, we both really enjoyed Paris. It does smell bad and has a wide range of people, but overall it isn’t bad to visit. I want to go back to shop some more.