Oh Paris, je t'adore!

OH PARIS!

(meant to be said in a french accent)

Paris was my favorite stop. There was just something about the personality of the city that I loved. Unlike London, which I hadn't experienced at the time, Paris is a much slower paced city, because the business center of the city is miles removed from the heart of it. Christy and I spent three full days here and we stayed in a small hotel instead of a hostel this time. We had some difficulty getting to the hotel the first time, because the directions we got online were from the train station on the other side of the city. At first we were a little discouraged, because when we approached (and when I say we here, I mean Christy) people asking for directions people just kept walking past us. We think they saw our backpacks and thought we were going to ask for money - go figure. Finally some British business men told us our mistake and let us know how to use the metro to get to where we needed to be.
This leads me to the first thing I LOVED about Paris: the Metro! It was easy to use, reasonably priced, went everywhere, ran frequently, not to mention they were highly entertaining. By the end of the three days we had that system nailed down. Now, I said they were highly entertaining and people might find that odd, but there were only a few times that I rode on the Metro that I wasn't entertained by street performers who would hop in the car trying to make a couple of Euro. Some of my favs were: the karaoke man, the tuba/boombox couple, and best of all was a man who set up a screen and lipsynched with a puppet!

Other than the Metro other highlights were:

Montmartre

Notre Dame

Le Louvre

Walking Le Champs d'Elysses to l'Arc de Triumph
French Crepes
Seeing Le Tour de France
Spending an afternoon in this fantastic little park.

But above all of these my heart and most of my time was spent at le Tour Eiffel.

I had this romantic notion about the Eiffel Tower before I went and so I thought for sure that it would disappoint me, but it didn't! Not only is it a beautiful landmark, but there is a lawn that extends from it's base that Parisians hang out at. When I was there people were throwing around a frisbee, having family picnics, reading books, or just lounging with friends. And no most of them were not tourists. All the tourists were underneath the Tower trying to get a ride up it. Then on the other side is a bridge that takes you to a very large gorgeous fountain with green on either side of it, where again people were lounging. Even though I have a fantastic view of the mountains here there are times when it's sunny and warm out that I wish I could go sit at the Eiffel Tower lawn and read a book.

I have many more pictures from Paris that I want to post, but this will have to be a separate one as this is far too long already...




grace and peace.