Paris

Hej All,

Ashleigh and I just got back from Paris. We both landed Friday morning about an hour apart and picked the easiest landmark we could for a meeting point: McDonalds. We then headed over to another terminal to meet up with my coworker and his girlfriend who joined us for the long weekend. About 3/4 of the way there, we got stopped by airport officials, police, and army and air force troops. 10 minutes later, we heard an explosion. Turns out, someone had left a bag by accident, and rather than worry about it at all, they just cleared out the area and detonated the bag. It's not uncommon - my mom and sister had a similar experience several years ago when they were in Paris last. Once we finally got through the mess and met our friends, we headed out to the hotel. The girls, having flown in from the States, were quite jet lagged, so we just got a late lunch, relaxed for a little while, and called it an early night.

Saturday morning we headed out to Trocadero plaza to get some good views of the Eiffel Tower. After a few pictures we headed down to the Tower, but found the lines to be a little long for our tastes, so we just wandered around for a little while to kill time before our tour started. We took a 5 hour bike tour that was quite nice. After the tour, we headed over to Notre Dame for a nice visit of the church. Finally, Saturday night we met up with a Parisien coworker and his wife for dinner, which was quite nice.

Sunday morning, we headed out to Versaille. What a magnificent display of opulence! It makes it pretty obvious as to why the French people revolted in the late 1700s. Tax the people 80% and live like that while they are starving? Sounds like a good plan. After Versailles, we headed home, got cleaned up, and went out to catch dinner and the show at the Moulin Rouge. Quite an experience!

Monday, Ashleigh and I got up pretty early and got in line for the Eiffel Tower. It ended up taking us a little over an hour to get to the top, which isn't bad. We then headed over to the Louvre and got to see the "Big 3", the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. We also walked through the Greek and Egyptian exhibits, and finished off our visit with 17th century French, Italian and Spanish art. We then walked from the Louvre through the Tuileries Gardens to Place de la Concorde. From there, we walked up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe before heading home for the day, foot sore and tired, but having had a great time.

Pictures will have to wait - I forgot my camera, so we'll have to wait for Ashleigh to get the pictures loaded onto her computer, then uploaded to the web so that I can grab them.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Jared