Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Tour Eiffel

I finally got my photos uploaded and cropped and ready to go, so herewith shall we begin The Great Paris Research Trip highlights.
First, let me say that Paris is as beautiful as they say. But the weather while we were there was cold and rainy and dreary. Probably in the upper 30-degrees Fahrenheit to the mid-40s. Brrr!

But it was still Paris!

And the first thing we did was to meet up with one of our old au pairs, who is from Germany, and who flew in for the day just to visit with us! We did the first thing every tourist should do when in Paris: visit the Eiffel Tower!
I can't figure out why this picture is so grainy, but at least you can see that I really was there. This was the day we arrived. We flew all night and barely slept, arriving in Paris at 11:20 am.
We met our friend at 2:00, and went directly to the Tour Eiffel. Amazingly enough, there was absolutely no line to get tickets or to get into the lift to take us up one...two...three levels.

Here I am with my Music Man at the middle level of the tower, with Paris sprawling below.

It stayed this cloudy and misty pretty much the whole time we were there, except part of one day. But even in this pic, you can see the cream-colored buildings of the city and the Montparnasse Tower jutting up in the distance. (Janet, I know what you're thinking...and stop!)

Our friend is a Hard Rock Cafe afficionado; if there's a Hard Rock in the city, he must visit! So, we ate our very first meal in Paris, dinner that night, at the Hard Rock Cafe! We had nachos and beer and salad and a California wine! Oy! (I can't believe I'm admitting this for All the World to See!)

But it was great fun to meet up with him and his father, and absolutely wonderful of them to make the trip from Germany! They are fantastic people, and it didn't hurt that his father had been to Paris many times, and was there to walk us through our first Metro ride.

Later, after dinner, we went back to the Tour Eiffel at night. You can see me here, bundled in coat and gloves and hat, holding a warm, crepe avec sucre--only to keep my fingers warm, of course.
You can see the bare outline of the beautiful tower in the background behind me.
After that, we went back to the hotel and to bed. We had to get up at 6:00 the next morning for the next day of our adventure, which would be spent, not exploring Paris, but driving 4 hours southeast of the city to a small community called Taize.

1 Comments:

Blogger Esri Rose soliloquized...

Yay, gay Paree! How nice that your au pair and his dad flew in to see you. Child-care providers always seem to be the sweetest people.

And you're as cute as always!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:58:00 AM  

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