July 15

I was actually thinking about trying to write the first paragraph or so in French, but that would have been far too taxing, but rest assured we did try to speak French while in France. No doubt you'll notice this as we go along in many, many embarrassing stories where the ever-so-polite French point out my inexperience with the language.

We got up around 3:30am to sprint into London to drop the car, Tube to the Eurostar station, and slip out of the UK via the Chunnel. We'd had barely three hours of sleep and now we were flying down the left side of the road (most of the time). Surprisingly, traffic wasn't really heavy at 4am. Go figure.

With the advent of the European Union it appears the tradition of border formalities had gone away. Sure, it was nice to not really need to be queried endlessly, but come on, don't we get a stamp in our passport? What's to prove we were really here? The only challenge we faced was an oompah band playing Disney favorites for the kids heading to EuroDisney or Disneyland Paris or whatever it's called.

The train ride was largely boring and uneventful. It took about three hours to get to Paris. My only excitement came when we entered a tunnel and I got a tad, um, claustrophobic. I'm under the English Channel. Anything could happen down here. I'm trapped! Help! Oh, wait, it was just a little tunnel. Don't I feel stupid. After that bout of terror I forgot to be afraid when we went into the real Chunnel so before I knew it we were cruising into the French countryside.

At the French station in Paris we found a cash machine and loaded up with French francs. We found the Metro stop, bought tickets, and found our way to the hotel. The tiny room at the top of three flights of stairs was depressing, but this was Paris, right? Who needs a great hotel room?

We left the hotel and headed to the Hotel de Ville where we sampled the quintessence of French cuisine: McDonalds. Aw, don't say that. We'd been up since 3:30am and it seemed so easy. No, there was no horse meat, it was just as you'd find it here, except the cashiers spoke better English.

And what first day in Paris would be complete without a trip up the Eiffel Tower? Not ours. Elevators? They're for people with time to burn in lines and legs that don't do stairs. If we'd tried to go back up after going up and down the stairs we'd have had to take the elevators because our legs were on fire by the time we got to the second level where we chilled until the sun had set.

We wandered around a bit and headed back to the Metro to get to the hotel. We took a wrong turn and exited. The gate didn't appear to close so Amy tried to go back in when WHAM it snapped shut in her face. We bought a couple new tickets and re-entered the system. Of course, that was nothing compared to the poor guy who's backpack was stuck in the gate. He only got out when someone else took pity on him and fed their ticket into the gate to open it up. The French mean business.

And that was the end of the day. Sounds like a mellow short day, right? Thank goodness. We needed it.

They were good boys and interested in history. It's a pity to have lost them.

I wrote that in our journal while I was asleep. Yeah, really. I was writing away and looked down to see these two lines with no memory of writing them. Spooky, huh? I told you I needed a short day.

July 17

We slept until 10:30 before tumbling onto the street. We found a baguette and headed to Notre Dame. The lines were insane so we passed in favor of the Louvre. Just getting into the lobby to buy the pass was impressive. The ticket stands are directly under the huge glass pyramid in the middle of the Louvre. We took a chance on old Rick and bought the three-day museum pass. Our plans would barely cover the cost of the pass, but he said it had other benefits. We'll see.

Since I had been to the Louvre before (yeah, I sound like a worldly traveler, but it was just the once fully ten years before) I let Amy drive us around. We pretty much followed a guide book designed to get us to all the highlights without being bogged down with some of the lesser-known works. In a perfect world we'd have months to spend seeing all the pieces in the huge, sprawling museum, but since we had barely an afternoon we needed to be on the move.

What'd we see? Oodles. I thought about putting up all the pictures we took of this and that here, but instead I'll just say "get thee to the Louvre!" I'm sure they took far better pictures than we did. Of course, we tried to be the art. That's got to be worth something, right?

More McDonalds for lunch? Cha! This is France, after all, so we had a baguette-based sandwich suitably stale since it's the other half of dinner from atop the Eiffel Tower. (Don't worry, the cuisine does get better, it just takes a while.)

From the Louvre we headed back to Notre Dame where the lines were just as long, but I didn't get to climb into the towers on my last visit so I convinced Amy it was worth it to stick around in line. She waited in the queue while I sat on a relatively comfortable pillar and wrote in the journal:

The towers' gargoyles loom above waiting for their moment to unleash a horrid punishment on evil spirits throughout the church square. It'd be nice if they got some of these other tourists out of the way, too.

It's a good thing I don't think like this at home, huh?

Our museum pass from the Louvre got us in free and it was time to climb the winding stairs. Ugh. The view from the top was, of course, spectacular. It was especially wonderful since very few buildings are taller than a few stories. (I seem to recall that there was a rule about the height of buildings, but I probably made that up in my sleep.)

While at the top watching gargoyles ripping into the flesh of evil spirits we ran into a group of girls just finishing their European tour in Paris. They confirmed that it would be extremely hot as we moved south, but they also told us scary stories about trains including one about people who would spray ether into a compartment and then steal everything.

After the stairs of Notre Dame we opted for further punishment and headed to L'Arc de Triumph and its stairs. Ouch. The Arc offered yet another view of Paris. It was only slightly different from that of Notre Dame, but it was still well worth the climb. Around the base was the infamous and insane traffic circle with a million cars, no lanes, and lots of honking. Amazingly, we saw no accidents.

We grabbed more of the same sort of sandwiches we'd purchased at the Eiffel Tower (no, we didn't climb up there again) and walked from the Arc to the Louvre down the Champs Elysees. Much of the walk was spent (by me, at least) looking for a Starbucks. None were found.

At the Louvre we jumped on the Metro and later that night we booked passage down the Seine on a cheesy tourist boat after dark. It was relaxing and a great way to see the city from a different angle, but the guide was very difficult to understand and it was perhaps a tad expensive. Oh well. Time for bed.

July 16

So, did you notice I skipped the 16th above? I did the same thing in my journal. When you get right down to it, the order matters little now and mattered little then. By this time in the trip we had lost track of the days and were well on our way to forgetting about the fact that we have to work to afford these kinds of adventures.

Regardless of what day it was, we got up late. Getting up late came in handy quite a bit. It wasn't because we were out partying all night, but rather because after walking about all day we were just too tired to get up to do it all over again.

We started the day at the Musee d'Orsay which is the museum for all the Impressionists of the late 18th century. The museum was full of people like Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and the earless wonder Van Gogh. There were two things that really stood out.

1. As we marched toward the entrance there was a massive line. Rick was wrong about beating the line at Notre Dame, but we were able to walk right to the entrance and straight in. We saved two hours in line thanks to these crazy guide books.

2. Nearly every one of these artists were really Renaissance men. By that I mean they could do it all. They sculpted and painted and wrote poetry. Then there's me. I can hardly walk and chew gum at the same time which is why I don't chew a lot of gum.

When Monet was painting the cathedral at Rouen it's said he was just using the facade as a frame for his colors. Later artists would throw away the frame and work only with the colors. I can't say I really understand abstract art, but at least now I can see how the artists got there.

We did the quick guide book tour of the Orsay and then headed off to the Rodin museum about a mile away. I don't know why I say it's only a mile away. I don't know. I'm just making most of this up.

Rodin's museum is set up in a modest mansion with spacious grounds and views of both Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. Much of his work is inside, but many of his larger pieces are in the garden left to brave the elements. We saw the Thinker and the Gates of Hell, but it was his smaller pieces inside that really moved us.

There were several pieces in white marble of a man and woman together. When I was last here I remember being more interested in Rodin's more famous and larger works like the Thinker. Of course, then I was young, immature, and without wisdom. I would certainly not say I've gained wisdom or matured at all, so it must be an additional ten years that has changed my perspective. Or it's Amy. Who knows?

While touring around the Rodin museum it poured buckets of rain on us. We tried to wait it out a bit in an outdoor cafe sort of under some trees, but eventually we just wandered about being saved by Gortex and related fabrics. Perhaps the best part of the day was the half hour we were able to sit quietly while the rain pattered on the benches around us.

It's really those quiet moments that are the best part of this trip. Like Monet used the cathedral at Rouen to hang his colors Amy and I are finding our special time together away from the world in the framework of this trip. No matter how much this trip eventually costs or what else happens it will have been well worth it.

Sadly, we finished the day in a movie theatre watching Pearl Harbor. We were chased around by ushers yelling at us in French, but it was a good experience. It was in English, not dubbed, so the only problem was during the Japanese scenes where the subtitles had been redone in French. Imagine me trying to translate those for Amy. Needless to say, she had no idea what the Japanese were saying and I had only a slightly better idea.

Next up (at least for the this new fangled chronology) is Versailles and Normandy. Can't wait? click here.