Bonjour!

Our Trip to Paris

We Arrived Friday night last week pretty late.  We stayed at a 4 star hotel I booked through price line and it was AWESOME!  We were on the 23rd floor with a view of the Eiffel tower and the arc de triumph.  The room was very nice as well.


This is the View from our room


Here is Anna ready to start our trip!




  On Saturday, we spent some time relaxing walked around the mall that was connected to our hotel (the metro was also connected to our hotel as well!)  We grabbed some breakfast and headed into town.  We went to Notre Dam and the Sacre Cœur  I loved the Sacre Cœur one the most.  It was beautiful.  Anna walked at least 3/4 of the way up herself (with a little help for balance).


Notre Dam





The stairs



Anna walking to the top!



On Sunday we went to church and then headed to the grounds outside of the Louvre to see the tour.  We had to wait quite a while but Anna made everyone's wait very enjoyable.  She had a ton of admirers and was acting rather adorable, (like usual) because of it.  The riders came into town and passed so quickly!  Then we walked to down to another part of the course and got to see them pass about 5 more times (if you don't know they ride around the Louvre and the arc de triumph 9 times, so it’s a nice place to see everything because they keep passing buy.  Lance Armstrong came in 3rd and his team captain Contador came in 1st.  A Brit won the stage for the day, so people here are pretty happy about that.  After the Tour we walked around for a bit and then headed back to the hotel. 

On the way to church

A little picnic after church

Waiting for the tour

The Tour

End the long day with the BEST bath EVER!

On Monday we went shopping at a French version of walmart and bought loads of supplies. We were out shopping for a long time and I had the feeling that we should go to the Louvre before shopping, but we stuck with our original plan. 
Ready to go shopping! Show me the toys!

The Grand Arch near the shopping center

Lunch after shopping

We didn't get back to the hotel until about 4:00 and then decided to just wait on the Louvre  At about 4:40 I remembered that the Louvre was closed on Tuesdays!  So we got ready again and rushed down town to get to the Louvre at 5:30 in time to rush to the Mona Lisa and appreciate the art as we ran by.  We didn't get to see much.

ANOTHER TRAIN RIDE! Our dash to the Louvre

The Mona Lisa

We tried to get over to the Egyptian exhibit they let me in then, closed it on Drew, so I turned around and did the noble thing and stayed with my family. 

Our picture outside the Egyptiain Exhibit, a blur just like the whole ordeal!
But, hey, we are going to see the real thing in January so, no big deal, we will make sure to get better pictures then!

Anna fell asleep the second we got to the museum and woke up in the gift shop on our way out. 
Anna still sleeping!

When we left the Louvre is when we went to get hot chocolate at Angelina's. Which is world famous (apparently) the best Hot Chocolate I've ever had. They make it from Cocao from all over the world. 6 euro a cup, but totally worth it! 


Then we rode on the ferris wheel over looking the Louvre it was pretty neat. Much more relaxing than rushing to the Louvre.



  We walked around for a bit and then Drew asked what I thought about heading walking to the arc de triumph.  My feet were completely sore, so of course I said yes. 

We stopped for a crepe along the way, it turned out to be more of Anna's crepe, but we each got 2 bites. It was an applesauce filled and delicious!



It is quite a hike!  But we made it down there and went to the top, I felt very triumphant. 


Dancing on the way into the Arc

arch-fall


arch-nofall



On top of the Arc


arch-top

I ended up falling and hurting my ankle at coming out of the toilet at the top the the arch, so I was kind of limping the whole way back to the hotel.  I knew it wasn't a bad injury and the next morning it felt fine again (I was so lucky!). 

Our last day there we went to the Eiffel Tower. 
Its not as big as you might think (J/K)

Wow that takes forever!  Anna was not happy by the time we finally went up, but she did settle down for the view which she enjoyed. 
The family at the top!

Of course the first thing she tried to do was to hang her feed through the bars.  The bars are just far enough apart that she could slip through them if she did it just right so she was not happy when I wouldn't let her do that.  After the tower we headed on a cruise down the seine. 


But Anna had a lot of fun running through the chairs, we stayed on the inside of the boat because is was a bit too sunny and hot above deck for us, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves (except for a little spanish boy that Anna loved playing with!)


We were pretty wasted and hungry by this point, but I didn't want to get food near the Eiffel tower figuring it would be very expensive.  Our last stop of the day the the Jardin de Luxembourg.  So we got on a train and headed down there.  Apparent we got on the wrong train, so at the next stop we switched.  The train we got on the second time turned out to be an express train that also didn't stop at our stop but instead took us a half hour outside of Paris!  Then we got off the find the correct train, the platform said the train we were on was the correct train, he asked a man who had stayed on it.  The man showed him his badge (he worked for the trains) we asked him if it went to the our stop and he made a phone call and said yes it does.  Then people outside of the train convinced us he was wrong and that we were on the wrong platform etc.  So, we ended up getting off the train, then a lady ran up to us and said no, it is the right train, so we got back on it again!  We should have just trusted the man, because it took us right to our stop.  We found the first place that was opened and sat down for our big meal!  It was delicious! 


Then we walked around the gardens which were beautiful. 


We watched some people play some kind of game where you throw balls at another ball.  It was interesting.  I wanted to buy a few pictures of the Sacre Coeur so we ran down to Notre Dam because there were a lot of gift shops there.  They all had pictures of tons of other places but none of that one!  On the way there, we saw this shop and thought you might enjoy it,
Middle of Paris, who knew how popular the Redskins were!

I was pretty disappointed that we couldn't find the picture.  It was 8:30 by this point and many of the shops were closing.  So, Drew said that we could go back to the Sacre Coeur and see if the shops there were opened.  We rushed over there and much to my delight they were!  We were able to get the pictures and a shirt for me and one for Boca (Anna).  We also got to see them close the church for the night.  We had made it that close!  Then we walked down to the metro which was really crowded because they had just closed the church grounds.  We got some delicious ice cream and waited for a few trains to pass.  I was SOOOO happy that we were able to do everything we wanted to do on our trip! 


Anna decided to relax and catch up on a bit of reading after our adventures.


We took a cab to the Eurostar the next morning, which proved to be a much better way to travel than the airplane at least for Anna.  Much less of a hassle and much more to look at.  It is a really nice train.  Anna did great on the trip.  She lost it when we got on the train from Leeds to Harrogate.  Which is when we broke out the big guns and gave her  a lolly pop.  I had one two.  She lost it again when she decided she wanted to have two, we wouldn't let her, we are only so nice.  Your mom picked us and the train station.  And that was that!  We got Anna a cute little French hat and scarf so she is pretty stylin.  you would be proud.