Paris day 1+2

Meet Team Paris: left to right; Beverly, Carrie, Toni (Red), Karen, Ron. This photo was taken at Dulles airport just before we boarded the plane.

10+ hrs later and very tired. Two kids sat behind Beverly and I and so we got little to no sleep. We take our first Metro train ride to Champs de Mar/ Eiffel Tower. Now once you come up from the subway you can see the tower and in fact we followed the crowd to get there (which was maybe 1/2 a block). This is one of the first images I caught through the trees of the park that surrounds the tower.

The lines to go up were hellasiosly (sp?) long and I so was not interested in going up if it meant I had to wait 2+hours. So we walked around the park and I got some other shots (you'll have to see my picture album). We had baguette sandwiches for lunch that were hard as rocks that most of us gave to the gypsy ladies when they came begging. This is the shot I took of us at lunch and can you see who is behind us? Yep walking around are military men and they carry automatic weapons. cozy huh?

This was taken just before the gypsy women came up and asked if we spoke english. Guess what dummy here said? Then they show you this card saying how poor they are and can you give them money. Since I had no money I told them no and then they made miming motions and pointed to our lunch that we were in the process of eating. That just made me mad. These people did NOT look down on their luck at all. They were clean, their clothes were clean etc. But since our sandwhiches were so hard most of the team gave them their unfinished lunch. When the gypsy's started asking for our drinks also I was not a happy camper.

Now you might think I'm not being very christian. To a degree you are right. But you kind of had to be their and watch them in action.

So after this we had back to our hotel to get cleaned up and to rest a little. Do you wanna see our hotel room? I don't think the porportions are exaggerated at all. I could barely get a leg between our beds and I had to walk sideways to get to our luggage. The beds were smaller than a twin and the first night my leg kept falling off the side of the bed. Not a good nights sleep.

Ron being the only guy got a room to himself. His room was a double on the bottom and a twin bunk bed on top. His room had lots of space to move around. SOOO we talked him into moving into our room so that we could have his. guess what? his AC broke so they moved him into another room like the one he had. so as we made the switch from this to Rons new bunk bed room we discovered that this room was also a little small. Ron's broken ac room was a fluke in size but we did have slightly more room with the bunk on top (which Karen slept in). So Ron got our mini twin bed room (this one pictured) and we got a room that I forgot to photograph.

Next stop Notre Dame- People were so nice, they sometimes would ask if you would like them to take your picture of course you take them up on it! It was a hazy day about 10-11am. Mass was going on inside and you could walk through while they had it. Every nook and cranny is awe inspiring. Just so much detail. You could even pay to walk on the top between the towers. I believe it was 422 steps to the top. We went in a prayed and I snapped some more shots inside we headed over to the left of the picture to eat lunch and our first round of souvenior shopping. I wandered to the back of the church and across the street where these guys were playing. Kinda French Jazz. Just FYI -Notre Dame sits on an island in the Seine river. As you can tell these guys were on one of the bridges. Shortly after this shot the bridge filled with people to sit and enjoy them playing.

Next Stop: Sacre Couer- The tram was broken so we had to climb all the steps to get to the top and YES I did it!

Sacre Couer is on the highest peak in Paris and you can pretty much see the whole town from up there. Not as awe inspiring as Notre Dame it still is intriguing to look at. I couldn't take pictures inside but I got a postcard that shows the tile work that is cool. It depicts Jesus with his arms stretched out. Very cool.

I have tons of detail shots I could show but you'll have to see my photo album. I can't wait to scrap this stuff.

So stop by soon and see day 3+4.

Hugs Carrie