Paris Report

Wednesday/Thursday
After a short (albeit frustrating) week, I couldn't wait to leave and get down to the airport. We had allowed plenty of time to get to the airport, but going 20 mph down the highway wasn't making either of us really excited. We were happy when the speeds picked up, and we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The parking lots at the airport were pretty full for the holidays, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that the check in and security lines were very short.

My first trans-Atlantic flight went pretty well. It was a big 777 plane and every seat had their own TV to keep us occupied. The food they served was actually quite edible, and it even came with a little bottle of wine. The wine (preceded by a Jack & Coke) were enough to make me sleepy so I could get sleep that I was told would be necessary so I could stay up when I got to Paris. The only real problem was the screaming kid that I don't think shut up the whole time. I’m glad I brought earplugs.

Christine demonstrates proper usage of a travel pillow

Before I knew it, they were serving us breakfast and preparing to land in London. We only had about an hour at the London airport, so we just breezed through to our connecting flight. The flight to Paris was less than an hour, and I managed sleep the whole time. The arrival in Paris was a little of a culture shock since I don't speak the language, but having Christine there to translate was a huge bonus.

I got my first glimpse of Paris traffic on our bus ride to Montparnasse, and it's crazy. I was most shocked by the motorcycles and scooters weaving through traffic. I don't know if it's legal, but they were always splitting lanes (riding between two lanes of cars). I guess it's somewhat okay on the highway, but it looked super dangerous in the city. It's kind of like Boston, in that there are streets going everywhere and people generally don't know exactly where they're going. So you have cars making last minute decisions to turn, which is horrible when you're on a bike trying to pass them.

Christine enjoys some Freedom Fries	Christine says hello to Paris

After we settled into the hotel, we headed out so we wouldn't be tempted to sleep. The first order of business was a river cruise down the Seine. It was a little rainy, but the boat was covered and we could still see things pretty well. We wandered around the Eiffel Tower area a little bit before heading back to the warmth of the hotel, stopping for a bite to eat at the local brasserie. That was an interesting experiencing in translating menu items. I ended up with a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette and a glass of Nouveau Beaujolais.

Friday
Our first order of business Friday morning was a trip to the Eiffel Tower. We lucked out with the weather, because the skies cleared up and we had a pretty awesome view of the city. It's interesting how the architecture is different. A lot of the buildings sort of form polygons with courtyards in the middle. It made everything look like the overhead shots of the Pentagon. From the tower, we walked over to the Hotel des Invalides, stopping on the way for a ham and cheese crepe. Yummy.

View from tower	Eiffel Tower
Eiffel Tower	Ryan eating a crepe

Invalides is where Napoleon is buried and it's also a really cool military museum. They have an amazing collection of weaponry and clothing that dates back several hundred years. The United States is a relatively new country, so I've never really seen so much stuff that is so old (except for art at a museum). I mean, there we were looking at military artifacts in a mansion where Napoleon used to live.

On the recommendation from one of my French coworkers, we then went to the Musee des Arts et Metiers. I wish we had some more time there, because it was really cool and we had to skip some stuff at the end. I really like seeing the early mechanical calculators that Pascal invented. Some other cool things were: an experimental setup that was used to measure the speed of light, automatic looms that read punch cards to weave patterns, a Cray supercomputer, and displays showing how the Statue of Liberty was built. Very cool museum.

Army Museum	Old computers at Arts et Metiers

Saturday
I had made a reservation at a super stylin’ hotel for Saturday night (The Hotel du Louvre), so we checked out of the Libertel and dropped our luggage with the concierge our new hotel. We intended to go climb up the Arch de Triumph, but it was closed due to weather. It was actually snowing in Paris (a rarity especially in November), so the top of the arch was slippery. The sign posted at the monument actually said it would be open "later". Nice and specific. We killed a litte time before our room was ready by doing some trinket shopping on the Rue de Rivoli. We had some friends that requested cheezy Paris trinkets, like miniature Eiffel Towers, and we were happy to oblige.

Our Louvre room	A view into The Louvre

We stopped back at the hotel and our room was ready. Such a nice room with a big king sized bed and a balcony looking at the Louvre. We could actually look out our window and into the balcony. It was hard, but we forced ourselves to leave and walked across the street to the Louvre. Neither of us are big art museum fans, but we felt like we needed to make the obligatory trip to the Louvre. The main order of business was to see the Mona Lisa, so that’s where we headed first. After that, we went to Venus de Milo and glanced at everything else in-between.

The Louvre pyramid entrance	Winged Victory
Venus de Milo

By then it was time to get reader for dinner and a special trip to the Eiffel Tower afterwards. We were dismissed from our first restaurant choice because we didn’t have a reservation (even though the place was practically empty). With so many restaurants around, it was no big deal to wander around for a bit and find place on a side street. There were some French people eating there, so I guess that’s a good sign.

Christine's tasty dinner

After our dinner we took the Metro over to the Eiffel Tower for a nighttime trip to the top. Brrr, it was cold up top. We walked around the observation deck and stopped on the southwest side, where I proposed to Christine. I think she’s going to accept, but she’s currently still weighing her options. :)

Self portrait after the proposal

Sunday
Unfortunately, we had to check out of our high class hotel on Sunday morning. We left our bags with the concierge and went over to another of Paris’ famous sights, Notre Dame. It’s amazing that a building of that magnitude could be built in the 1300’s. From there, we took the short walk to the Isle of St. Louis where we enjoyed some hard cider and a chocolate & banana crepe at one of my mom’s favorite creperies (Le Sarrisan et le Froment ). Yum!

Notre Dame	Notre Dame

We then picked up our luggage and transported it to our new hotel near the Arch de Triumph. As usual, when we came up from the Metro we didn’t know which way was which, and we didn’t know of the streets around the circle was the one we were looking for. Christine watched the bags as I walked around the circle looking for street names. I felt pretty silly when I suddenly saw the huge Arch de Triumph, which is the direction we were looking for.

Our room at the Hotel Elysees Ceramic was your pretty standard room, but when you stepped out onto the balcony you could see the Arch de Triumph. We were pretty close to it, so we decided to walk on down and venture up to the top. After climbing the long spiral staircase and visiting the collection of Napoleon artifacts, we climbed out onto the top of the Arc for another great panoramic view of the city. Again, we were lucky and the sun came out for our visit.

Balcony view	View from the Arch
Arch stairs

We had to make is sort of an early night so we could get up early to catch our plane. Our vacation was over. :(