Oh, Paris, how i'll miss you.

This weekend we went to Paris.
In true parisian style, there was a strike. The metro was on strike and so the we drove in the middle of a grid lock for three hours before getting to our hotel, but as we inched around the ring road, the eiffel tower would peak out her head and melt my heart. As soon as we set our bags down we bee-lined for the nearest metro station to find out the best route to the eiffel tower in the midst of the strike chaos. I was able to get directions and so we navigated to the Champs d'Elysee where we had supper before making our final pilgrammage to the eiffel tower. As we were full tilt towards to tower, i felt my foot kick a frozen bouquet of flowers, we found ourselves right on top the tunnel where Princess Diana died, that was cool. Morbid, but kinda neat. The clock struck 10pm and the tower started to twinkle with lights. Every hour since the millenium, the eiffel tower has a little light show. We muscled our way through the first round of "lucky men" selling neon mini towers, then bought our tickets and literally walked right on to the elevator with no wait at all. We rode it to the top and scoped out our route for the next morning. It was breathtaking. We kissed.
The next morning we woke super early and made our way to Notre Dame. We passed the pantheon and little markets. We bought a baguette and sauntered to the church which is on a little island right on the Sien. It was enormous. As was the crowd of tourists visiting. We then walked the streets of paris towards Les Galleries Layfayettes, which are big high end shopping centers. We walked from there to L'arc de triomphe which is the beginning of the Champs D'Elysee. The end of the Champ is the Louvre. We strolled the street, then found a little chinese restaurant for supper (where the waitress conned me into doing her english homework). Then we went to the Louvre where we explored for hours. Jonathan loved winged victory, and i loved the modonna of the rocks. And to everyone who says that the mona lisa is disappointing, you are crazy. It was so cool to see such a global image close up, her kind smile and eyes following you all over the room. i loved her! I promised her I would come and visit agian, and I will.
We took the croweded metro back to the hotel.
The next morning we pretty much repeated the first day, but instead, it was in slow motion. We werent in a rush to cram it all in, we simply walked and took it all in. Near the end of our day we hopped on a boat tour of the Sien which passed all the major attractions, we got off and visited the Louvre once more, this time just exploring the outside grounds. My favorite part was standing under the eiffel tower and watching the water droplettes fall from the top of the tower and take 15 seconds to reach the bottom where they would form perfect spheres, and we woudl catch them and laugh till it hurt. All the while, there was a HUGE line of grumpy tourists who had been waiting for hours to get to the top.
The nest morning we rose to get to the market before before the bus left at 9am for Chateau Versaille, which was so cool! It was Marie Antoinettes palace, and the monarchy spent so much time and money in adorning their palace that its said they were the reason for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. We walked through a procession of brilliantly adorned rooms before arriving in the famous hall of mirrors. It was beautiful. The gardens were vast, and i mean VAST. So beautiful. Marie actually made her own little village where she had people re enact peasant life. So much scandulous and crazy history.
I LOVED PARIS. it was such a romantic city. I loved being able to speak my second language in an authentic setting and just the capturing atmosphere of the city is just undescribable. It was simply amazing. C'etait magnifique! J'adore Paris et tout ces petits tresors.
Tomorrow we are headed to London for an england match in Wembley stadium. I cant believe its here! I will be sure to tell you all about that trip once we are back. We have four nights there.
A bientot!