Paris: The LOUD city of LOVE and LIGHTS

After our first nights sleep in Paris, we were somewhat revitalized and ready to see some beautiful sights. I was personally very thankful for the amazing metro system there and not having to walk EVERYWHERE we want to go.

Our morning started off with a search for a grocery store. We have found that shopping in the morning for a full days food works the best...we just carry it around with us and pop a squat whenever our tummy's tell us it is time to eat. So we did end of finding a rather small grocery store, but it had enough selection to get us food for the day. I used the few french skills i have left to ask the man working at the reception where it was located, so we spent little time trying to find it.

We got on the metro which carried us to downtown Paris. Notre Dame was first on our list of stops because, according to Rick Steves, there was a free tour of the cathedral scheduled at noon in english...and since free is the primary word in our vocabulary lately, we acted on the chance for FREE and headed to the cathedral.

The cathedral is located on the Ile de France, which is a small "island" located in the middle of the Seine River in downtown Paris. So we got off the metro, were met face to face with cold wind and street vendors, and started our walk to the church. It was surprisingly very crowded for the time we went, but we pushed our way through the crowds and looked around inside for awhile until just before noon. We found out that Mr. Steves was right about the free tour and as we pushed our way through the crowd, an adorable old man named Irving fully clad in sweater vest and high-water pants introduced himself as our tourguide. Remind yourself that we were in the middle of a crowded plaza right outside the cathedral. Also keep in mind that Irving did not have a microphone. Adding these two together, you get the perfect equation for hearing virtually nothing of the FREE tour Mr. Steves told us about. I did learn, however, that there really wasn't a hunchback of Notre Dame, AND that in the Disney movie the way the cathedral is portrayed is true to life with the bright colors and extravaggant decorations. I also learned that Irving was a history teacher in Paris and now just volunteers at the Cathedral to provide people with a more "educational" experience there. Oh, how cute!!

Irvings tour wasn't over, but since the noise and his quiet voice was too difficult on our ears, we decided it would be a more beneficial use of our time to leave and find another tourist sight to see. We headed over the Sainte Chapelle, a smaller cathedral with beautiful stained glass windowns located very near to Notre Dame. It wasn't too crowded there and we were able to get very very very close to the stained glass. All i have to say is that I feel very fortunate I was not a stained-glass craftsman from that time...they are soo intricate!! We spent quite a bit of time inside just relaxing and enjoying the light that was streaming in the large colored windows. We decided that our next destination was to be the Arc de Triumphe...that, however, changed with one discovery.

When Mary and I discovered that there was a Starbucks in Paris, we decided that it was going to be the destination of choice. The Arc would be there all hours of the day, but Starbucks could only be had right away. The problem was that first of all, Parisians don't really know what Starbucks is, and secondly that my french is not so great. So after asking about 10 places and finally giving up just to find a tourist information station that send us entirely back across town (approx. a 45 min. walk), back to near Notre Dame, we found it!! Starbucks in PARIS!! I enjoyed every sip of my Chai latte that took about 2.5 hours to find in Paris...

Rather than heading to the Arc, we also decided that since we were enjoying a bit of home, we needed to make an attempt to contact home. Another problem surfaced: we didn't know where ANY internet cafes were in Paris, and the only way we could ask was to find another tourist information station, which just happen to be way across town again (a distanct I was NOT willing to walk). So, Mary and I entered approximately every business and hotel in a 5 or 6 block radius, running into ONLY nice people along the way. Such nice people, in fact, that when we got close enough, one lady left work just to personally walk us there!!! I don't know why people think that the french are so rude, because we had only good luck with them!!

I was so impressed with the boys' patience that were with us. I have analyzed our situation that day and found that Mary and I were really like the mouse in the book "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie". YOu see, we were perfectly content..until we found out there was Starbucks..and evertyhing went downhill from there. First Starbucks, then internet, then phone, then...and on and on and on.

To make a long day much shorter, we eventually made it to the Arc. We climbed all 280 stairs to the top and took pictures and just relaxed and rested on the top for about 1.5 hours. We sure got our money's worth for the admission fee. It was nice to just sit down, though, after walking for soo long.

After the arc was the Champs Elysees, the famous and very busy street in Paris that is full of cars and stores--none of which were visited by us :) We walked down the street and found a small cafe where Mary and i bought bread for our dinner while Peter and the other boys found their own food and McDonalds and the like. We met back in the cafe and planned our walk along the Seine River and to the Eiffel Tower after it got dark.

Again walking, we walked a little more slowly than before the Eiffel Tower and go there just as the sky was darkening. It was very very cool at night because they recently installed a whole bunch of lights so the entire thing is lit up and actually has what resemble randomly blinking Christmas lights all over it that light up for 10 minutes each hour. I sad at the bottom and wrote postcards as the rest of the gang went up to the second floor.

While I was sitting, a strange man in a pink shirt came and talked to me for quite some time. I think he finally got the hint that I was waiting for my date with Fabio and left...no just kidding. I was a little scary though, being in such a busy place with all my friends hundreds of feet above me. God protected me though!!

The remainder of the night was spent walking around the tower and back to the metro station where we caught the metro (what else would we catch!?!?!) and headed back to our hotel to go to bed!!