As most of you know, we originally planned to spend October, 2012 with friends in Spain. When it turned out that they wouldn't be able to go, I researched a month in the UK vs. one in France. Normally, Trout would just have me make the decision, but I always try to get input from him. Either trip was going to cost about the same amount of money. Almost without batting an eye, he said, "I'd rather eat than communicate." Translation? France was his choice.
He was already planning to start the racing season somewhat early this year by getting to the PNW in time to do the 1st race in Portland the weekend of May 5th. But when we looked at the schedule, there was a big 6-week hole from about May 29th to July 12th. That meant we could work in a month-long trip to France in June.
I got busy with the planning and had most of the arrangements made by the end of February. They included flying standby courtesy of Lee's job on a non-stop from Seattle to Paris on June 1st (arriving June 2nd). With one little hiccup of getting stuck in Salt Lake overnight, that happened with minimal difficulty. We were the only standbys for that flight, and although we couldn't ride in business class, we did get seats in economy comfort. We had the exit row and it was freezing even though it never really got dark the whole trip. We didn't care. Any seat would have been fine.
Arrival in Paris:
We left Seattle at 1:15 in the afternoon and arrived in Paris about 8:30 in the morning. I had rented an apartment for 8 nights and I was supposed to call the owner, Elad, or his child minder, Hersie, from the airport to tell them that we were on the way. Well, our phones wouldn't work. For the 3rd trip to Europe, Verizon had screwed something up.
We went ahead and took the bus and then a taxi to the place. I had the door security code and let us in. I could find no apartment marked with the owner's name. Fortunately, a guy with a custom dress shop in the same courtyard called Elad and Hersie for us. She responded back almost immediately but at first couldn't understand why we hadn't called from the airport. She lived close by and we just waited until she got there.
Fortunately, we had access to free calls to the US from the apartment, so I called Verizon and got things straightened out that same day. As is typical, Trout hit the sack for a nap and I went to the store to get the basics. We were in the Marais district just one block off a main street with lots of restaurants, bakeries, cheese shops and 2 French-style supermarkets.
After I got home and put things away, I went down for a nap, too. I set the alarm so that we would get up in time to go out for dinner. We went to a middle-eastern restaurant about 2 blocks away and had a great meal.
1st Real Day:
I don't count any of that as our first real day in Paris. We really got going on Sunday, June 3rd. It was going to be our only Sunday there and I wanted to go to mass at St. Sulpice. Why? Not because I'm Catholic. Not because it's prominent in the Da Vinci Code stories. But because of the organ. It's supposedly one of the biggest pipe organs in Europe. Every Sunday it is played before and during mass. There is also a 30-minute organ concert between the earlier mass and the noon one. So that's why we went. It was the same reason for lots of other tourists, too.
This is a picture from where we sat facing the altar.
This is the organ.
This is the church from the outside. They were setting up a big market in front.
Here you can see the edge of a market tent in the lower right hand side of the picture as well as the environment around the church. This is not an area of vast open streets. It's just a little neighborhood.
With dress shops and restaurants. In fact, we ate at a great Italian place within a block of the church.
We had taken the Metro to St. Sulpice and we took it back home to our apartment after lunch. We took another nap, got up, got dressed again in our Sunday clothes and headed for the Metro to go to the boat for our Seine River dinner cruise.
Our Metro stop was right across the street from a magnificent park with incredible buildings and a drop dead view of the Eiffel Tower. We walked through the gap in the buildings and were truly amazed ... but I was taken by the folks Tango dancing.
Oh, yeah. There's the Eiffel Tower.
There was some kind of renovation going on in the garden and they seemed to be setting up for a concert as well.
It was cold and damp and I was glad I was wearing my raincoat.
We walked across the bridge over the Seine and down the steps to our boat, the Diamant. The rest of these pictures were taken from my seat inside it as we were going on the cruise. One of the bad things about doing this in the summer is that it gets dark so late. One of the great things about the cruise is seeing the buildings lit up, but that doesn't happen until the end in the summer.
This is the bridge that Adele is walking over in the video.
This is the National Assembly.
This is an apartment building that Trout loved.
He thought this place might be interesting to live in.
I didn't get pictures of every building, but this is the Institure of France. You can see it's starting to get darker.
This is a new building. I couldn't get enough perspective on it to show it, but the green is in the shape of a crocodile.
I don't know how it can work, but this is the swimming pool for an atheletic center right on the Seine.
This is the National Library of France. The buildings are meant to represent open books.
I don't know what this is, but I liked the building.
If you are worried about graffiti here, it is everywhere in Europe. Watch for a later posting where I will have pictures of some from the 1100s and the 1700s carved into stone. That purple arc is the reflection of a lamp inside the boat.
Getting darker...
It was finally dark by the time we got back to the dock. You can see that it was also raining.
This picture barely shows the light that swivels around on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
As we were disembarking, the Tower did its sparkly thing and I was so mesmerized that I didn't take any pictures.
We did buy this picture taken by the ship's photographer.
This was a splurge for us, but it was well worth it. There was a table of Japanese women close to us and they were having a very good time. Unfortunately, one of them got a little too tipsy and fell flat on both her knees up next to the bandstand. I can only imagine the pain.
There were 2 proposals on the boat that night. The answer was "oui" to both of them. There was also a birthday celebrated. The young couple next to us were from some central European country. They were having a great time. She spoke English very well. He spoke it as well, and after the proposals, he finally got up the nerve to tell us that he would propose to her, but they were already married. Very cute.
Due to the rain we decided not to walk back to to the Metro stop where we got off or to the one we knew from being in Paris in 2009. We opted for a taxi. A somewhat expensive but much better choice. I loved gliding through the Paris streets and seeing the lights in the rain with someone else driving.
