City of Lights and a whole bunch of other stuff

Let me get out of the way the things I didn't like about our time in Paris. . . 

1) Our hotel's walls are paper thin. We thought it was bad when we could hear people talking next door like they were in our own room, and could even hear the bed squeaking whenever they would move. But last night there was a party in the hotel's restaurant (we weren't invited) and the music got louder and louder until, at 10:15, we went downstairs, and was promised by the desk clerk that the music would quit at 11. At 11:15 it was still going strong, but finally at 11:30 it was quiet enough to be able to fall asleep. Y'all know how seriously we take our sleep.

2) Today we were contemplating getting on a certain metro that had been stopped for several seconds, and we decided we would.  I was able to get on board before the door started closing, Anthony didn't make it. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! I even stuck my leg in the crack of the door so it wouldn't shut, hoping it would reopen. (I know, big mistake)  We now know a metro door does not operate like an elevator door, it will not reopen if you stick a body part between the two sides while it is closing. It was everyone's lucky day on the metro to see a dumb American do a very dumb thing. But desperate times call for desperate measures. 

As the train was leaving I saw him mouth, Get off at the next stop. So I did, and within 5 minutes he was there, the door opened up, there he was, and I got in.  All's well that ends well.

3) AND I stepped in dog poo.

So REALLY, if that's all that happened that I didn't like, it has been a fantastic few days that we have experienced in the City of Lights. And any of the above could have happened anywhere else that we could have been.  (And actually, we have experienced a very similar event to the Paris metro incident in Washington DC on the metro there, so we had some idea about how to handle the situation.)

This morning we woke up again to rain, but we didn't let that stop us from going out. 

I grabbed a pain au chocolat and a cafe' 

before heading for our first stop Musee d'Orsay. 

And Anthony found another painting by Monet.

Then onto the Musee de l'Armee

Napoleon is buried there ^

Then to the Catacombs:

It is difficult to believe this is actually real, and that someone designed all these bones this way.

By this time we decided to head back toward our home away from home since it was starting to get dark and rainy.  We decided to eat at Chartier again since we knew it was a sure thing and didn't want to wander around in the rain looking for a good place to eat.

Anthony had sausages and sauerkraut and I had Chicken and fries. We also shared an ice cream covered in hot chocolate sauce.

Yesterday we spent our day going to Versailles. I totally understand why the people of France were upset about the extravagance of their monarchy. I guess I am surprised it didn't happen sooner. But the Palace was very beautiful.

I was disappointed that the fountains weren't working and the statues in the gardens were covered because of the winter season.

We had time to stop by the Eiffel Tower again.

The bottom right picture shows two of the many many police and security we have seen here. They were at most major sites we visited, but the most we saw were huddled outside the Four Seasons Hotel. I wish I knew who was staying there.

We also visited the Arc de Triumphe one more time because we were in the midst of rush hour and wanted to watch the traffic from the top. I may post a video on FB. I hope it's as amusing to you as it was to us. Here's is a cool pic I took while we were walking down the steps.

Afterwards we took a stroll down from our hotel and took in some Christmas decorations in the windows and stores before hanging it up for the day and heading to bed.

Day three of our trip started out as another rainy one, but we knew we had a full day, so we started early and headed for the Conciergerie. It was formerly a palace but was also used as a prison. One of its most notable prisoners was Marie Antoinette before she was executed.

Then we headed right next door to Sainte Chapelle.

And on to Notre Dame.  We didn't see it, but below it explains that the Thorn of Crowns was in Sainte Chapelle, but is now located in Notre Dame.

That's really all I had planned for the day but we had several good daylight hours yet, so we headed for the Louvre.

And last, but certainly not least. . .

Some of you might recognize the glass pyramid above if you have watched the Da Vinci Code.

We have seen pictures of the lines of visitors to the Louvre, but when we went, we were second in line, and it was mid afternoon. We have enjoyed getting close to the art and not being pushed around by crowds. The metro's and trains have been pleasant to ride (except when we got separated, ha!). Also, as a benefit of having layers of clothes, the gypsies would have to be pretty invasive to get our waist belts (thanks, Jes, for letting us have one of yours. It has kept what I needed safe and secure.)

This has been an amazing trip. We got to see the Northern Lights and the Eiffel Tower at night, and so much more, and am so thankful for your prayers for safety. 

Thank you for reading, and for your words of encouragement. 

Paris

Oh man, I don't even know where to start, except this is total sensory overload. The sites, the smells, the people, it is just so overwhelming. I am not sure what I expected, but this is just so much more. We are walking down the street, you come upon an intersection, where anywhere from five to seven streets come into that intersection, you look down each of those roads, and there is always something that is interesting enough that no matter how much my feet hurt, that I want to walk down that street to see more. 

The first thing we did when we checked into the hotel was, of course, head to the Eiffel Tower.

That's the first glimpse we saw, then we got a little closer for a little bit better pic.

Thankfully there is still a little bit of daylight, because after I posted my twinkly Eiffel Tower pic on FB, our friend Jim said that it is illegal to post a pic of the Eiffel Tower at night. I really thought he was pulling my leg, but he hasn't steered us wrong yet, so I googled it, and sure enough:

I know. Crazy, right?? 

So I deleted my video off of FB.

More pics from our walk.

So afterwards we found a restaurant that looked good to us. I had the duck confit, and Anthony had a steak.

This place was hopping^ but the place that we saw people lined up out the door was:

I would love to know if these were all tourists or the Parisians.

Our next morning we got up and headed straight to Basilique du Sacre Couer, which is located on the highest point in the city. So I got a panorama from there. 

This was one of the places that I have been warned that the gypsies would be everywhere trying to steal everything we had. But thankfully we didn't see anyone even remotely interested in us or anyone else. The church was beautiful, but we didn't take any pics inside. 

I remember my friend Deborah told me that the way you know an American in Paris is that they dig in their pants to pay for anything, and that is pretty much what we have been doing with our waist packs.  This is what Anthony does every time we need our museum pass or we need to pay for anything. It's a pain, but we had rather be safe than sorry. 

We left and got on our way to Arc de Triumphe and ran across this little square where a few artists were there sketching tourists or just selling a few paintings.

The Arc de Triumphe was next.

Then the Musee de l'Orangerie:

Look at Anthony there studying Monet's Water Lillies:)

Afterwards, it was time to eat and decided to go eat at a place my cousin Kate recommended, Chartier, and I loved that we did. She said that we would be probably be sitting at a table with other people, but for some reason it didn't seem that strange to do so.

My first time eating snails. I just kind of had to not think about what I was really eating and went for it. It was actually pretty good, but I may not ever do it again, well, just because. But the food was really delicious. I had lamb chops, and Anthony had the duck tonight. And I thought it was interesting that the waiter wrote our order on our table cover:

I love the experience of eating out here. The waiters are going at 100 percent speed the whole time and cover a lot of tables. We have had very good service and the waiters have been so patient and didn't seem to mind we spoke very limited French, which pretty much consists of bonjour and merci.

I wanted to share with you something that made me smile when I saw it. We were walking on the street and I noticed a lady walking with a cane very slowly, and that caught my eye. Then I took a closer look at her and this lady, who had to be over 80 years old, was wearing at least three inch heels. And they weren't wedges, these were spikey heals and she was looking very fashionable and put together well. I LOVED THAT!! She wasn't moving very fast, but she was looking good no matter where she was going. That was so Parisian.

Brussels (don't know what day it is, ha)

When I was studying what places we wanted to visit on our trip, our girls told us that we needed to visit Amsterdam to see all the bicycles, and Brussels for the chocolate and Fries. Well, when I was studying what to see in Brussels, it seemed that every travel site I looked at would mention a fountain called Manneken Pis, which is a small bronze statue of a little boy peeing in a fountain. I thought, I don't care about seeing a fountain like that. Why am I wasting part of my vacation on a stop in Brussels?? But besides the silly little fountain, I truly enjoyed this stop.

Here is the fountain. It is a very small fountain, and I just don't get it. Who knows?

For some reason, there were clothes on the little boy. For that I am thankful:)

We started our day pretty early in the morning because we knew we were going to have just one day and today is also laundry day. So the first thing we did was visit the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. From what I can tell, the building was started in 1047, and then evolved into what it is today. We were going to tour the whole building that was offered to the public, but it looked as if they were holding an early morning service and there was no one to give our money to and to get information, but we did walk around the main area. I enjoyed the architecture and we got to hear the bells.

We strolled around and got to see everything on my list, plus more. I loved the statue on the top left. The words say, "Birth of a Nation."

We experienced the Grand Place in the morning and at night, which had an outstanding Christmas light show. 

The Grand Place is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a site to behold for sure.

Here is a bit of Brussels at night:

It's funny what you can learn on the internet these days. We even googled how to wash clothes in Brussels. But like anywhere else, it seems that no matter how much you read, we still didn't know what to do when we got there. We had to rely on the kindness of a stranger, who I think was an angel, to show us what to do. Come to find out, he is from Barcelona and switches homes from there for two weeks, to Brussels for two weeks. He spoke English well (thankfully), and I asked him how many languages he spoke. He said SEVEN!! But also said that he is an interpreter. Which in Brussels, where the European Union is, I believe that skill would come in handy. But all I know is that he was able to show us how to wash our clothes and we were very thankful.

We asked for a recommendation for a restaurant, and he recommended:

I ate a dish called Carbonnades, and you will never guess what Anthony had. . . A hamburger, ha!! That's his go to meal anywhere. And of course we had fries:)

Anthony also had a waffle, which was very good (of course. It's Belgium after all)

Our friend Jim had texted us the night we got to Brussels and said that we needed to be especially careful since Trump had made the Jerusalem announcement. There was a high police presence, but don't know if that was because England's PM Theresa May was there or Trump's announcement. But we did see a group of people with Palestinian flags making an announcement to reporters on the side of the road from where we were walking.

Thankfully, everyone was peaceful and we felt extremely safe everywhere we went.

Before we went back to our room for the night, we made sure we stopped by Mary Chocolatier to purchase some chocolates for Alyssa by special request. Alyssa, if they don't make it home, at least you might end up with this cute little bag.

I also wanted to share how we are making our breakfast in the mornings. We had the fastest electric tea kettle in our room the last two nights. And we knew we could make instant oatmeal, but we decided to try boiling eggs also. So we did an experiment and it worked perfectly.

This is a traveling day for us today and we got up and walked our 30 minute walk to the area where we were dropped off by the Ouibus two days ago. But today we are riding the Flixbus to Paris. It will be about a 4 hour ride, so not bad at all. Our bus is being driven by a husband/wife team, and when we were about halfway through our trip, they switched, so now the wife is driving. We are getting to enjoy some of the French countryside going about 100 km per hour. 

Technical Difficulties

Well, I somehow got signed out of the other gmail account for Blogger where our last day's blog for Amsterdam was, so I will wait til we get home to publish it, which is a shame as Anthony has a really nice write up about his take on bicycling in Amsterdam.

Today we had our first experience on a Ouibus traveling from Amsterdam to Brussels. The price was extremely reasonable and very convenient, as we only had to walk about a block away from our hotel to get on the bus. The ride was a very pleasant three hours long. The bus was almost empty so we got to sit in the front and get a bird's eye view of our stop in Utrecht before making it to Brussels.  Cold, windy and wet is my first impression of Brussels. Also, there are a lot of people walking around with flags, either on a pole, or wearing it around their shoulders. I haven't figured out why, and am wondering if it has something to do with Trump's announcement??

I only got a few pictures today. Here we are happily riding on the bus:

And the hotels we stay at normally don't have a robe and slippers, so I am posting a pic of them too:)

We are only here for one full day tomorrow, so I am hoping there will be a break in the clouds to be able to enjoy our only day here.