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.