Monday, December 10, 2007

Check another two off...

(FYI, I began this post on 12/10 but it's now 1/3, so I'm going to try to finish it up quickly and move on to some other updates)



91. Visit France (with Brian this time)


It may have only been for a weekend - 2 full days - but we walked our legs off and we got to see all of the sights in one day. At least the major ones, without actually going inside (i.e. Louvre, which would've taken a day just to experience!)... Sunday morning we got an early start, went to a cafe for breakfast (near our hotel in Montparnasse), then walked to La Tour Eiffel... the weather had been terrible, but it cleared up that morning, so we were able to get some blue sky shots of the Eiffel Tower. After that, we wandered down the L'Arc de Triomphe, then continued down Blvd du Champs Elysee, stopping in the Louis Vuitton store to drool. I was thinking that getting a good deal would be possible... HAHA!! I couldn't believe how much those things cost! We saw a suitcase in there that cost over 10,000 euro!! That would be over 15 grand!! Craziness. Anyhoo, we wandered down Champs Elysee to Jardins Tuileries, the gardens that lead to the Louvre.. in summertime it's gorgeous and full of people.. not as many people there, but we did pass some enjoying a picnic. Stopped at the Louvre for pictures, then continued on to Notre Dame... of course by then it had started raining, so we stopped into a cafe by Pont Neuf for a late lunch. The rain let up a little, and we trekked back to our hotel from there.. we were going to walk through Les Jardins Luxembourg, but we were exhausted from all the walking and just wanted to get back and take a nap!












51. Learn French (enough to be able to get through a day in Paris unassisted)



I'm checking this one off. Despite my frustrations with my french teacher, she did force me to learn the language... albeit in my own way and with minimal help from her!! I also earned an A in the class, but believe it or not, the weekend trip to Paris didn't help. However, back to my "enough to be able to make it through a day in Paris unassisted" - I certainly did that (in broken French, I'm sure). I purchased our Paris trip passes which was supposed to allow us to use all of the RATP in Paris, I got us from the airport to our hotel by using the RER and Metro, I ordered for myself and Brian in every restaurant we went to (we also had the best cup of coffee in either of our lives at Cafe Leffe in Montparnasse by our hotel), and on the last day while traveling back to the airport on the Metro, I got myself out of a messy situation when my Paris pass stopped working and I got stuck on the wrong side of a gate. :-P We also had a funny moment on Sunday when we went off on our own... a French woman stopped to ask me if I knew where a certain place was, and I said "Je suis Americain, je regrette, je ne sais pas!" (I'm American, I'm sorry, I don't know!" And she smiled at us and said "Ahhh, uhh... Happy Day!!" It was so funny and sweet! And people think that all French people are rude. ;)
So that's my story!! :)
I have more things to update... must post now.

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