Bijou Hotel Boulogne-Billancourt

... the castle:












Later we hit Star Tours. Same exact ride as Florida, only in French. To sound like a broken record, it is very strange to here C-3PO speaking French. You have to turn your head sideways to view the video.














Here is a shot from the exit area of the ride. Very cool!












We ...

We made it to our apartment around 12:00pm, we unpacked got settled a bit and then went to lunch at a place that Marie picked out. Marie became our waitress at the restaurant which was a lot of fun!! I had my first Cafe Americano, and wow it was good!! I also had Quiche Lorraine...it was good as well. I am going to have to get used to spending a lot of money on meals, it is really expensive in Paris. Our apartment is in the Musee d'Orsay area, which ...

... that I continued on my way. A few seconds later I stopped in the middle of the of the sidewalk (much to the annoyance of the people behind me, I'm sure) to consider this rare opportunity to directly contradict my isolation distress* with a big, unconditional hug. *Forgive the RC (Re-Evaluation Counseling) lingo for those of you who aren't familiar with it, but this is an interjection for my friends who DO know about RC and the significant role it plays in my life ...

... general national perspective on the subject: art is sacred and must be kept away from money, which is degrading. I don't pretend to have any inside knowledge about much. It's the general impressios I've gotten that have made me realize how different the American and the French perspectives are. I find that it's easy to trace the French mindset to the French Revolution, for instance. The "equality" in "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" means that art can no longer be ...

... o'clock ride. The Oregon group goes together to find a café for lunch. We find a little place with tables out on the sidewalk. The lady working there is having a cigarette at one of the tables when we walk up. I think she looks surprised that we are interested in lunch. She is very accommodating, however, and the gentleman working with her (who looks like he could be her son and is quite good looking) tend to our needs very well. I am thrilled to be able to eat a salad ...

... now know why they call Paris "the city of lights". Getting back to the hostel from the tower was interesting. We took the wrong bus back to the hostel and ended up who knows where. A very nice Parisian man on a motorcycle who only spoke French managed to give us directions back. We ended our night with a French Kiss... the shot it mean. And it was off to bed very late to be up early the next morning to take in more of this amazing city.

... to be a rather obvious question....what an *******. Anyway, after hearing a loud explosion (they blew up the offending bag) they removed the security tape and let us in. Ironic that it took coming back to Europe for me to have a terrorism scare after traveling all throughout the Middle East with no problems. We are staying at the Hotel Castex near the Bastille ...

... Seems to be a European theme...on the weekends when the weather is nice, everyone heads to the park. Monday I took a day trip to the town of Versailles, where the famous Chateau de Versailles is located. It was built in the mid-17th century by King Louis the 14th to display the absolute power of the French monarchy. Take the biggest mansion you've ever seen and multiply it by 10, and you'll start to get close to the size of this place. It has ...

... were just like in the pictures, but for some reason bigger in person. We really did enjoy the Eiffel Tower, which we climbed as the sun was going down and we were able to see the skyline at both night and day, which was pretty cool. We threw a paper airplane from the very top and we watched it stay in the air for a good 2 minutes and it must have travelled a mile or so before we lost track of it. The Louvre was pretty interesting. It is VERY huge ...

... I threw myself on her like no one else. I didn't want to let go. I was able to hold back tears, but not the smiles. FORGET THAT! This is my MOM we are talking about, I was way too excited. We stood there hugging for a long time. After all the slobber, we made our way to cash our traveler's checks, made some phone calls to the states, and reserved a shuttle to the hotel for a really great price. We were sooooo tired. Poor mother was passed out ever chance she got, and the ...