Edouard 6 Hotel Paris

We got hammered with lagggg! Our first travel day started at 6 AM, shut down house, and multi shuttled to SeaTac Airport, lunch at airport, on the plane by 2:00 PM. A wonderful 9 hour flight, arriving Paris at 11:00 PM out time. Lugged the packs via train and Metro through transfers et al and arrived our hotel about 12:30 AM out time. Now the bad news. It was only 10:30 AM in Paris, and our room was not ready.....So we waited another 2 ...

... walking.
The Parisian bike-rental system is simple in theory but...not so much in practice. It consists of rental stations located all around the city that are composed of bikes attached to posts (by some strange lock mechanism) and an electric kiosk where you pay for your rental and unlocks a bike for you. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so much. You can only pay for one bike at a time, so for us to rent 5 bikes, we had to complete 5 ...

... graphic depictions of heaven and hell as well as a huge painting of Jesus turning water into wine. A life size painting with approx. 120 people at the wedding, all with distinct expressions, just like at a real wedding. The pyramid and the great hall made us talk about “the Davinci Code” through out the day. Away from the most popular art pieces we enjoyed two big rooms of Greek statues, busts and sarcophagi as well as the Apollo Hall which was the ...

... complete with frosty windows and a chef making MASSIVE crepes for his dinner crowd. I tried a Kir Royale - much to the encouragement of my French tutor - she's right - it's great! I mentioned before that this city supports it's artists... it's everywhere. Take a trip on the metro and you're bound to be blown away by a few buskers performing on the train itself - everthing from Latin music to a man playing the traditional French accordian... Could it get ...

... away and then went to a cool wine/book store called La Belle Hortense. Have you ever had a moment when everything in the world seems so perfect that you get all goose-bumpy and teary eyed? I had one of those here. We were drinking wine at the bar and the place was one of those places that you dream of running and owning one day. Comfortable, relaxed and hip. They were playing some great music in the background and the waitress was ...

... and Bob worked. :-) One the task list today are: site seeing, eating, and picking out a house warming gift for Ruth and Seb. Marais is within walking distance of Bob's apartment so we started out there and headed in the right general direction. Our first stop was St. Eustache - fabulous gothic/renaissance church in Les Halles. As churched-out as I am after this trip, St. E is a standout. Outside ...

... and on the other side was a ham and cheese sandwich melted and grilled in mozzarella cheese. In Paris it is eaten with a fork and knife and is served with spicy mustard. It was delicious! After our snack (which was more like a meal for the two of us!), we started walking toward the Eiffel Tower. It was such a clear night, that you could see the full moon in the sky. As we walked along the Champs de Mars which is a long garden leading up to the Eiffel Tower, we were reminded ...

... the Grand Arch, the Champs-Elysees, a few more historic places....phew! Luckily we literally just walked around these places and didn't try to go in and investigate everything (at this point) otherwise I think I would have been dead...seriously...this entry would not have happened. By-far my favorite part of the day, however, was eating crepes on the Champ de Mars (the grassy area in front of the Eiffel Tower)....that was sooooo cool. I was just ...

... an effort to speak their language in. Makes you feel a lot less ignorant and annoying not that we can help it sometimes. Metro was easy enough to figure out, and I got to the right stop in the end. I was standing in the station trying to figure which of the 20 roads shooting off the square my hostel was down when this french guy came up and asked if he could help me. I showed him the address to the place and he walked me down there. I had it figured out, but he insisted. I tried ...

... de ese paradigmatico "aroma frances", pero ahora que es verano(a pesar de la lluvia hace calor) hay un no olor espantoso. Ciertamente no usan desodorantes, y al ir al supermercado le fije que el desodorante es muy caro en comparacion al resto de los items de higene personal; asi que la conclusion es que los q usan son un mercado de nicho; y los olores de la ciudad solo lo confirman...el desodorante no es un producto masivo en Francia.Lejos lo mas chocante; es oler a mujeres ...