Ibis La Defense Paris

Woke up around 10 am which doesn't sound too late, but it was daylights savings time here so really it was 11 am but with the time change only 10. Anyway, ate breakfast at the apt and are just now heading out around 130p. I think we're heading to meet Cara and ...

... Dinner was as tasty as lunch, although we were at first apprehensive about two additional dining companions. We were obliged to dine with a stalker and the girl he had been stalking, and Mat had been giving the thoroughly unfair task of not mentioning the word "stalk" throughout the entire evening. (Both of these characters were friend's of Alex - apparently the stalkee decided to just give up and let the stalker join us for dinner). Despite the stalker being (unsuprisingly) a bit of a ...

... joint which was pretty good for the price and location. After spending a few days with Steve and Amanda I've gathered that they (particularly Steve) are not particularly fond of modern art galleries and question what can be classified as "art". Despite this I took them to the Pompidou Centre as the building itself is worth a visit. Neither of them wanted to pay to visit but we did get a kick out of some of the items available in the shop. Sadly it looks as though the ...

Lever vers les six heures quarante, donc bien avant l'heure prévue ; je crois que la nervosité commence à entrer en action, la raison de ma nuit écourtée étant principalement le fait que je me suis mis à beaucoup réfléchir aux dernières trente heures de mon voyage. Il fait encore beau soleil sur Dijon, mais on prévoit du temps ennuagé sur Paris ; je prends ma douche, assez difficilement d'ailleurs, car la douche n'a pas de murs derrière moi, arrosant ainsi toute la petite salle de ...

... to pick up the car. It is the law in France ! So I quickly began my sob story of being on the UK train that hit and killed someone and that the airline made me buy another ticket to France and that I could not find a hotel in Blois or Versailles and they were working on the freeway and I got lost because the car company did not have a map, but I finally find a hotel in Paris at 1 am and I ask the hotel guy to check my parking space and Paris was my lifelong dream ...

... ticket queue was still as big as when we arrived! From the tower we walked through the Champ De Mars to the peace memorial and military academy, then back down past the tower, across the Seine to the Trocadero. Up the Avenue to the Arc De Triumph, then down the Champs Elysees. I'd love to say we wandered, but it was too busy so we really shuffled and dodged. More shops and less park than I expected from watching the tour. Hopped onto ...

Our itinerary back took us through Rome and Paris, and, mercifully, straight from Paris over Greenland and straight through Canada back to Seattle. It was a long flight, but bad movies and mind-numbing video games on my personal console helped to pass the time. Once again, Paris' airport proved to live up to French stereotype. Bureaucratic, presumptuous and fashionable. The bureaucratic part: instead of ...

... s most famous works of art. Rather than a pilgrimage to the Louvre, which many had warned me was oversized and overrated, I explored the D'Orsay's collection which covers Impressionism and Post-Impressionism from 1848-1914 when the Pompidou Centre takes over. Unfortunately, all other Paris tourists had much the same idea for a rainy day and it meant a thirty minute queue outside in the rain. It was a good chance to compare and contrast the various ...

... I never know in any given word which twelve letters to leave silent and which four to attempt (and of course fail) to pronounce. In any case, as I said, the place is sheer magic. And to think, when I first put together my itinerary, I was going to leave Paris out simply because I'd already been here once. Foolishness. It was too bad I wasn't going to see my friends Ruchi and Vikram who were now living just the south but, in every cloud a silver lining. A lifetime of ...

... www.paris.org/Musees/Louvre/. Cecelia and I continue on foot over the Seine to the Musée d'Orsay. The Louvre is a monster! You could spend days inside without seeing all of the exhibits. There are around 350,000 priceless objects. Although Miryam and I have been to the Museum before, she wants Bryan and Rocio to see the principal attractions, namely the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, Liberty leading the People, etc. After this, they will ...