Mercure Paris Gare De Lyon 3

... pedestrian alley with uneven cobblestone, lined with shops and cafes. We could have sat for hours here and just watched the many people going by. The Latin Quarter had a more funky appeal, with younger people. We came upon the Champs Elysees one night by taking a scenic route past all the big name fashion designer stores, and expensive hotels. Champs Elysees has extra wide sidewalks for separate ...

... I shortly made it to the top of the hill to meet everyone else at the front of the Chateau.

Sadie told us when to meet here and we walked up the cobblestones to the imposing Chateau. Just as we were going in I felt some raindrops and looked up and it didn't look good. I guess it was a good time to go inside. We got audio guides and wandered through all the gilded rooms including the bed where Marie Antoinette had her children in state with whoever wanted to be there ...

... from them! We were pretty cold by the time we started back to the subway station, and the winds hadn't abated. It started to rain just as we reached the corner by the station, so we ducked into Pizzaria Iolanda, a small restaurant. Two cups of hot chocolate, two individual pizzas and water ran about $45 US. The staff was tremendously amused that we started with the chaud chocolat -- apparently, it is only dessert, even if you are ...

... of sarcophagi they have in their collection. After thoroughly enjoying my exploration of the Egyptian artefacts I headed back to the Venus to find Belle and we then went to look at the Assyrian Lions. They look just like the ones we saw at the Pergammon Museum and I am not entirely sure they are not plaster copies like the ones in Berlin. We rounded out our evening at the Louvre by visiting the French Sculpture collection and at about 9:30pm we gave up feeling very fatigued after our ...

... realised we were either playing an elaborate guessing game of the waiter's own devising, or we were perhaps going crazy. Eventually Eb stumbled on something we could order: a glass of wine. Stefan eventually managed to order a coke. I was still too bewildered to order anything. As we waited for our drinks, we saw the same waiter bring several coffees out to a waiting French couple. Bordeaux: Here I pass the blog-writin' torch to Eb! Eb here, torch firmly in hand. We pulled ...

... still quite good nonetheless. No one seems to know what red bean paste is here... although asking if they had things of rice with paste of red vegetables (I forgot the word for beans) in broken French probably didn't help much. sigh....... But they had a post-Chinese New Years Parade here on Sunday which was FANTASTIC. I hope I can get some pics up soon. I was glad to find it since I missed out on the one back home b/c I was too busy packing ...

... checking out all the sights we had seen up close and personal the prior days. Of course getting down was pretty brutual as there are no lines just a mad rush for the open elevator door. Good thinking on the French part. So we got separated but found each other downstairs without any harm.

... milk for the night's liquor contribution and the morning's breakfast. My parents must be so proud to have a punctual individual in the family :) YAY. The night was long and once again I shed tears for my family. New Year's was never really big in my family, but it's still a holiday, and I wished I could have shared it with them... but I told myself that they would be happy just knowing that I would stay out of trouble for the holidays (and all the time of course). Unfortunately ...