Europe 2009 - Wednesday May 6th 2009

We got up early to take the Eurostar train to Paris on Wednesday morning. We had assigned seats on the train and they were set up like airplane seats and fairly comfortable. I think the train ride was a couple hours long and everyone except for me and Marcus took the opportunity to take a nap. I decided to talk to Marcus and hold my book in my lap the entire train ride. I had the illusion that I was going to read but I much preferred a conversation over a solitary activity. Marcus is moving to Paris this summer for a job and we spent a long time talking about how that would work. I then spent some time fantasizing about how great it would be to get a job that paid for international travel. Perhaps one day it will come true.

After we collected our luggage and grabbed a quick lunch (a hard....a very hard...baguette sandwich with Salami and butter with a Coke) in the train station we got on our bus for a quick tour of Paris. They drove us up the Champs-Élysées and pointed out all of the expensive shops and stopped for some photo opportunities at the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.

While we were at the Eiffel Tower several street Gypsies came up to us and tried to sell us trinkets. I was standing next to Steve and he told them firmly to go away. The gypsy took offence and they had a bit of an altercation on the street. There was yelling and male aggression. There was no punches but I felt like it came close. I walked away as I don't like to see people in these tense situations and it made me uncomfortable.

We got back on the bus and the tour guide drove us all over the city. They were just giving us a general orientation so we could choose where to go on our free time. The tour ended with the bus dropping us off at our hotel, The All Seasons. This was my favorite hotel of the entire trip. It was very modern, bright and aesthetically pleasing. The best part was that the beds were very soft and comfortable.

This was Gretchen's bed and mine was right next to hers, literally toughing it. It was just really a king size bed split in half with a small partition dividing the upper 1/3 of the bed. Don't you love the colors.

Look at this...the bathroom sink has some character.

This is the shower area. There was no curtain just this orange plastic partition covering the first half of the tub. I was amazed to find that very little water escaped the tub area.

This is the lobby area.

That is Naph acting all sorrowful in the lobby. Don't you love the chairs.

This is the ceiling in the lobby.

After we got settled into our rooms, Gretchen, Naph, Rogers, Jason, Marcus and I headed out to find dinner and to visit the Louvre Museum. We ended up picking up various items from street vendors. I stopped by a bakery and started my meal with a scrumptious strawberry tart and then I went next door for a mixed salad and coke. I love having dessert before my meal.

After our food we got on the tube and headed over to the Louvre museum. Yes, THE museum from The Da Vinci Code. I had visited it once when I was in there in 2000, but I was excited to see it again. Before we even entered the museum we had some fun on the grounds. We took some very funny photos. I kind of think that the time we spent there was way more fun than the time in the museum. Part of that has to do with the pain in my ankle increasing as the end of the day nears. It is about 7:30pm when we arrived at the museum.

OK, I don't know what we were doing in this photo. But it appears that Jason and Naph are about to become engaged. The background is the museum building.

The famous Louvre pyramid.We decided to create our own pyramid to have in front of the actual pyramid. Yes, Gretchen is feeling me up. I was told later that I had my left arm in the wrong place, I guess it should have been on my hip. I am not properly schooled on pyramid making techniques. Of course Rogers was worse. When we asked him to get down and be on the bottom of the pyramid he got on his knees facing the wrong direction. We eventually got him fixed. I was very impressed that the boys were so willing to participate in our silliness. The two photographers are tired after our fun.

When we finally entered the museum it was set to close in an hour so we had to strategically decide what to see and do it very quickly. We headed up to see the Mona Lisa and a few other things and we got lost a few times. We even ran into other people from our group. By the middle of the museum my ankle was just totally wore out. I decided to leave my group and head back to the hotel by myself. I was glad I did as I was no longer feeling fun and I just wanted to put my leg up and ice my ankle.

I arrived back at the hotel without incident and conned the bartender out of some ice and went to my room to relax. Everyone else went back to see the Eiffel Tower lighted up at night. I don't feel that I missed much as Gretchen brought me back photos.

I felt like I had a very good first day in Paris.