Paris...what a way to end!!
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
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150
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Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Paris, Île-de-France, France
Thursday, September 25, 2008
We could not check in at 9:45 am or so when we finally made it to the hotel. So, we left our bags and headed off to a "free" walking tour of Paris. We have found this to be a great way to orient ourselves with the city and find out a few facts too! It lasted about 4 hours and covered lots of ground. After the tour, we went and took a nap in our "category 7" room before enjoying our gourmet meal of tuna sandwiches! Ha! What a trip to have a really cheap dinner in a SUPER nice hotel. This is probably one of Jana's favorite things. Oh! On our way to the supermarket, we stopped at an Irish pub across the street from "category 7" to have a beer. Guess what???? They had CAFFREY's!!! This is a yummy, creamy Irish beer that Layton learned to love in London and it is SUPER hard to find. We have been on the road for 10 months and this is the FIRST time we have had it. What a treat. We both were in heaven for pint!
The next day, we walked from our hotel up the Champs Elysees to end at the Arc De Triumphe. This is fun because the Tour de France ends here and we have enjoyed watching the race over the history of our relationship (even thought Jana is sick of people doping and THRILLED that Lance is coming back)! We then walked to the Eiffel tour, which was very cool. We took the stairs to the second level and then took an elevator to the top. Pretty high...ok, very high! The view was nice of Paris, and it is hard to realized that we really have been on the Eiffel Tower. Sounds strange because we have been to so many places but it really is surreal to be on things like the Great Wall of China, see the Taj Mahal...and the Eiffel Tower had the same effect. We took some time to lounge in the Parc du Champs de Mars too because we had walked a ton!
That evening, we were to meet Cyril Duault's sister, Laure, at Cafe de Flore so she could show us to her flat. Cyril had arranged for us to stay at her flat for the weekend so we could be in a great location of Paris. We were in Saint Germain de Pres area which has a reputation of being Paris's "intellectual" district. Laure had no problem finding us, and her flat was next door to the cafe! It was great. Getting to the actual flat was a bit of an interesting maze with about four doors to pass through and three different staircases to ascend. Once you get there, it is totally worth it thought. The views from the flat were great and wonderful location! We had dinner with Laure and her boyfriend, Mattias. Both spoke great English which made the night even better to have a fun conversation over great Italian food!
Saturday morning, we toured the Louvre which was HUGE! We hit all the highlights on the brochure which we were pretty proud of....yes, we are a bit burned out with art and sculptures, but we knew we had to go to the Louvre. So glad we did too...totally worth it. Then, we walked to Notre Dame to see this amazing church. Even though it is free to enter, there was a que to stand in for about 10 minutes. The church is quite a structure and such a beautiful and important part of Paris's history.
Now, this is probably our favorite part of our trip to Paris...seeing the Duault family. Cyril and Jana worked together in Dallas at BCG. He was part of the Ambassador program and spent a year in the Dallas office. They live south of Paris in Le Plessis-Robinson. We took a train out to their house for dinner. Cyril and his wonderful wife, Juliette, have four, yes FOUR wonderful girls. Flavie, Anais, Solonge, and Roxanne keep their household busy, busy. We were able to communicate with the girls through our very small French vocabulary and a few song they learned while they lived in Dallas. The songs we could sing were "It's a Small World" and "Do you know the muffin man?" We played dolls for a while and even were able to make bracelets together too! It was really fun to be around their girls. Solange was adorable because she had NO idea we did not speak French so she would talk to us just like we understood every word. Roxanne, the youngest, was at a fun age. Flavie learned lots of English while she was in Dallas. So, we were able to communicate some. She would surprise herself as she kept remembering words. Anais has the best eyes. She also gave great hugs!
After the girls went to bed, Cyril STUFFED us with an amazing French meal. We had shrimp bisque (not really French but a Cyril specialty), escargot (yes, snails), beef with foie gras and mushrooms, cheeses and poached pears. All of it was YUMMY! Cyril is a great cook and we enjoyed the different courses while we had some great conversations. Dinner lasted a bit long, so Cyril had to drive us to the subway because the train had stopped running for the night.
Sunday was a LAZY day for us. We slept in and then walked to a great place for breakfast. It was called AMERICAN CAFE and the food was awesome...eggs, bacon and toast was just what we wanted. Then, we went back out to the Duault house for the evening. They introduced us to the family we were going to stay with for the next 3 nights. Neighbors of theirs allowed us to live in a room of their home because their son was at boarding school during the week. It was a perfect situation. The family had 5 boys. The boys were so nice to us. They would want to talk to us with broken English and ask us questions when we came in about our days. Such a cool experience. We hope someday that maybe we could repay the family by letting them stay with us! (You just never know!)
Monday, we took a tour to Normandy to see the beaches where WW II was fought. We used Fat Tire Bikes to set up our day. THIS IS A BIG PLUG. If you go to Paris, Berlin, Prague or Amsterdam, use FAT TIRE BIKES! This company is Aggie owned and Jana went to A&M with the owner...don't miss this great experience.
The day was packed. We took a 2.5 hour train ride to then be picked up by the tour company. We then went to the Germany cemetery, Pointe de Hoc, Omaha beach, American cemetery, and a museum. Don't worry, we then got back on the train to go back to Paris. We would recommend anyone to go on this tour. It is surreal that we are walking on the ground where 60 years ago were in utter chaos. Seeing the area where so much happened really brought the war to reality for us. Jana was overwhelmed by the number of people that died for our freedom. However, the even MORE frustrating point is that we have seen SO many graves, mass graves and memorials for innocent people who have been killed. Jana keeps wondering how so many people died, but our world is still a mess. When will we learn!?
Our last day of traveling was a little crazy....we were so excited to be going home, but we were trying to enjoy our last day of an amazing trip too. The weather was not that great. It was kind of rainy, windy and cold...but we made it to Versailles to see the castle and grounds. We also got to eat some crepes (savory and sweet) too. We then went to our "home" and organized our stuff before going to the Duault's for dinner and goodbyes.
Paris has lots to offer. We were not sure what to expect because you always hear that French people are rude and unfriendly. We had a great experience though...thanks for a great time Duault family! We loved getting to see you!
