A Day in Paris
I thought I should drop a quick note for all of those who might be questioning our location at the moment. And for those who are concerned for our safety.
Our planning has deteriorated to not much more than a week ahead of time so when we were in Germany, looking ahead, France was in our plan but not set. Then the attack occurred and a question mark was left in it's wake for us, to go or not to go? For our own convenience, Paris seemed like the next best location so here we are. I tell you this is probably one of the safest big cities in the world right now. Gendarmerie (police) are everywhere! That has been a bit disconcerting, or at least eyebrow raising, for the children as they carry large weapons openly, but we are getting used to it. Security is certainly on high right now. Even to go into the grocery store is an event as they will search any bags you are carrying before you go in (here in Europe, the vast majority of people bring bags/carts for groceries into the store as they will charge you for every new bag you need at the checkout.) Perhaps this is also because the grocery store is at the entrance of an enormous shopping mall, I am not sure.
We are staying in a flat on the top floor (17th) of an apartment building with a great view of the city. This picture to the right is part of the view from our window. I apologize that the zoom on my camera is not very good, hence the poor quality.
Which reminds me. I had had high plans of taking wonderful photos and editing them before showing them to the world, giving them just the right filters and cropping and enhancements for your viewing pleasure.
Alas, it is much too much of a nuisance so the vast majority of these pics are SOOC (straight out of camera). If you would like to see them a tad better, be sure to go to the website instead of reading this through your email notification. That way you can click on any picture and see it full screen. Click again and it will return to where you were -just a tip.
We had a nice day in the city today, in spite of the fact it was quite cold. It took a bit to figure out the Paris Metro. From reading online I understand it is the second most confusing metro in the world, next to Moscow which takes first place in that department. A dubious honor to be sure. But that aside we arrived in the city center just in time for another Sandeman Walking Tour which took about 3 hours. (you may Google that tour to find out what it is. :) For the most part we like these tours. This might be the 6th ? one we have done so far. Dublin, Edinburg, Bath, London, Munich, Paris. I think that is the lineup so far.
By then we were chilled.
But does that stop us? Not at all. We took the metro and trudged on over to the Eiffel Tower and there a nice cup of Lipton tea warmed me up. Lipton! Are you kidding me? I didn't come to Europe to drink Lipton tea...
We finished off with a dash through The Louvre. If you have ever been there, you realize that is an oxymoron. We were told that if you were to spend one minute on each work of art every day for 10 hours, it would take you over 7 months to get through the museum. (I think these are the figures) We did not go through the Louvre if you take my meaning. Some of us were NOT excited about the choice of venues for that 2 hours but we did pass through and get a feel for the enormity of the place. I could spend days looking at the art!
A nice Benjamin West! (an artist from PA)
And now the kids are all safely tucked in bed, Al is working, and besides this post, I am back to knitting a new dishcloth -if you take my meaning on that.