Team Europe 2007: Paris je t'aime

So we made it home! Finally, after a long day of traveling (what else is new, right?), we made it in to Houston and the boys were there to take us home.

It definitely feels good, but a little strange, to be back to the same normalcy and to be away from the lifestyle I guess I was starting to get used to... "on the go" mentality, living out of my backpack, interacting with people of different languages, discovering new places...

Where is my croissant and orange juice?!?

I am already starting to think about my next adventure that I hope happens sometime very soon!

Paris now seems like a blur. Just like everywhere else, we did it hard and fast, encompassing almost the entire city quickly in just 3 days. I would love to go back and take it a bit slower and see the things that we just didn't have time for. All in all, though, I think we both saw and did most everything that we wanted for our short time constraint.

We stayed in the Marais district, which has been dubbed the thriving gay and Jewish community. Just like in Rome, it was nice to be in a more residential part of town that wasn't touristy at all. In fact, one French woman wondered at lunch on the first day why two American women were in that area? She was really nice, as were all the French people we met, and we talked with her for a bit and got her advice on some things.

The first day we hit up the Louvre - I found that this is hard to do in just a few hours and especially hard at the end of your trip when you've already been to countless museums. It was by far the most impressive and expansive, and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the ancient Egyptian antiquities and other artifacts. The place is just colossal, and I will definitely need to go back to feel that I have adequately seen most of it.

Day two had us trooping over to Montmartre, the city's steepest area. We grabbed some lunch at this little Greek deli and ordered two chicken sandwiches. The guy brings them out to us - two huge greasy drumsticks (meat still on bone) inside the bread. We just had to look at each other and laugh about that one. We then decided to find this flea market, which Lonely Planet claims as Europe's largest. Along the way, we passed a store and bought cute shoes for 5 Euros - probably our best find! The flea market was just okay, nothing special, so we then went to track down Moulin Rouge and the basilica.

My favorite part of our Paris excursion (sad, I know) would have to be at the basilica. As we made our way up the steps, I heard this guy with a thick Indian accent singing and jamming out on his guitar to American and British pop culture songs. It was the greatest! We found seats on the steps amongst the rest of the crowd and sang along - only a few people, including us, knew all the words - to hits like "No Woman No Cry," "Country Road," "Help," "California Dreamin'," and "Imagine." It was so funny to see this guy, wearing a Yankees cap (p.s. those hats are EVERYWHERE in souvenir stalls) and belting out these tunes in his accented voice. He wasn't the best singer by far, but he gets points for being enthusiastic and for singing songs that I know. The one song that we thought he butchered was "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes. A hard song to conquer if you don't have the right pitch, but he got into it.

On day three we went to Versailles and waited in line for two hours (our longest line wait by far) to buy tickets into the chateau. It was worth it, but by this point I was done with the crowds and the people pushing by you to take a picture of Marie Antoinette's bed. I realized on this trip that people will take pictures of ANYTHING. I guess everyone has a different feeling on what they want documented for trip memories.

Versailles ended up taking much longer than we had anticipated and most of the shops and stores were closed on Sunday. We headed over to Notre Dame and then to the Champs area, had dinner, and then watched the Eiffel Tower light show from a little café as we ate créme brulee and 12 euros worth of fruit.

Paris was big, expensive, easy to navigate, and overall lovely. The weather ended up being perfect, especially since coming back home to 100 degree heat.

We had an amazing two weeks together and can honestly say looking back that we would do it all over again. I feel really lucky to have traveled with such a great person and to have had so many wonderful experiences.

love,
tracy