Day 3

I know you will forgive me for being tardy on this post since at the end of Day 3 I was with my mom. So I haven't posted until now because I didn't want to waste one precious second of being with her:)

The following pictures came at great personal sacrifice because I thoughtless took them without asking the permission of the boulangerie lady. With our language barrier I couldn't tell her that I had to take these pictures or my peeps would never believe how amazing their concoctions looked and that's the least I owe them since I can't help them taste one. She, on the other hand, couldn't tell me what a rude arrogant American I was. So even though she had already repeated our order to us - she gave us the wrong thing! We ordered two quiche, warmed up and she give us some baguette with ham and cheese on it and a crusty look to go with it. When we walked outside and reazlied what had happened, we walked back in to explain, because we just COULD NOT leave without some of that quiche! But she wouldn't take the wrong order back and she made us pay for the quiche. So please thoroughly enjoy these pictures:)

Next on our agenda was a treck up to Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). Had I known then what I do now, I'm not sure I would have gone. First, it's a long way from anything else in the artsy district. Second, as you can see from the pictures, it is at the top of a very high hill! So we take the metro out and at the stop we see an elevator. It has a line so we think we can handle the stairs. Crazy! Apparently we were at one of the deepest parts of the metro line and it took us several minutes to get to the top. Then we had three more steep sets of stairs till we got to the actual church. As we are walking over to it, we see a little shuttle car that gives you a lift to the top of the hill. Wish I had known that because my calf muscles were killing me the rest of the day. It's a great view of the city and the church is spectacular inside. Then we walked around and didn't really see much of the artsy stuff (we didn't make a big effort to find the Moulin Rouge) so we decided to try the Eiffel Tower again.

This pictures of Sacre Coeur in the distance is from the top of the Arch de Triomphe.

When we got the the Eiffel Tower, we talked to a guy who didn't want to let us up because we should have used our ticket on Wednesday. Dan explained to him, in French, that the police would not allow us in. So garcon says we should have come back the next day. They go back and forth for a minute before the guy realizes Dan knows more French than he knows English and he let's us through. Then we get to the ticket taker and our bar code won't scan so Dan has the same conversation with her. Then she looks at the date on our ticket and her eyes get big and she starts talking really fast (in French) and all I hear is le bomb! So we're not sure if it was an actual bomb or just a threat but we're glad everything worked out. So we ride up to the first level (which you can also take the stairs to for less money) and then we get in line to ride up to the very top. The ticket taker there needs to have the same conversation with us as the other two have. Clearly, they are not communicating in their staff meetings. In the end he lets us up and the view is better than from an airplane. You can look at the same stuff for as long as you want and even buy champagne if you have a mind to. But I am still of the opinion that it is not romantic. There are just too many people there! And a lot of kids from America, I mean jr. high and high school. We decidede 17 was a good age to think about letting your child out of the country without your supervision. That can be a separate post, too. Anyway, my favorite picture from the top of the Tower is the one of the Louvre. Look carefully for the pyramid in the middle of the biggest building in the picture and the green garden leads right to it (that's where we sat the other day and had crepes). But it's so big, this is the only place I could get a picture of the whole thing.

Then at the bottom of the Tower I tried out the timer on my camera. Not bad:)

By then, we had only a few hours left in Paris and decided that Sydney would LOVE the earrings we saw at the top of the Arch de Triomphe. So we went back, climbed 300 stairs up and back to get the earrings (which I'm not showing you a picture of yet because Sydney is reading this blog and I want them to be a surprise).

Then we went back to our hotel to get our stuff and stopped one more time at the Boulangerie (the nice lady was back) and ordered two baguettes, two pain au chocolats, a pieace of noir chocolate cake, a chocolate sac (which is a ball of merangue covered in chocolate ganache that is about 1/2 an inch thick, and then all of that dipped in a hard chocolate shell) AND the last quiche. The lady laughed at us when we kept adding to our order and Dan told her it's because we were leaving for Germany in a few hours. We had a feast on the train ride!

This is Gare de Est (East Train Station) and in the very front of the picture you can see a row of bikes. The Mayor added these as part of the public transportation system a few years ago. You just scan your metro card and the first 3o minutes are free. You park them at your destination in a simmilar rack. Very cool.

Then one last picture of an outside cafe. Actually they are all outside and inside because you can smoke outside but not inside. So if you want to sit outside you can, but be prepared for the smoke.

Then we got on the train and it took us 4 hours to get to Frankfurt. The French countryside was beautiful, lots of little villages and every one with a church in the middle of it.

I'm pretty good at describing all these experiences that are surface stuff. I'm not going to be good at describing my reunion with my mom. So I'll just say imagine that you haven't seen your mom for over a year and now you are back in her arms. Just like that. It was heaven.