Once upon a time, I got to go to Paris. Holy smokes! It was amazing! I tried to only pick the best pictures for your viewing pleasure, but let's be honest here: there were a lot of choices! Therefore, out of the 261 pictures I took in 3 days, here is my Parisian weekend in 29 choice pictures. :)
Day 1: Arrive.
My travel buddy this weekend was the delightful Elise from the Brussels International ward. I was at their house for dinner last week and was telling them how I was planning on going to Paris. Elise said "That sounds like fun!" I said "Why don't you come?" So, she asked her parents and, in the words of the French, Voila!
We met at the train station and headed to Paris. After a lengthy trip (an hour and 22 minutes!) we arrived and headed to our hostel. This was delight #1. Our hostel was like a hotel! We had a private room and bathroom, a TV, and a phone! All for SO STINKING CHEAP! We kept waiting for something to go wrong. (In all actuality, the only problems were a burned out light and a fire alarm that went off Sunday night...) Anyway, after we dumped our bags, it was off to the city!
Our first stop: Notre Dame. It's famous, so we went. It really was absolutely beautiful! We found some nice people to take our picture. Then we stood in line and walked through the inside. It was the day before Easter, so there was a florist preparing all the flowers for Easter Mass. They were very pretty flowers.
Our next stop was the famous Eiffel Tower!!! This is one of my favorite pictures. It's me (in case you couldn't tell) hugging the west leg of the tower. :)
The Eiffel Tower is HUGE! I had no idea. I thought I had a pretty decent grasp of the size, but when I saw it for the first time I was completely blown away. It's enormous!
This was my first view of the total tower, bottom to top. Unbelievable!
We decided that, since we were there, we'd climb the thing. We had 2 choices: stairs or elevator. Being the young athletic girls we are (HA!) we opted for the stairs. We climbed as far as the stairs would take us: the 2nd level. Sounds small. Whoa baby, not small at all... Here's us climbing... Mind you, this is only on about stair 100...
We made it to the second level! This was our view to the top of the tower. It was exquisite!
Here's looking out on Paris from the second level of the tower. It was incredible!
Conveniently, the stairs were numbered (randomly), so I didn't have to count them myself. Good thing, too. I'm not entirely sure I could have counted this high! :)
This picture was actually taken 2 days later, but for the sake of consistency, I added it here. I loved this shot of the tower.
Our adventure Saturday evening was suggested by my genius Daddy-o. He found me a link for the Fat Tire Bike Tours. I would recommend them to EVERYONE! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. In Paris they offer a day tour and a night tour. We went on the night tour. Seriously, it was amazing. We rode little beach cruisers through the streets of Paris! In Paris, they have a special lane for busses, taxis, and bicycles... because that makes perfect sense to the French...
We donned our highly fashionable reflective vests (because no one wants to hit a group of people wearing reflective vests...) and were on our way!
We passed many beautiful sites. Here are a few shots of the evening...
Notre Dame
Roxy and Elise at the Louvre
The Eiffel Tower
There were about 20 people in our group from all over the world. Australia, the States, Ireland, England, and Texas (close to the United States...) :). Chase, our tour guide, is from Texas. He said that's the only corny joke he ever tells... And now it's famous.
The bike tour was amazing. We rode through 2 hail storms, a rain storm, and saw clear skies all in a 4 hour time frame. The night tour also included a boat ride on the Seine River. It was a delightful evening!
Day 2: The Louvre!
Easter Sunday we spent at the Louvre museum. It was absolutely amazing! The building itself was incredible, let alone every piece of art and history stashed in that building! Here's me prior to my overwhelming adventure...
This is a sampling of some of the columns found throughout the museum. It was beautiful!
This is in the Egyptian part of the museum. And I thought my dad had big feet... ;)
This picture is in honor of Daniel. It was cool. He should have been there!
Very famous statue... Aphrodite/Venus de Milo... Here's the sad part: I was fascinated by the beauty of the walls surrounding this area of the Louvre. :)
There was a whole room of life-size statues. Here's your math lesson for the day: Room full of life size statues + 2 girls = lots of goofing around. :)
Elise found a one-armed man. In honor, she lost an arm as well.
I'm holding a map of the Louvre. I think he's holding... stone... :D
Why is the Louvre so famous, you ask? Why, it's this 31 x 21 painting of a lady with something on her mind! THE MONA LISA!!!!! It has a whole wall to itself and is behind thick glass sealed under lock and key!
I found my missing necklace and earrings... They stole it and claimed it was King Louis XV coronation crown and crowned jewels... lame. But very, very pretty!
Remember how I said the building was incredible? This is a part of the ceiling. If you're not looking everywhere, you'll miss it!
We survived the Louvre. Holy smokes.
We also went and saw the Arc de Triomphe after the Louvre. It was big. And very cool. We ate at a little café near it for lunch and had some delicious food! Chicken and hollandaise... yum!
Day 3: Chillin'
Monday we took it easy. Elsie was getting a little bit sick, so we hung low. We had learned about a place called the Sainte Chapelle on our bike tour. Louis IX bought the Crown of Thorns and an original piece of the cross. He had a church built to house the relics. In the church there are 24,000 stained glass windows! They tell the story of the world, from Genesis to the Apocalypse. The interesting part of this story is that the relics cost 3 times as much as the church! It was beautiful!
We decided that an appropriate end to our day would be to pay tribute to the little Lady Liberty. She's tiny. (Actually quite big, but in comparison to the gift she inspired, she's little!) Here's us, with the French Statue of Liberty.
It was a wonderful trip to Paris!
The storm in action...
Christopher and Karen after the performance!
I believe I can fly...
Look, karen is watching....
Can you find Kristina and Chessie?
Tami did a great job as usual singing, even after eliminating all the 'S' from the heart.
Double quartet, fabulous!
We had wonderful accepting audiences each night.
Christopher sang one of the Apostle roles on Sunday night. Very well done. Others singing were Jeremy and Steve Hansen.
I thought I'd throw the baton at the singers, fun....
I love this complete shot of the tabernacle. What a great facility!
This is the moment when Karen and I swap piano positions without losing the "vibration" of the piano. Lots of fun. A real "footsy" moment. Also, know that the Cantata is given it's narration heart by Bruce Newbold. His narrative interpretations are inspiring. Counted among our many blessings.
