France 2006

I went to work and Jeff and Ray walked around Paris looking for a bookstore. Ray's going to audition for The Skin of Our Teeth so he wanted to buy a copy for the plane ride home.

After the book store, they walked through Jardin des Tuileries, which is the garden right in front of the Louvre.

They then wandered up to the Arc de Triomphe. Jeff's impression was that the traffic was insane. There were 4-8 lanes of traffic spinning non-stop around the arch. He speculates that the first person decided to drive to the right and the traffic's been spinning in that direction ever since. Our friend Kate added that the first guy is still stuck near the center trying to get out.

They also saw a street artist, and were harassed by panhandlers. The women would say "Do you speak English?" if you said yes they handed you a small card that said something like "I'm from Bosnia. I've been living in Paris for a year and I'm poor." Annoyed by this, our brave travelers decided to pretend they were Germans. One woman didn't believe that they didn't speak English and yelled after them "But you're English!"

After the exciting Arc de Triomphe, they walked toward the Eiffel Tower, passing the Iranian Embassy on the way.

Jeff's quote about the Eiffel Tower..."Well, it was easy to find."

Much to their dismay, they had to wait in line for an hour to get to the top of the tower. While waiting, they were delighted to hear their first "Ooh-la-la" and "Mama-mia". It was light out when they got in line and dark when they got up there. They wandered around on top for a while, and they got in line to go back down again. The line to get down was just as long as the line to go up. Ah- Paris.

(Ray took his pics home with him so I will have to add them once he gets them up on his website.)

We met them in the lobby after work and we went to a little restaurant in the neighborhood for dinner. I had this amazing pot roast, which was literally described on the menu as "melt in your mouth". Oh my, it did melt in my mouth. It was soooo good. Jeff had steak tartar which was ground beef mixed with egg served raw. He was glad he tried it but isn't sure he would order it again.

After dinner we went back to the hotel where Renee had arranged a wedding cake for our friends Christian and Carol-Ann. They got married just before leaving for Paris and had been there for a week before on their honeymoon. It was great to celebrate with them. They're really sweet, of course, they're Canadians.