Wi Wi!

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So at 4:45 am....we got up to catch the train to Paris. I slept for the majority of the ride but when I woke up the sun was rising over the French countryside of Normandy or somewhere close to that. It was very flat with trees every now and then. The sun cast a golden light all over the fields though and it was magical to say the least. Paris, on the other had, was cold. As soon as we got off the train it was obvious this was not anything like Ireland much less Seattle. Grown men with large muscles strutted around the station with what I like to call "froo-froo" dogs such as tiny poodles. In America this would be such a contradiction in images. Macho meets... not macho. And whats laughable is they are all over the entire city! Huge, masculine, well dressed men carry around little dust ruffle lap dogs. They can't all be walking them for their wives. Everything in Paris is beautiful (except big men with tiny dogs). The clothes, the perfume, the food, the architecture, music, the women, and even the men. Everything! The only problem is I think they know it. Parisians were a little cold to us Americans. I can't blame them. I see that their culture is indeed quite close to perfect (a few more smiles and some sticks of deoderant in the metro wouldn't hurt but thats just my opinion. (Sorry Ludo! I'm not talking about you- you are perfect : ) ) French food in BEAUTIFUL!! I could hear myself gaining weight. We dined out every night and visited markets during the day. Thank goodness we were only there four days. My arteries couldn't take one more torte. We saw the beautiful Eiffel Tower and took a boat tour along the river. We saw the Louvre (Mona Lisa's eyes really do follow you around the room- its creepy!) and the Musee d'Orsay. We saw Monet and Renior and Van Gogh and DaVinci. We also went to Rodin's museum which is a house with large gardens. The main attraction of the museum is the statues out in the garden. One of the best layouts of museums I've seen. It was very peaceful to walk throught the gardens and see the art. Each piece felt like it belonged to the garden. Overall I'd say Paris has a nice little collection going on there. : ) We also saw Versaille while we were here but I'll leave that story for another day.

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Photos

Do I really need to tell you what this is?
You just can't take a bad picture of the Eiffel Tower!

Nobody ever takes pictures from underneath
just in case you wanted to know what it looks like from below...

"What histroric building is this?" you might ask
Its their shopping mall

Its been done before but I'll do it again
I thought this looked cool. Its the clock in the Musee d'Orsay which used to be a train station. There is an amazing view if you look out through the clock face.