Blogs from Sarcelles, Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 2

Sun Apr 21 - Paris Our transfer bus delivered us to the Novotel Tour Eiffel Hotel, in the final stages, through a warren of dark passageways, strewn here and there with the trash, odors and wikiups of the homeless. Not an auspicious introduction. In the early evening we assembled with the rest of our Traflagar tour group for an introductory dinner at the “Chez Clement” restaurant on the Champs Elysees, just half a block down from the Arc de Triomph. Our companions were an eclectic bunch. Five were Canadians including us and a delightful threesome from Saskatchewan.There were twenty-six or so Australians, a couple folks from New Zealand, eleven Chinese and six Americans. Our “tour director” was a young French woman named Cindy Cartier. She was to demonstrate extraordinary levels of energy, organizational skill, leadership ability ... read more

Le Louvre is one of the most famous sites in all of France. It is also the most visited art museum in the world. It has everything from sculptures and paintings, to actual rooms full of historical furniture and decor. I'd never been a history fanatic, but strolling through the museum, I found myself taking an interest in many of the pieces hanging on the walls and what message they had behind them. The museum's art is organized by artist's name, and also by country which the artist is from. As I walked through, I noticed some young Parisians sitting on the floor, sketching or painting one of the monuments they had taken an interest in. If I had this talent, I would've been doing the same. It's almost impossible to see and analyse every single ... read more

My trip to Paris day by day: -Day 1 - Day before the trip throat start to misbehave -Day 2 - Vacations start by mississing the first flight after that the domino effect started. Get to Chicago and of course I also missed the second flight. Overpaid (pretty mych bent over and took it) for a rental SUV to drive from Chicago to Detroit to then catch the final flight. Fianally in Detroit (after getting into the bad neighborhoods because the GPS wasnt propery programmed by me) went to return the car which should be a pretty simple thing to do right?? Aparently not in Detroit. Wasted 45 minutes in line. Finally got to the ticket desk and after bending over for a second time was able to get on the plane. By that time my ... read more

So today we finally made it into Paris. After a quick train ride we took the underground until we reached Notre Dame. Such an impressive building, but I found the hundreds of birds and all the boats, buses and bikes much more interesting! There were SO many people queuing to get into the Cathedral that we didn't bother. Instead mummy and daddy had chocolate crepes and I had a tube of raisins :-( Apparently the crepes were VERY good but I didn't get to try them. After spending a little time looking at the Cathedral and the buildings surrounding it we walked until we reached the Louvre. On the way we took a few detours and saw the Palais de Justice and the Church of St Germain l'Auxerrois, plus we stopped at a bakery to get ... read more

The day that I learned that I was hired on at a school for the fall, I called my travel partner Winnie to see if I could convince her to host me in Paris for a few weeks and then slip of to Istanbul for a bit. Lucky for me, she was not hard to convince and we shared another incredible adventure together. Waiting to board the plane in Minneapolis proved a great start to the trip. People were excited to go to Paris! They were paging through their tour guides, talking loudly about plans, and were not trying to contain their giddiness. It was infectious! Appreciating people's exuberance spilled over into my time in Paris. I did not grumble as I needed to dodge a group of tourists gawking at the Louvre or recover from ... read more