Rainy Day...

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The sky was blue outside our window this morning at 8am but by the time we were ready to get moving, the clouds had started to move in. We left the complimentary unbrella at the hotel trying to think positive and started walking toward the river. We did some zigging and zagging and eventually stumpled in on our neighbourhood from 2006. We stayed in the Latin Quarter that time, and recognized many of the buildings from the area as we walked around. After crossing the bridge, we got to Notre Dame. There was a steady stream at the entrance so we joined the flow and made our way inside. There is photography allowed in the cathedral so Penny got busy with her SLR taking pics of the stain glass and other stand outs in the building. When we finished in there, we went outside and found the rain was starting up. There were patches of blue sky, but they were in other parts of the city. We briefly thought about going up the Notre Dame tower in search of Quasimodo, but the line up in the rain had us moving down the street and towards the Louvre. While we were walking, we stumpled on a renovation of a square we had visited in 2006. The only reason we even recognizied it was because we had seen a sculpture in the middle of all the rubble that we remembered posing on..hehe. We also made a try at St. Chappelle but it was suffering a very long line up as well. Once we got to the Louvre, the rain had turned to more of a mist, so we continued to walk around outside and take pictures of the area. We found the obelisk on the other side of the Louvre and started a walk down the Champs-Elysees on a trek toward the arc. It's not a short walk, and the street can get pretty busy as you move closer to the circle where the arc is located. The light starts to disappear around 5 here, and dark around 6, so the cloudy, rainy weather made things darker that much earlier. We still had some good light left for some nice looks around the arc, and decided we should climb the stairs and get the view from the top. We didn't count how many stairs we climbed, but it did take a few minutes to make it up there. Once up, it was a great view of the streets below, and the Eiffel Tower, jut off in the distance. It was dark enough by this time for the Eiffel Tower to light up, so we had a nice long look at that before we made our way down the stairs. There was group of military starting to assemble when we made it to the bottom. They were preparing for a ceremony so we had to make for a differnt exit as the way we came had been blocked off. Our first choice was not a popular choice as it had a couple police officers coming our way to politely send us in an opposite direction. Penny described it more as a clothes hanger..hehe. So, away from the arc, and a decision to walk the 30 minutes back to the hotel; it turned into a very wet decision as the skys opened up one last time after we had gone a few steps to far and we could not turn back. So, it was a wet walk, but a fun walk, back to the hotel, with a short stop for chinese. We figured as soon as we got to the room it was lights out, so better to get some food in us at that time. And that's just what happened. The legs know what we did today, and so now our thoughts are on tomorrow as we have a busy day planned at court.

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