Paris

Brady here.... I'm going to break the last couple of weeks up into at least two posts. We've done a LOT in 14 days!

Natalie flew into London's Gatwick airport on Friday February 8th. I got up at 3:30 am and flew the 'red eye' out of Aberdeen to meet her there at about 8:30. Once we said our hello's (and grabbed a few kisses) we grabbed our bags and jumped on a train to London's St. Pancras train station. (Keep in mind this is after a full night of flying for Natalie with basically no sleep) Due to some rather poor planning on my part we proceeded to sit in the station for about 5 hours until our train departed (at over 186 Mph!) and ran down the English country side UNDER the English channel, and southward through France until we reached Paris' Gare Du Nord station. We weren't 100% sure just which tunnel we entered was the Chunnel, but it soon became apparent when we popped out the other side and cars were back to driving on the right side of the road. It's so bizzarre...you enter a tunnel in England and then approximately 16 minutes later pop out the other side in France. Wow!

Once off the train we checked into our walk in closet... er... Hotel room :-). The room was literally 8' x 8' and so small that in order to fully open the bathroom door, you had to move the bed out of the way!

After unpacking we walked around the corner to eat at an Indian restaurant (I never thought I'd be ordering Indian food in France!). After dinner we grabbed a bottle of wine and some plastic cups (fancy, I know), went back to the room and proceeded to watch the nature channel in French. It's amazing how much fun you can have watching French TV once you've started into the bottle of wine ;-)

The following morning (ok, closer to afternoon) we woke up and headed off to the Eiffel tower. WOW... that's about all I can say. We got off of the Metro (subway), walked around the corner of a building and BOOM... there is was. It is really an amazing site. We walked across the river, grabbed a bite to eat and stood in the line for about 45 minutes to get to the top of the tower. The view from the top floor of the tower (almost 1000' up) is just amazing. on a clear day you can see for 26 miles in each direction. One thing we observed was that you really could never see the "end" of Paris... it's just enormous!


After a few hours of snapping pictures and taking some incredible video, we made our way back down and headed towards the "Arc de Triomphe" which was built by Napoleon in the early 1800's and serves as a monument to those that fought and died in WWI and now WWII. Just like the Eiffel tower it is absolutely amazing and truly a grand monument. (Interesting but useless fact: The road surrounding the Arc De Triomphe is now not a recognized spot by insurance companies, therefore, any crashes on the roundabout will result in no payments from insurance companies)

As darkness fell we walked down Champs Elysees and had dinner at one of the many Brasseries that line the streets in Paris and then headed back to the Hotel via the metro.

Day two in Paris:
We began the day by heading towards Notre Dame de Paris walking along the Seine River past all of the riverside vendors selling tourist trinkets, books, and other random items. Once we reached Notre Dame we spent a little time taking pictures of the beautiful cathedral and making note of the very diverse groups of people that had gathered in the courtyard. After a little time walking around the area it was time to head off to the Louvre museum.

The Louvre is the most famous museum in the world... and for good reason. King Tut's mummy was housed here for many many years, and it currently houses such famous works of art as: The Venus de Milo , The Mona Lisa, and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. It could technically take days to see everything in the museum, but we were already tired at this point and decided to really catch the highlights...of particular interest was the Venus de Milo statue and the Mona Lisa two of the most famous pieces of art in the world.

After a few hours at the Louvre, we set off for the Moulin Rouge (just wanted a quick picture from the outside) and had crepes filled with bananas and chocolate at a little street cafe.

The following morning it was back on the train to London, a flight back to Aberdeen, a quick shopping trip at ASDA, and a VERY good night's sleep!

Don't forget to check out out pictures from that weekend on our Picasa page!

-- Brady and Natalie