Paris, France
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Part I

Saturday morning we took the Thalys from Brussels to Paris. The train ride is just over an hour, and somehow it ended up being cheaper for us to ride in First Class (I think the normal cars were sort of overbooked), so we had no complaints.

When we arrived in Paris we took a taxi to our hotel, which was near the Eiffel Tower. The drive was a bit surreal--everywhere we looked there were incredible things to see! It was kind of hard to take it all in at once. We drove past a street with the Opera House visible down the road, straight through the Louvre complex, and over to the other side of the river.

Our view of the opera house from the taxi

Cars driving through the Louvre

A friend of Brittany's who had served her mission in Paris said the only way to see it in only two days was to take a tour bus, so as soon as we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we set out to find one. We figured they had to stop pretty regularly at the Eiffer Tower, so we just started walking in the general direction of the Tower. At first we couldn't actually see it through the trees and buildings, but we knew we weren't very far, and we saw it above the trees soon enough.

Within about 10 minutes we came to the base of the tower.

A bit blurry, but this is what the entrances to the tower look like, one at each corner

I have to admit that it took a while to get used to the Tower. I had heard that when it was first being built, a group of writers, artists and poets protested that it was an ugly blot on the city, and when I first saw it up close I knew why. Everyone has seen pictures of it from a distance, but when you can see it in detail, it looks a little more mechanical/science fiction than I expected. (It's the latticework.) The big communication antenna at the top of the tower was also a little bit surprising.

That said, we got used to it eventually, and of course while we were there briefly that morning we tried to make the most of being next to an internationally-recognizable monument. :)