Ah Paris - Day 1

For the last week we have been having a marvelous time in the beautiful city of Paris. We were very lucky in that Sean and his family have stayed close friends with Cecilia. Cecilia is from Paris and she was nice enough to invite us to come and visit and stay at her family's house. After our bullet train ride that took us from the middle of London to the middle of Paris in two and a half hours, we followed Cecilia's great directions to her apartment. We were welcomed by her beautiful sister Laure. Our first mistake with the hospitality of their family was when Laure offered us a beautiful home made quiche for lunch. We were really just expecting a bed at their house and not for them to feed us and welcome us as they did so, not wanting to eat their food and be an inconvenience, we declined and said that we would get something on the street. Latter that night Cecilia told us that she had made the quiche just for us and was offended that we did not want it. Ooops. From then on we realized that Laure and Cecilia expected to feed us and teach us all about real Parisian life. It was great!
Instead of quiche we ate Paninis for lunch on the bridge across from the Notra Dame Cathedral. They were good (but not as good as the quiche).

I didn't really like the tomatoes in the sandwich so I thought I would be sneaky and through them in the river (I know I'm such a rude tourist). But the food did not even hit the river! All of the sudden I was getting attacked by birds and I didn't feel so bad for throwing them my tomatoes.

Our fist sight seeing stop was the Notre Dame Cathedral. There were no Hunch Back sightings but the building was beatiful and full of history.
When we got inside the organ was playing this erie gothic music. It was so fitting. A lot of the old catholic churches are kind of erie in a strangely beautiful way.
I couldn't believe it when Sean walked right by the chapel dedicated to the Mexican Virgin Guadalupe. When I pointed it out he got so excited that he had to take a picture.

Our favorite part of the Notre Dame were, of course, were the flying butrices, beautifully demonstrated in this picture taken by Sean.
We were very happy when we hear a couple speaking english and we could finally ask someone to take a picture of both of us.

This is a good flying butrice picture too.

As we walked along the river Seine river there were plenty of sights. This is known as the babbeling tower because it used to be a prison and that used to be all you could hear from it. I think they also through people off it during the revolution.

This is one of the old original Metro enterances.
This is me enjoying the serenity of a park in the middle of the city.
This is also me, enjoying the surprisingly comfortable concrete bench on Pont Neuf which is now Paris's oldest and longes bridge across the Seine River.
When we first came across this building we were taking pictures of it because it was so huge and we didn't know what it was so we thought we would take pictures and then ask Cecilia later that night.

And then we came across the sign...

It was the Louvre! We had no idea the Louvre was so HUGE! I don't think any one will really understand how big it is unless they see it.
In front (or behind I guess depending on what way you look at it) of the Louvre is the Tuleries Garden. Its a great area to get away from the hustle of the city and relax by a pond or eat at a garden cafe.

Look who we ran into in the Tuleries! What are the odds of running into Mormon missionaries in the middle of Paris? Sean got excited and wanted a picture with them. At first we tried to play a joke on them by going up and saying "Hey, do you guys have one of those Book of Mormon things?" Their eyes lit up. I almost felt bad telling them we were just kidding and that we were members visiting from America.

In the far corner there is a small building called the Orangerie. It is a museum famous for showcasing Monet's Water Lillies. This is another thing that I had no idea was so large. There are two large oval rooms that display Monet's garden all around the room. It is actually really peaceful. This is me contomplating which water lilly I like the best.
After our exciting first day we returned to our home away from home to meet Cecilia when she came home from work. For dinner they took us out to a little crepe cafe that had delicious dinner crepes that were so large I could not even finish mine. After our crepes Cecilia and Loure took us to the Eiffel Tower!

This is Cecilia with us infront of the Eiffel Tower.

When it gets dark the Eiffel Tower sparkles for a few minutes on the hour. Cecilia made sure we were there to see it light up. Can you tell?