It's Paris!

Two things I learned in Paris:

If someone asks you if you speak English, say no. If you are asked if you are married, say yes!
That is unless your goal is to get married in Paris... :)

At the train station too early in the morning -especially for pictures.

It was pretty quiet.

Just a random stop... :)

The tracks! They take you amazing places, some not so amazing. Some strange, some scary...that was our impression of Paris... Scary, dirty and crowded! Of course it didn't help that all plane travel was canceled due to the volcanic activity in Iceland.

We walked out of the overly crowed train station into the overly crowded streets of Paris and, yes, this picture was our first impression of Paris. I wish I could say it got better but....well, it did. :)

A little prettier, huh? We found our hostel -huge accomplishment, really! The Perfect Hostel was the name, and it so happens the the Perfect Hostel is NOT perfect -go figure. Though in a sketchy part of town it actually wasn't so bad. It was a room, with a bed, with a lock on the door. That was all we needed. After we got settled in, we headed out see what we could see of Paris.

Do you like being freaked out? Go visit the metro in Paris.

Cool tile work in the metro...

but the people...are just a little ummm...different? :)

Here we go - water! Water makes everything better.

Notre Dame is fabulous!

such detailed and intricate carvings...

Wow!

There was a service going on inside. The music was beautiful! The church is beautiful! This was my favorite part of Paris.

The Louvre. We didn't have time to explore the interior, but the exterior was magnificent!

This scarf shop sold the most gorgeous scarves ever!

As our short afternoon turned into evening. We picked up a local "guyed" along the way and found the Eiffel Tower.

Sarah had the brilliant idea of climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator...so that's what we did. I mean, really the 1000s of stairs we already climbed wasn't enough...if you go to Europe you have to climb at least 5000 stairs. It's like the stairs in Dr. Seuss' The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

We climbed to the second level and there the stairs stopped and the elevators closed, so that's as high as we got, but it was a fantastic view. From there we saw Paris.

The Eiffel Tower.

God was so good to us. His protection and guidance was overwhelming!

In Paris we met an angel. We didn't get his name. But I do believe if I had looked back I would have seen him disappear. Maybe it was his dark, curly hair. I'm sure it wasn't the bike helmet he held. Actually it was probably the fact that he was so helpful and friendly, and was just where we needed him just when we needed him. That's an angel for you. :)

~Anna