Monday, August 11, 2008

Al- Day Paris Walking Tour

This morning we got an early start with breakfast at the hotel before dashing out on a very long walking tour along the Seine.



We started off with tea, coffee, baguette, croissant, pain au chocolate, some other delicious puff pastry concoction, jam, butter and orange juice. This is about as big a breakfast as I ever have and that was good because we were about to embark on about eight straight hours of walking.



We went to the Louvre where we could observe the Eiffel Tower in the background with some bums in the foreground. We then took a series of pictures that could have much more easily been achieved by taking one picture of Jen and me and then Photoshopping it over a series of images from Paris.





Personally I think those glasses make me look like a French douchebag but they were free, kept the sun out of my eyes and Jen likes them.



I got to see Le Centre Georges Pompidou which has long been a personal dream of mine ever since I read about it in French class in eighth grade.



We also saw a KFC. Generally the words KFC and restaurant do not exist so close to each other in America.



We got a chance to go through Notre Dame after waiting in a long, long line. The line to go up to the top was about ten times longer so we opted to just hang out around Notre Dame for a while before journeying onward.



We also saw the most badass winged lion-serpent ever.



The line for Notre Dame grew a bit when we returned later.



We had some delicious sorbet at this place that claimed to have the best ice cream in Europe. We can neither prove nor disprove this as we foolishly had the sorbet. It was pretty damn good though (as someone who does not love sorbet).



This guy was at Paris Plage playing a Kamale Ngoni, something I of course did not know until after speaking with him. He ended up being from New York City. Go figure.



After about eight hours we returned to our hotel garden with some stuff we purchased at the local supermarket. My one regret: when we got to our room we saw a commercial for these snack crackers that look like little pizzas. Those are already on my shopping list for next time.



For dinner we headed out to Les Cocottes on Jen's uncle's recommendation. It was pretty great. We had country pâté, roast pigeon, ravioli aux langostines and la fabuleuse tarte au chocolat de Christian Constant.



Then we headed towards the Eiffel tower which we were able to capture, a little closer this time, in all its evening glory.

Now we are back at the hotel, once again, watching the Olympic recaps (in German for some reason) and updating the pictures. There are a million more pictures posted on my Flickr account for those interested.

Tomorrow, depending on the weather, may be a good museum day, but who knows. If the meteorologists in France are as reliable as their American brethren we may just spend all day outdoors once again.

6 comments:

caolan said...

I am dazzled by the niceness of your hotel china!

Unknown said...

That's funny because I was thinking of you while we had breakfast yesterday. It seemed like your style.

Sandy said...

It is exciting to read about your trip and brings back very good memories for us.

Lauren.Story said...

Jen, I love your Hair!!!! It looks GREAT. And you look so French :) Beware of French men whispering to you. They are out there. Oh and Nate, you look like a rock star in thoes glasses.

Love you guys,
Bunny

Aaron Bertrand said...

Um, did you really mean to type "roast pigeon"?

Aaron Bertrand said...

Sorry, this is Aaron Bertrand. No idea why my name comes up as "abgmail"... sounds like a really bad spam product.