City of Lights

Man, things have been a bit crazy here. Three weeks ago I was in Paris and then my cousin was here for two weeks. All of that being most excellent but busy busy. Plus I was teaching my English classes (which I must blog about soon) in midst of all of that.

Let’s recap PARIS, shall we? I landed at the Paris – ORLY airport and was determined to try out the metro instead of just catching a cab. It was so easy! (And I must admit I was quite proud of myself; just ask Jeannie as I mentioned the fact just a few hundred times) But then I chickened out doing it the way back – mostly from time constraints!

I met Jeannie at the Mercure Paris Opera hotel (not bad but absolutely nothing fancy) and we headed out for some food. After ditching two restaurants because they didn’t have exactly what we were looking for, we found the perfect one. We ordered two croque madams (pretty much a grilled ham and cheese with an egg on top – DELICIOUS), two beers and caught up on each other’s lives. Which sadly we never have enough time to do, we might need a few weeks at a quiet lake house for that.

Next up, the ferris wheel! Here are a few things we saw:

Can you see the reflection from the ferris wheel carriage?

The Louvre! So cool.

For the next two days we ate more croque madams (somehow that doesn’t sound right) and began our search for the best steak tartare. And my favorite of the three was at the Hotel Amour. We sat in their cute courtyard, were served bread with butter and almost licked the butter bowl clean. The steak tartare was spiced perfectly and came with a side order of steak frites. What’s there not to like!?

When we weren’t on our quest for the perfect food, I took photos. One thing to mention about Paris is that everything is so BIG! The buildings, the monuments, the churches = HUGE. I like things a bit more petite. How about that for using a french word in my post? By the way, I graduated college (Oklahoma State University WOOT!) with a minor in French, and now, I can speak n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Although I did come back to Spain saying Merci and Bonjour to everyone.

I have always been in love with the metro signs of Paris.

I love this one.

On our last night we headed up to Montmarte where many famous artists lived and worked – Picasso, Dali, Monet, van Gogh. How cool to walk the streets where they had walked, to look over the city like they did every day. And what a view it is!