Paris

We're back from a three day weekend in Paris. We left our house midday on Saturday and took a bus to London and then transfered on the underground to the Eurostar station for the high speed train to Paris. Our trip started with a bit of excitement, since after bad traffic and a very late arrival at the bus station we found out that the line that runs right from the bus station to the train station was totally closed down and we had to take several different lines to get to the station. We were supposed to arrive 45 minutes early for our train and got to it 11 minutes early and ran through passport control onto the train.
We got to our hotel in Paris around 5pm and pretty much threw our stuff down in the room and took off on the metro for downtown. First we stopped at the Arc d'Triomphe and found our last name on it. From the Arc we had a good view of the Champs d'Elysee, a main shopping street in Paris. We walked from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower and got there just as they turned the lights on. It's usually lit with white lights, but for some reason it is currently lit with blue lights so the whole tower is blue. At 10pm and each hour until midnight they turn on sparkling white lights on the whole tower for 10 minutes. The effect is really neat to see.

Kelly in front of the Arc d'Triomphe

Kelly in front of the Eiffel Tower

We sat and watched the light show and then climbed the 1000+ steps up to the second level and got a good view of Paris at night. By the time we left the tower it was after midnight, so we went back to the hotel.
The next morning we started out at the Sacre Coeur, a white cathedral up on a hill overlooking the city. It rained a bit in the morning, but not near as much as was predicted and the rest of the time the weather was nice. We wandered through shops in the Montemartre district and made our way to Moulin Rouge. Since we didn't want to spring the 145 euros each for dinner and a show, we moved on to Notre Dame.

Climbing the many stairs to the Sacre Coeur

A quick rainstorm in Montmartre

The Moulin Rouge, birthplace of the Can-Can

Notre Dame Cathedral

Then we skirted by the Latin Quarter, the University of Paris (John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas are among the illustrious alumni), the Pantheon (a church turned public building turned church turned mausoleum that houses remains of accomplished Parisians) on our way to Luxembourg Gardens. We had lunch in the gardens and then called Pastor Liu, our friends father that we knew in San Francisco who is currently preaching at a mandarin church in Paris. We met him at his church that meets in the afternoon and went to the service. Though it was in Mandarin a couple people that spoke decent English were assigned to translate the service for us. Then Pastor Liu took us out to good chinese food in the Paris chinatown.

Us with Pastor Liu in a park before dinner

We went with him to the house of a church family after dinner and they happened to have free tickets to a boat ride on the Seine. So in true Chinese fashion they fed us more and then walked us to the underground station and sent us off to a free boat ride (which was pretty cool!)
The next morning we spent the entire morning and the first part of the afternoon in the Louvre and hardly saw a quarter of it. It was incredible!

In front of the pyramid at the Louvre

Then we went back to Montmartre to get some cheese and bread from the shops we found the day before. Unfortunately we didn't account for the fact that all of the shops would be closed on Monday afternoon for a siesta-style break. So we had to leave without bread and cheese. :-(

No fromage for us...

We caught the metro to the train to the underground to the bus to our bikes back home and are now exhausted!