Thursday, May 10, 2012 and Friday, May 11, 2012

Sam & I drove to Oklahoma City last evening to spend the night with Amy and Scott before beginning our adventure to Paris, France – the City of Lights.  Amy and Scott are joining us on this trip.  We know it will be many hours of travel to reach Paris.   We started out in the OKC airport by arriving there about 11:45 a.m.(CST). to get checked-in for our 2:15 p.m. flight.  First part of the trip was a short 2 hour flight to Chicago O’Hare Airport.  After a three hour lay-over we left Chicago at 7:15p.m. bound for London, England.  Because of a 6 hour time difference we arrived in London at Heathrow Airport around 8 a.m. (2 a.m CST).  We were able to sleep 3-4 hours on the plane despite the screaming babies and other noises.  We changed terminals in London and made it onto the plane there for the two hour flight to Paris.  Arriving in Paris about 2 p.m. we contacted the pre-arranged shuttle transportation and made our way from Charles DeGaulle Airport to our mid-town hotel in the Eiffel area of town.  We drove right next to the Arc de Triomphe, across the Seine, past the Eiffel Tower and to our hotel called the Tourisme on La Motte-Picquet Grenelle.  All the buildings are beautiful, old, stone buildings with 6-8 floors with big windows and balconies.  There are many little cafes and restaurants with outside seating on every street.

 

Our rooms are on the third floor of the newly remodeled section of the hotel.  We are in 312 and Amy & Scott are in 311.  Both rooms are very nicely done and very small.  Just about enough room for a queen size bed and a couple of small closets.  The bathrooms are very modern also but, again, very small.  Our window opens onto the street and theirs onto an inner courtyard.   We settled into the room a little, changed clothes and started out walking down the street towards the Champ de Mars, a large park that lies between the Military School and the Eiffel Tower.  But, first, because it was around 6 p.m. we stopped at a restaurant on the way.  We were very kindly treated and enjoyed a very delicious meal.  Scott had a salmon and cheese pizza, Sam & I ate veal scallopini and Amy enjoyed a risotto with ham. 

We then walked down about a block to the beginning of the park.  Our hotel is just about 4-5 blocks away.  At the end was the Eiffel Tower soaring up into the air.  The trees lining the part are cut to shape in to squares to present a very trim appearance.  The park is several blocks long and full of people walking, sitting and lounging.  We finally arrive at the base of the tower where we joined a line waiting for tickets to go up into the tower.  The wind was blowing and it was cloudy making it was quite cool.  We waited about an hour, inching our way along, to get our ticket.  Then we got in a glass walled elevator with about 30 other people to go up to the second level of the tower.  It was very cold and windy up there!  We bought tickets to go all the way to the top so stood in another line for about 15 minutes in order to ride a small elevator to the enclosed observation deck way, way up at the top of the tower!  After seeing all we could and taking some pictures we started down in the elevators to the ground.  It was beginning to get dark and the lights were coming on the tower.  We didn’t see how pretty that was until we started walking back across the park to our hotel.  Then all of a sudden we heard a cheer from the crowd in the park.  We turned to see the tower and all the flashing lights going up and down the Eiffel tower, making it look like it was sparkling like a diamond in the sun!  That lasted about 5 minutes.  It was really pretty.  Arriving back at the hotel about 10:30 we decided it was time for bed.  Am anticipating a busy day tomorrow.