Sacre Coeur

I decided to go to Sacre Coeur today.  My friend Jacqui told me how much she loved it.  It is also in a different direction then I have been walking in the past, so I thought it would be kind of fun.  I wrote down Ternes, left on Courcelles turns into Batignolles, turns into Caulaincourt.  The streets here are super confusing!  I missed the first turn.  I ended up walking up Hoche.  It was okay because I ran into a random unicorn!  Haha!  It was just in a little nook that was outside someone’s door.  It was huge too!  Bigger than me! 

I kept walking up the street and found myself in a park.  There were kids coming in from recess.  It was fun watching them play and hearing them shouting to each other.  I also walked past this really cool cemetery.  I tried to figure out how to get in, but I couldn’t find an entrance.  I looked it up when I got back to the hotel and found out that it is opened to visitors.  Dang it!  I could have spent hours wandering around there!  The French aren’t big on personal space.  This cemetery was no exception!

Before I got to Sacre Coeur I walked through a place where there were many artists painting.  It was so cool!  They were so good.  One guy wanted to do a drawing of me.  What would I do with that?  If my kids were here, I would have loved to have drawings of them.  There were a couple of kids getting their portraits done.  These guys are good!  Finally I made it to the chapel.  We were allowed to go inside.  It was pretty and peaceful, but I would have to say my favorite part was walking here.

 Sacre Coeur

I decided to walk back toward the heart of Paris without any real plan.  I thought I would angle myself southeast and see where I came out.  I was guessing it would be around Notre Dame.  That would be okay.  Mike and I are planning on doing that later in the week, but I don’t think I would mind to do it twice.  I walked and walked and walked.  Pretty soon the area started getting quite scary.  I didn’t want to stop and look at my map for two reasons.  I didn’t want to look lost and I didn’t want to stop walking . . . I did not feel comfortable at all!  I went past a metro station where there were homeless people sleeping right by the entrance.  The streets were getting smaller.  Construction was everywhere.  Things were getting dirty.  All of a sudden I came to a giant freeway.  I thought there had to be some way to get over it or under it.  I took a side street and was going to take this narrow passage when I noticed I would be forced to walk by about ten scary looking dudes.  I changed my plans and went towards this gas station.  I still had to walk by scary dudes, but not in such a tight enclosed area.  I walked past the gas station and started walking back up when I realized there was no way across the freeway from this direction.  I decided to backtrack.  I walked back about ten minutes, past many scary people and places.  I finally found somewhere to sit out in the open where I thought I was relatively safe.  I pulled out the map and saw that the major freeway was Porte de La Chapelle.  What?  I started to worry that I ended up in the wrong direction!  There is a freeway that goes around Paris.  The top of my map says Porte de La Chapelle, but I think that is the name of the entire thing.  I’m not sure though.  I decided to walk back to the Metro station.  It was station 12.  I ended up walking in the complete wrong direction.  This was very frustrating because I walked just under two hours.  I guess I had been going in circles.  Scary, scary circles.

I decided to bite the bullet and buy a Metro pass back.  I was so tired of walking, I was a long way from where I needed to be and I didn’t want to get lost again.  I noticed if I got off in two exits I could take the number 4 Metro and end up at Notre Dame.  I got off and started making my way to the next Metro when I found a sign that said that this station and the next four stops were closed until November 11^th.  Dang it!  I decided to just go back to the hotel.  I couldn’t remember the exit though.  I got off at Champs Elysees and found myself in front of the Grand Palais.  Katie had told me how much she liked the Petit Palais.  I decided to hang out in there for awhile.  It was pretty cool.  I’m not sure what I was looking at since all the descriptions were in French.  I did see some frog and peacock things though!

 Weird snake platter with frogs on the side

The next three paintings reminded me of my Beehive Olivia.  Her dad always takes pictures of dead animals he finds on his bike ride and uses the hashtag notdeadsleeping.  These next three pictures are the 'Not Dead Sleeping' collection.

I was surprised to see this statue.  Look at the platter he is holding!

 Look familiar?  Weird snake with frogs on the side.

 For Jorja

 For Maysen

 For Dad

Once I left Petit Palais I knew I could find my way back.  It was a walk, but at least I knew where I was and I was out of the scary part of town!  All I needed to do was walk to the Arc de Triomphe.  It always seems to take forever to get there.  It is huge, so you think it isn’t that far away.  Nope.

Arc de Triomphe

I decided to cross on the other side of the street, wondering if it was shorter.  I usually have to cross four streets, this time I had to cross 8. The streets are laid out kind of like a wagon wheel.  There are about 12 roads coming out like spokes from the Arc de Triomphe.  It is crazy watching the cars drive around!  That is one thing that would never be on my bucket list!

Once I get to the Arc, I find Mac Mahon.  That is easy to remember because it reminds me of Jim McMahon.  I walk down Mac Mahon until I get to Ternes.  That is also easy to remember because I think of, “Stephanie, turn here”  I stopped at this pastry shop and picked up a little treat.  I felt I deserved it after a day like today!  I shared the strawberry parts with Mike.

Mike finished his classes around 6:15.  We went to dinner at a place his friend Becky recommended.  People start lining up outside and the doors open at 7:00.  We got there about 6:30.  We were not the first ones.  Once they opened the doors they pack you in like sardines!  I don’t think they could have fit another table in if they tried!

Mike thought the tiny car was hilarious.

 Weird picture of me

They also serve everyone the same menu.  Bread, salad, steak with green sauce and French fries.  They give you 2/3 of your steak.  Once you have finished that they give you the last 1/3 so it will be warm.  Also they give you more French fries.  I held up my hand to indicate that it was enough fries.  So she gave the rest of my fries to Mike.  I probably ate more fries tonight then I had in an entire year!

The last thing was dessert.  This is the only thing you can choose.  The couple next to us told me the meringue dessert was delicious.  That is what I ordered because I couldn’t really understand the menu.  Holy cow she was right!  So yummy!  Mike got these cream puff things and we were going to share.  Instead we didn’t.  I wanted it all!  Good thing Mike likes cream puffs!

That is about it for today!  Mike spent most of the time after we got back working on his presentation.  It will be nice when he is finished with that.  I’m sure he’ll do fantastic.  He always does.  My feet are pretty sore.  Hopefully I’ll be as good as new tomorrow!

Napoleon

While Mike was at his meetings I spent the day wandering around Paris.  I decided I wanted to go back to the Louvre to see the Venus de Milo.  I was pretty sure Mike didn't care to see it.  One thing I have learned about France is a lot of people smoke.  A lot.  It is everywhere.  I hope my coat doesn't smell like smoke when I get home.  Before I left on my adventure I spent about an hour looking out the window.  I am trying to figure out how people drive here.  There is a round-a-bout outside our window with five streets connected to it and stop lights to mix things up.  There are no street lines, so it is basically a free for all.  I wouldn't want to drive here in a million years!  Okay, back to my day.  I started walking to the Louvre and still crack up at the sight of car shops.  For some reason I find them incredibly funny.

I got distracted and decided to make a detour to Invalides.  It was built in the 1600s by Lousi XIV to house wounded soldiers.  It looks huge! There are these cool golden statues over the bridge on the way there.  I don't have good pictures of those, but these statues guard the water.

 Invalides

I wandered around until I found the Dome Church where Napoleon's tomb is.  That thing is huge!  It actually has 6 layers.  The first is a tin-plate, second is mahogany, third and fourth are lead, fifth is ebony and the sixth layer is oak.

Napoleon's remains from the top floor

 The entire church is pretty fancy

 The ceiling above Napoleon's remains

 Napoleon's remains from the bottom floor

I can't remember exactly where I took this picture, but I think it was the Petit Palais.  It was closed today, but I think this is what the picture is of.  Even if it is not, it is crazy how many statues and carvings are around this city.  Everywhere you look.  Most of them are hundreds of years old.  Mindboggeling to think about.

I did finally make it to Venus de Milo  crazy that this was sculpted around 100 BC.  I waited forever while these two girls took selfies. They were doing this for a long time!  I don't think they knew each other.  I wish I would have started to take the pictures earlier because I would have gotten some good ones of the girl on the left.  She was funny to watch pose.

 Cool looking sarcophagus

 Equally cool looking mustache

Mike had to spend the day at boring meetings, although he doesn't find them boring for some reason.

Mike was asked to talk about how Overstock used Openstack.  He focused specifically on Overstock's pet adoption site.

Mike's favorite (free) shirt he received.

Mike and I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant that was near the hotel.  We shared a calzone and it was delicious.

Arc de Triomphe

We made it to France!  Even though the plane was awesome and the seats were comfortable, it was still pretty hard to sleep on the plane. We were quite tired when we got here.  We got our luggage just fine and made our way to figure out how to get on the train to Paris.  We stopped at an information booth to get help.  There we also picked up an 'All Museums Pass'.  Everyone we have talked to recommended it. Mike has today and Thursday/Friday where he can use the pass.  We ended up both getting a 6 day pass.  Later we found that because it is the first Sunday of the month most of the museums are free.  Whoops. We asked the information lady if we could buy a train ticket from her. She told us it would be cheaper to get it somewhere else.  We found train ticket vending machines, but our card wouldn't work.  Megan had warned us about that.  At a lot of places in France they will only take cards that have a chip in them.  We had euros, but we were trying to figure out what the best thing to do was.  This guy came up to help us.  I wasn't really paying attention because he was talking to Mike.  He asked if we had euros, we did.  We thought he was going to help us work the machine, but he put his credit card in and bought our ticket and wanted us to give him 20 euros.  Mike didn't want to.  Mike said, "But it says it (the ticket he handed Mike) is only .90 euros."  The guy told Mike that was the airport tax.  Everything is in French, so I have no idea what is going on.  Mike didn't feel good about it, but the guy was so pushy Mike ended up handing him 20 euros for the tickets.  The guy helped us get on the train and we were off to Paris.  Mike was so mad at himself.  He kept saying, "I know he ripped us off.  Why did I let him do that?"  Besides, now Mike can't get reimbursed for the train ticket.  Anyway, when we were transferring from the train station to the metro the doors wouldn't opened.  Yep, the guy ripped us off.  He bought a ticket for the next stop over and we had no idea.  Looking back it was pretty obvious.  Mike said the guy was pretty secretive when he punched in the information, he kind of angled his body so Mike couldn't see what he was doing.  He hurried us onto the train before we could figure it out.  I thought he was just being nice.  Mike ended up pushing his way through the stall.  He was carrying two suitcases, so it looked like he just got stuck.  I ended up following someone through the stroller exit with my two suitcases.  We then got on the metro and we were able to make it to our hotel.  Mike said, "Well, I don't feel good about it, but I don't feel bad about it."  He was totally mad about the guy and that he gave him the euros, but relieved that we were able to make it to our hotel without having to pay again.  Hope the rest of the trip doesn't turn out like this!

Check-in time at the hotel is 3:00.  We got here around 11:00.  Luckily we were able to get a room.  It is a different room then what we would have had, but we were fine with it.  I'm pretty sure our other room had a view of the Eiffel Tower, but it was worth it to get a bed quickly.  Mike took a nap as soon as we got here.  I have a hard time taking naps, so that didn't really work for me; but it was nice to rest in a calm environment.  We left the hotel at 3:00 so Mike could get registered for his conference, then we decided to walk the streets of Paris.  We ran into this sheep that reminded us of the one Mike grew up with. Grandma Honey had three different sheep similar to this in the family room.  My kids loved to play with them.  Especially Maysen.

We walked to the Arc de Triomphe.  It is about a 15 minute walk from our hotel.  It is huge!  Napoleon wanted this built to honor the soldiers of France.  The carvings are just beautiful.  There used to be parades that would go through here celebrating their victories.  Once a plane even flew through it.  Now there is an unknown soldier buried here along with an eternal flame.  They still have parades, but they go around the Arc now.

Stephanie

We climbed many, many stairs to get to the top.  They were spiral stairs and really close together.  If you are severely claustrophobic this would be tough to do!  At the top of the Arc you can see all of Paris.  Every direction has something beautiful to look at.  It is really cool.  We saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time from the top.  Awesome. 

 Stephanie & Mike

 Stephanie

We then made our way to the Tuileries Gardens.  Mike loved this face palm statue.  It was sculpted in 1896 by Henri Vidal.  It is named Cain and is supposed to be Cain after he killed Abel.

I think the face palm is because he forgot to wear pants.

 Mike and I in front of the mini-arc.
The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

 I guess this arc wasn't big enough so Napoleon needed another one.

Next we went inside the Louvre and found the Mona Lisa.  It seems tiny compared to the giant mural  that is in the same room.

Mike thought this painting was the greatest.

I wanted to see the Venus de Milo, but the museum closed while we were looking for it.  Our walk back to the hotel took about an hour.  We passed all these stores, but the craziest ones were the car stores.  Maybe this is how they sell cars in France, but it seems so crazy!

Giant slide at a fancy car store

We ended the day at the restaurant in the hotel.  It was pretty late when we got back and we were hungry!  My feet are sore.  Tomorrow I am wearing my tennis shoes!

To France!

I was up until about 2 am last night/this morning.  I got a small book for each of my kids and one for my dad.  I wrote day by day what they needed to do while we were gone.  I had no idea it would take me that long.  I probably should have typed it out, it would have gone much faster.  I was worried they would lose papers and I'm hoping they will keep track of this little book.  Even though it took me forever, I know I will enjoy this trip much better.  I was hoping to go to my exercise class this morning, but I stayed up way too late to be able to handle that!  My dad came and picked us up about 9:00.  I'm so sad that I can't find my ds.  I know it's silly, but I was really looking forward to getting street passes from France.  Especially since I will be by myself for a few days, I knew this was something I would really have fun with.  We're pretty sure I left it in the car when we dropped it off at the shop.  Dang it! Now I understand how frustrated Stockton was when he couldn't find his ds before we left on our cruise last Christmas.  Getting street passes at the airport is pretty fun.  I tried to talk my kids into letting me take theirs, but they did not like that idea at all.

Our first flight was to Detroit.  For some reason our seat assignments were changed.  Mike and I both had window seats.  He sat behind me. Neither of us had anyone sit next to us.  (The isle seat was occupied, but not the middle one.)  It wasn't that long of a flight and Mike had to work on his presentation anyway, so it worked out.  I had fun looking out the window.  Clouds from above are so pretty.

Circle rainbow

 Hole in the cloud

I wasn't able to watch the BYU game, but I was able to see the score.  It is nice to finally have a win! Several of my friends are at that game.  I'm glad it turned out well for them.  We were on the second flight for about seven hours, but with the time difference we arrived Sunday morning. The plane was new.  We doubled the miles the plane had with this flight.  The seats were so comfortable!  Although it was still hard to sleep.  There was more leg room, so that was nice.  Mike loved that every seat had a usb port and an outlet.  He had his laptop plugged in and was able to work more on his presentation.  That was nice.  They sure fed us a lot too.  I guess it helps pass the time.