Paris!!!

With the grace of God and the help of two literal and figurative angels and one very kind man, we made it to Brussels. 

Our day in Paris was, by most people's standards, not possible. We took the metro from our awesome host's (Jochen Kemnitz) house and started at Notre Dame.

We walked from there along the Seine River and saw many amazing buildings, mostly government offices, and many gardens. We made our way along to the Eiffel Tower to see it in all it's wonder in the day time. It seemed so much larger than at night! We planned to sit around there for a while, but someone was climbing where they shouldn't high up the tower, we left as police got involved. We then walked to the Arc de Triomph where we would have gone up, but on our limited budget we decided pictures from the bottom would suffice.

Then we walked down the famous shopping street that is he Avenue des Champs Élyées which landed us at the Palais du Louvre where we took more pictures outside without going in. Many of you may not realize I said walked for all of those distances in about 4 and a half hours, and our legs are very sore now because of the great speed and distance we covered. Looking back on describing Paris, one word comes to mind: grand. All the buildings and monuments and statues were all so grand , it was amazing to see. The main difference in our travels through France was the language difference. We learned a few phrases like "thank you" and "do you speak English?" And once people saw we were American, they were happy to try their English on us and it was easy to convey what we wanted to say. Sometimes, it was even fun! Now we look forward to Brugge and Brussles tomorrow!