Bonjour Paris!

Bon voyage!

This is going to be a long entry to catch you all up. We arrived in Paris Monday morning about an hour late. We were jet-lagged and a little weird after taking our Ambien. Amy had acted a little crazy and I tried to take out my contacts four times on the pill. They were already out when I tried the first time. Our driver, Bernard, met us at the airport. We of course felt extremely famous and important when he greeted us with a sign: "David Taylor." Oui.
He whisked us through the city to our first hotel. We were duped by the AC in the lobby. Amy, Mike and I went up to our strange little room where I looked forward to sleeping on a pull-out loveseat. Mom and Dad got their room a few minutes later. Unfortunately for them, their room had a view of construction through thick plastic. At least they could hear the construction; they could see nothing and had zero breeze. We looked for other accommodations pretty quickly.

La Tour Eiffel

We headed off in the direction of the city's most famous landmark: La Tour Eiffel. Our first look was just out of the metro. We walked toward the monstrous tower and got in line for the trip to the top. When we got to the front, I said, "Are we sure this is the right line?" Dad said, "This is right--see, "Escalier'" and pointed to the escalator picture. "Right, but that's French for stairs."
Mom was a champ. Mike thought he was going to swallow his tongue, but we made it up. Afterwords we took a little bus ride and then walked the long way home. I thought we were a little closer to our hotel, but I was wrong wrong. We finally made it back, and some of us felt the weariness of traveling. We met Adam and Casey Hammond at our hotel and went out for dinner at about 8:30pm--very Parisian. Even more Parisian, dinner took about 2 1/2 hours.

French Onion Soup--Paris' only original dish

Yesterday we headed out to Versailles. The day started a little grumpy, but attitudes took a hike as soon as we walked into the Royal Chapel at Versailles. The ceilings were beautiful, the organ overlaid with gold. My dad, who kept making American jokes all day (e.g. "Where we eating? Wendy's?") finally looked impressed. My mom left with a sore neck from looking up amazed. The rest of the chateau was like that, including the famous Hall of Mirrors and the unparalleled gardens. We saw the magnificence from a little golf cart, till we got kicked off for breaking the four person limit. Mike, Amy and I had to hoof it back from the Domaine Marie-Antoinette to the Grand Canal and up the steps past the Apollo Basin. I know, you feel really sorry for us. I'll include the Versailles pictures another time; they're all on Amy's camera.
Last night we walked along the Champs Elysses from the Arc du Triomph to the Place du Concorde, where the French people beheaded most of the monarchy. We ate a nice dinner and turned in. This morning we met Adam and Casey again and headed to the Louvre. I have never been man-handled by so many Asians before. They know how to get where they're going. Oh wow, umph, there's, ow, the, hey!, Venus de Milo.

La Louvre

Tonight we're dinner cruising on the Seine.
Au revoir, the Taylors