Day One & Two - Follies Paree

Now that I am finally over jetlag _and_ kinda caught up with work and home, I have decided to start posting about our trip to France.

We took off from Austin a little delayed, but we were gracious to the flight attendants for giving us the bulkhead seats. Nicole was very well behaved and actually spent most of the flight watching Wallace and Gromit, The Curse of the Were Rabbit. Since our flight to Chicago from Austin was pretty uneventful, the flight from Chicago to Paris had to have a few ‘speedbumps’. First, we weren't so lucky on obtaining bulkhead seats on the 8 hour flight _and_ we had a couple of rambunctious kids bordering on obnoxious sitting directly behind us. Their antics ran the gamit of troublesome behavior, including kicking the backs of our seats to screaming for what seemed like hours (Nicole on the other hand slept for at least 5 hours). Second, airplane food is airplane food, nothing to write home about. Finally, when we arrived at Charles De Gaulle, we had to endure the unfortunate situation of having to park the airplane quite a distance from the actual terminal. This meant that we had to deboard the plane onto a moveable stairway then onto a bus while trying to cart several carry-ons and a groggy three year old. Thank Goodness for Alise!

Places we visited on our first day:
We walked around with ‘tour guide extraordinaire', Stacy. (Alise and I decided she could do this for a living.) We started the tour from her apartment around St. Germain de Pres, Ile de la Cite, and the Notre Dame Cathedral. We ate lunch (Alise and I had croque madames or grilled ham and cheese with egg on top for you not so cultured readers ; ^ ) ) at Bistro Marguerite, rode a beautiful carousel, walked around the Louvre and then rested in the Tuilieries gardens where Nicole played with a petit bateau on the fountain waters. After that we walked back towards Stacy’s in search of food and a few household supplies. Alise and I ate a great picnic like dinner that included smoked salmon, toast, cornishons, olives, blue cheese and yummy wine. After getting both of us, meaning Nicole and I, (Alise took care of herself and Stacy was out) ready for bed, I was exhausted and fell asleep quickly to dream about pastries, foie gras and pate to come.

This is one of my favorite photos from the first day. I am not sure what Nic was up to although it has something to do with her latest obsession, her derriere.