Europe Journal
5/16/2001 - 6/3/2001
Jason Victor

Day 3 - 5/17 - Busy Tourist Day! (aka Quazi-Modo Day!)

Weather: Same as yesterday, but cooler
Locations: Still Paris

We started the day with a complementary breakfast at our hotel. I love this place! But we started our day of being tourists off to a wrong start when we went the wrong way going to "Notre Dame" Cathedral.

But we found a metro and quickly made it to "Notre Dame!" We found Quazi Modo and took a few pictures.

Then, we climbed to the top of the towers! (380 steps to the top!) We saw incredible gargoyles and details of the architecture. We saw the biggest bell in the tower (weighing in at 15 tons) (named "the great bell"). Pretty original, eh? Gotta hand it to the French!

Picture 22 is a reminder of how tall Notre Dame's south tower (the one on the right) is.

After Notre Dame, we wanted to trance the steps of Mirelle et Robert. Unfortunately (you guessed it) ... we got temporarily lost and took some pictures in a Medieval garden.

Then, we got back on track. We found "La Sorbonne" and Hilary used their bathroom! =)

From there, we went and bought sandwiches and had a picnic "a la Jardin de Luxemburg." It was absolutely beautiful. It looked like a modern Greece with beautifully trimmed trees and flowers intertwined with Greek-looking French marble sculptures.

We thought that now that we've eaten, we could head out to Jim Morison's grave at "Cemetaire Pere la Chaisse." It reminded me a lot of "Saint Louis Cemetery ... number one ... in New Orleans. It was huge! There are so many French, dead, rich people! We found Robert Strauss' grave. Jim Morison's grave. There was no more graffiti on it. They must have cleaned it off.

<-- Reminded me of a puzzle in Shivers II

After that, we went back to "La Seine" to take a boat ride up and down the river. (Most pictures are with Hilary's camera on this one.) =)



I look like a tourist, don't I?

We concluded the day by going to the symbol of France: The Eiffel Tower.

We went to the top [via elevators] and saw the most tremendous views of Paris. We could see everything! We timed it perfectly, too. We made it to the very top just in time to see sunset. It was so romantic! We saw a couple up there with wine and two glasses. It was "tres Francais."

When it got dark, we went back down the Eiffel tower (after pushing a number of elderly French women out of our way =). It started sparkling and lit up! So we saw the Eiffel tower at night, too. We grabbed some ice-cream and sat by the Seine to end the perfect (but busy) day in Paris.

~fin~

PS: My legs are killing me!

PPS: Hilary's legs fell off!

PPPS: Oh yeah, and we ate dinner at some place that wasn't very good because it was noisy. A kid kept running in from the street and yelling French words, and they kept playing the same damned French dance song while we were eating!