Battlefields Tour--Day 1. Paris

Well, it's kind of day 1. Actually, I am home now. Things were so busy every day that I never had a chance to put pen to paper, so to speak.


It was a mad rush to get ready to go. May and June at school is at least hell and we finished on June 30. We had my Grandma's birthday on July 1 (even though she is no longer with us) and so I had the 2nd to get ready. The flight left on Saturday evening. I had packed everything I needed except an umbrella--an error I would discover several days later.


I hate flying. They don't make seats long enough for people like me. Even though I took my pillow and blankie, I only got about an hour's sleep. I could feel my feet and ankles swelling. I hate that.


So, an uneventful flight later, we landed in Paris. As we were going through the customs line, a guy walked up to me and asked if I was on the Battlefield tour. That was Paul. He had found Tammy--I thought she might be one of us as she was reading a book called "D-Day". A bit of a tip-off I thought. So we banded together. We were at Terminal 3 at Charles De Gaulle Airport. That means it's the Bataan death march to get to the train to take you to Terminal 2 where you can get cabs or the RER to take you into Paris. We were also on the lookout for Blake & Ben, Murray and Lane--all of whom were arriving around the same time that we were. We did find Blake and Ben but none of the others. I was rather looking forward to taking the train into Paris and making my way to the hotel. However, the others wanted to take a cab and bowing to peer pressure and not wanting to annoy my new acquaintances, I went with them. We found a cab, piled all our stuff in and off we went. At one point, we were doing 160 km/h on the highway. I've never driven that fast in a car I don't think. He first of all took us to the wrong hotel. Good think I noticed and said something because I had no idea where we were by this point. Eventually, we made it to our hotel in Montmartre. I think we paid too much for the taxi but we were there. We were too early to check in so we left our stuff in a locked room and set off to see a few things in Paris. I had been there before and knew how to use the Metro so I was designated tour guide. Turns out our hotel was around the corner from the Moulin Rouge so we took some pictures of that as we went to the Metro station.


We bought a day pass so we could get on and off a few times. It was only about 6 Euros so that was worth it.


Our first stop was the Arc de Triomphe. We popped up from underground and surprise, there it was. Took some pictures and went back downstairs to go across the road so we could get directly to it. I had not been that close before. Took some more pictures. There were tons of people there surprise, surprise. We didn't have time to dawdle. Next we were off the the Eiffel Tower. I have been there before too. Paul and Tammy wanted to climb the stairs up. No way I was going to do that--didn't want to wreck my knees completely before we even got going. So I waited at the bottom.


They wanted to go to Notre Dame and I wanted to go back to the hotel so I gave them the directions to get there, and they went that way and I headed back to the hotel to check in. It was nice to get into the room. Really nice place too. Mercure in Montmartre.


That first night, we had a group dinner--there was an English group with about 16 all together and a French group with I am guessing about 10-12. We walked again past the Moulin Rouge and up a small sidestreet to a restaurant that was opening just for us. The owner came and opened--brought us wine an appetizers and we had them on the sidewalk outside while we were meeting everyone.


The called us in when dinner was ready. We were served something that looked pretty weird and all of us ended up with different glasses of it--turned out it was beets in something that tasted like chip dip--it was really good despite my reservations upon first glance--beets are not my favourite. Then we had roasted chicken and quinoa which was also quite good. They brought in a woman to sing some traditional French songs about the neighbourhood and the area. It was interesting but I think some of it was lost on us English people. The lady was a little weird--maybe just French. Dessert was a lovely apricot/almond tart. Some people left early and missed it. Ha ha.


It really was time for bed by then. We walked home. I ended up walking home with Murray. Good thing too. What I hadn't realized was that in order to get to our hotel, we had to walk through Pigalle. All I have to say is that I am really glad that we didn't let the kids go to Pigalle when we were on our school trip a couple of years ago. It seems to live up to its reputation. Sex shops galore. I can't post some of the pictures since this might be read by someone who maintains polite company. All I can say is euw. I think Murray was a bit relieved to have me nearby on the walk home as the bouncers trying to entice men into the strip clubs kind of left him alone.


So, to the hotel and to bed it was. Morning was to come early the next day. We had to be packed and loaded and out by 7:30 in the morning. Off to Belgium!!