Day 1

The girls and I headed in to Paris on Bastille Day (July 14th) which, for us DC-ers, is like maneuvering the city on the 4th; crazy and quite an insane undertaking. Nevertheless, we did it! Stopped by the apartment which is near the Bastille (or rather where the Bastille was... it's now a monument... hence the celebration of the day it was destroyed).

Then headed to the Champs-Elysees. Gorgeous day for walking around Paris.

Didn't have the laptop so I'll reflect what I wrote in my journal:Paris... reminds me of NYC only with better architecture (remember this is day one). The metro system... totally easy to navigate. Doc's apartment is extremely small. Probably the size of my dining room and kitchen. The bathroom is literally a closet, but who cares? It's Paris. Grabbed lunch @ a local restaurant ... oh man trying to read the menu was hilarious. I got through. Remembered that Jambon meant ham... which is a no for me. :)

The skylight was beautiful for pictures along the Champs-Elysees... the trees are all so perfectly rectangularly cut. Hard to imagine Hitler and his army marching down something so beautiful in the name of something so awful. Met up with the cousin Abdul and checked out the Grande and Petite Palais then walked across Alexander III's bridge to the Place des Invalides. (this is the first chance I had to see the Eiffel Tower and the sun was perfect!)We walked down to the Tour d'Eiffel and saw the massive 600,000 + crowd that had gathered for the free concert and fireworks show.

We lasted all of about 20 mins there and headed back to the Place to grab some green space for the fireworks. The fireworks were nice, but the US definitely puts on a better show ;)Bought some wine from a local shop (great syrah) and asked for some spare cups at Starbucks (yes Starbucks) and had some wine while watching. Grabbed some tea @ Abdul's apt right on the Champs (boy that kid has it made) and then called it a night.