Parlez-Vous Français?

The answer to that question is a big fat no.  The day started with the four of us up and ready to go, bright and early, for our day in Paris.  We took a taxi to the train station and by 10:50 we were boarding the fast train from Brussels to Paris.  We bought 4 tickets which gave us 4 seats around a table for the ride but when we found our seats there were 2 men already sitting in them.  Jason was nice at first and politely said “Excuse me, you’re sitting in our seats.”  In accented English, one of the men responded with “we came all the way from Bonne.”  So Jason said, “well you’re in our seats”, and showed them our tickets.  Suddenly they started speaking in French and began gesturing for us to find other seats.  Well a hungry Cathy grabbed the tickets from Jason and laid the smackdown on our new German friends.  She grabbed the manager and showed him our tickets, who then made the STILL arguing men who had NO tickets and only a receipt, move to different seats.  Chris and I were standing back but when we walked by to sit down with Cathy and Jason we heard quite an animated conversation about “de Americans” that I’m pretty sure didn’t include the words “we love them” or “they are awesome”.

An hour later we arrived at the Gare du Nord where the train dropped us off.  We knew we would have to take the metro to where the tourist areas were, but with the signs in french, we were a little confused on how to find the right stop.  We couldn’t find anyone nearby who spoke English so we just looked on the map for anything that looked familiar.  We finally found the Louvre stop, paid our 1,40 euro and hopped on the subway.  We traveled a good 40 minutes before we finally got to our stop.  We headed out of the metro gate and I kept thinking, wow, I thought it would be much more like a city.  We quickly realized we had arrived at the Louvre…THE TOWN Louvre!  So back we went towards Paris and finally reached a downtown stop. 

We walked along the Seine to Notre-Dame cathedral, which was just amazing.  Actually, the whole city is amazing.  Once we found it, I loved every second we were there.  You can really spend a week there and never run out of interesting things to see.  We went inside Notre-Dame and again, it’s just beautiful.  We walked further down the river to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus Du Milo to name a few things.  I even got an illegal photo of the Crown Jewels of one of the Louis’.  Next we walked to the Obelisk and fountains and walked along the Champs-Elysees.  We took pictures of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.  We tried to walk all the way to the Eiffel Tower but it was getting late and we started having visions of sleeping in the train station so we got as close as we could and then jumped back on the metro to make the 20:55 train back to Brussels. We both loved Paris and wish we had more time to spend there.  But mostly we wish we had more time to spend with Cathy and Jason.  I also wish I had taken some French in high school!

Here are a couple of fun facts:  1. Europeans seem to love mayonnaise..a lot!  They don’t use ketsup on frites (french fries), they use mayonnaise.  2. French people seem to love butter..a lot!  We had a wonderful baguette with ham and cheese on the train home but I was a little startled when I realized it was ham, cheese, and butter.  But it was good!  Who doesn’t like butter?  3. There is such a thing as rotisserie chicken chips.  And they’re made by Lays!  And they taste just like rotisserie chicken. wierd.

We had a great time for this first part of our trip.  Tomorrow we fly to Dublin and are on our own in Ireland.  I think the last few days were a good crash course in getting around in Europe where people mostly spoke Dutch or French.  We’re now seasoned travelers who should have no problems in Ireland, right? 

Here are a few photos..

This is us in Brussels.

 And us in front of the Obelisk and Eiffel Tower.

 I’ll have lots more pictures to post later, but right now it’s time to sleep.  We have to get up early tomorrow.  Ireland here we come!