Paris

We went to Paris for the weekend! Boy does it sound neat to say that! We took the high speed Thalyus train that travels from Amsterdam through Den Haag, Rotterdam and Brussels (Belgium) and into Paris Noord. The ride took 4 hours and we arrived in Paris around 1pm.

Justice and Jagger playing cards on the train.

We booked a room at La Tocadero, a 4 star hotel in Central Paris near the Seine River. The hotel was nice, but the rooms were the typical small European hotel rooms. One of the bathrooms had a bidet. Jagger thought it was a baby bath tub! YUCK! I found it ironic that we traveled all the way to Paris and the painting over one of the beds was of a scene in Scranton Pennsylvania! I was expecting something a little more exotic!





The weather in Paris was absolutely beautiful! It was warm and sunny with a nice breeze blowing.





It's really too bad that the people weren't warm and sunny too. I guess it is true what they say about the French....the people were very pushy in the streets. The cab drivers were down-right rude (at least the ones that would even stop and pick us up – more than one cabbie started to pull over to get us and then saw the family and pulled away). One cab driver expected all 5 of us to sit in the backseat! Jeff asked him to move his maps and things from the front seat so he could sit there and he wouldn't do it! Instead he was telling the kids to move over and make room for their dad! Needless to say we got out of that cab and we were not very happy about it.

The people in Paris stopped in groups to talk on the sidewalk and didn't move out of the way or even acknowledge that they saw us trying to get past - even when we were pushing a child in a stroller. The woman at the bakery said to me “I do not speak English” in perfect English. It was obvious that she CAN speak English but chooses not to! Traffic was a nightmare! And the smog was awful! Justice woke up the next morning with terrible allergy problems – we're sure it was the pollution because you could see it in the air! Too bad the French aren't as keen on bike riding as the Dutch are. And do you know that over 600 people in Paris are taken to the hospital each year because they have slipped on dog shit on the sidewalk? Seriously. My tour book says so. And after touring Paris I believe it.




Despite the people and smog we did have a good trip. We saw sights that I never thought I would see in my life.....I'll continue with photos on other pages.



Lunch at a French Outdoor Cafe