BUT...whatever
the French lack in COFFEE, they MORE than make up for in PASTRIES and
BREAD!
Then,
again, NEVER order STEAK! Poor Anya—this meal was her FIRST experience
having a steak in her entire life! And, it is AFTER Steve had sent our
orders back to the kitchen complaining the meat had NOT been COOKED! Hoof
& Mouth WHAT???
The
French subway system is exceptionally clean, well-run, and convenient...IF
you can speak French!
If
Anya were not fluent in French and able to figure out their SUBWAY system,
Steve would STILL be living as a homeless person— somewhere—under
Paris!
This
poster advertising 'something' was in the subway and I just had to get
a photo of Lena appearing in front of the ad.
Being
a lover of seafood, Lena thought that having a fresh French fish dinner
on the Champs-Elysées would be exciting. It turned out to be one
of the WORST meals she ever had been served. (Steve enjoyed his meat and
"French" fries.)
Ah-h,
YES! NOTRE DAME cathredral in Paris. (But, we never did get to see that
HUNCHBACK GUY!)
Actually,
it did not take us too long to get sort of “cathredralled-out”
since the tour tended to hit the “Notre Damn” in every town
along the way!
The
enterway side of Notre Dame had to be taken with a wide-angle lens in
order to fit the entire height of the structure into the 35mm format,
so the sides of the cathedral look quite distorted when viewed from this
perspective!
Trying
to get a photo of the interior of any of the cathedrals without having
a tripod for the camera (or VERY fast film) is not easy due to their darkness
and huge size, but we did take this one photo of Notre Dame just to prove
we had actually gone INSIDE the place!
This
ferris wheel is located at one end of Champs-Elysées in the area
where the Royal Family (plus thousands of other rich nobility) had lost
their heads on the guillotine during the French Revolution.
From
the top of the ferris wheel it was possible to see most of Paris. While
the sky was somewhat hazy, the view was actually pretty good.
We
thought that the view of the Eiffel Tower as seen in the distance from
the top of the ferris wheel was more impressive than when viewed up close.
But, a more clear day would have helped the photo!
This
is a view of the Arc de Triomphe at the far end of Champs-Elysées.
This
closer-up view ot the Eiffel Tower was taken during a boat tour of Paris.
Why
did Steve always think the Eiffel Tower was ENCLOSED (like the Empire
State Building in New York) until he saw it?
The
elevators worked; the lines weren’t too bad; and, so we saw Paris
from the top of the Eiffel Tower. (Actually, it looked sort of like any
big city from a very tall building!)
Speaking
of elevators: This view of the Mother of All Giagantic ERECTOR SETS as
seen through the glass elevators on the way up (or down!) sort of grabs
your attention.
Our
French family knew some GREAT ‘non-tourist’ restaurants and
could recommend some wonderful French food selections that Steve had never
tried while growing up in the cornfields of Ohio!
We
were introduced to some exotic and erotic French rendendation of a GREEK
meal that included lamb, beef, and other unrecognizable specialities of
the house.
After
23 years in the Navy, Steve thought he had “seen it ALL in a bar.”
BUT, when this French waiter picked up a table and chair setting in his
TEETH and carried them around the restaurant, Steve was impressed! This
guy has to be a DENTIST’S DREAM COME TRUE!
Steve
could NOT believe that the French had erected (no pun intended!) a statue
near the Louvre which commemorates some of his best-forgotten ‘mornings
after’ during his more ‘active’ younger years!
One
of the things which impressed us was the width of the sidewalks along
the Champs-Elysées.
Steve
was NOT surprised that one of these carved wooden cats followed us back
to San Diego. But, he WAS surprised when it wanted a real-life RAGDOLL
kitten as a friend!
