Paris in Pictures

Laura here...
I thought I would post about Paris, too. It's not everyday you get to spend a weekend in Paris. So, once we arrived in Paris, we jumped in with both feet and did a whirlwind tour. Here's what we did:

DAY 1
Notre Dame: we picnicked outside and then a sudden rainstorm convinced us to admire the stained glass from the inside. After the rain cloud blew over we soaked up the fall colors.

Book shopping at Shakespeare & Co. If he had his way, Adam would have pulled up a pile of books and lived there! Louvre: We walked the outside of the museum first. The the Tuileries Gardens. Another rain storm convinced us we should see Monet's Water Lilies. Then it was back to the Louvre for the after 6PM Friday evening half price tickets! We are admittedly, not huge art fiends. But we do love to people-watch. And there were lots of people in the Louvre. They were more interesting then the art sometimes.
And Adam likes a good castle. Here he is next to a preserved moat wall in what felt like the basement of the Louvre...
DAY 2
Pantheon: church/monument to the Resistance and final burial place of Vistor Hugo (author of Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables) and Alexandre Dumas (Count of Monte Cristo).

Much walking: to Carnavalet (free museum!), through parks, the Jewish Quarter, and into a bakery for baguette sandwiches.

Opera Garnier: have you seen Phantom of the Opera... that's the Opera House. Supposedly there is an underground lake (how we were wishing we were Rick Steves or the hosts of a travel show, so we could get the "insider tour"!) and an 8-ton chandelier. We had to be content with the Grand Staircase and foyer. We hummed Masquerade for hours.Much more walking: along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower.

Then up, up, up the stairs, and an elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Very windy and a little scary!

Then, down, down down. And on to dinner- the best French Onion Soup I have ever had! We walked back to the Eiffel Tower for more pictures. And it was lit up like the European Union flag, blue with stars. At the top of the hour, it blinks! Then on to the Arc de Triomphe and late night shopping on the Champs Elysses. There were mobs of people and more traffic than we have seen in months at 11 PM! DAY 3
Catacombs: down below the water mains and the Metro system we walked a labyrinth filled with the bones of 6 million people. They are piled 5 feet high and sometimes 80 feet deep! It was sobering and a little creepy. Can you imagine priests bringing cartloads of bones down into this maze in the middle of the night by the light of a candle? This is my creepy shadow falling on the bones... Some cheese shopping...
Then back on the train and on to Mulhouse, and then Kandern.

One of the benefits of being a missionary in Europe is being in Europe!