The Paris adventure begins

Ahhhhhh, Paris.

My impatience to go stay with our friend's was beyond patience anymore. Although things are very hazy now as I try to remember, I do remember how very much Pat and I wanted to see Paris.

The day finally came to go. Pat, our two girls and myself piled into their family car for the hour long drive. Trying to tell myself to take it all in, to remember these moments, it's really interesting how even if a person burns these events into their mind, they just won't stay that way.

When we arrived in Paris, I knew nothing of the history or of the various architectural things surrounding me. I remember seeing lots of gold, lots of very eerie gargoyles, and lots of really intricate and ancient structures. I remember the Arc d' Triumphe, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and looking at this building in awe only to discover that it was just apartments.

What was probably the hardest thing about this leg of our journey is that I knew that we only had one full day to cram in everything. LouAnn and Collere explained that the Louvre would take a full 7 days alone to see so we had to come up with things that we really wanted to explore.

So much, so overwhelming was this task that I left it up to Pat. For myself, I could have spent 2 weeks just ogling the beauty of this City. I had never seen anything nor have I since that took my breath away quite like that. It's too hard to put into words and the photos that I do have, well, they will never do justice.

Our first night there was spent planning and getting comfortable. It was getting pretty late by the time we arrived. We had to go on a Friday as LouAnn and Collere worked during the week. It was very kind of them to offer us this opportunity and to cancel their weekend soiree at L'Ermitage and Pat and I were so grateful. I have said how wonderful these people were, well, lets just say that the apartments were quite small. Space was very limited not only in the car but also in their home. And they had their little girl as well. But somehow, we managed.

The next day was to be completely used for sight seeing. And the agenda we had come up with was crammed! Notre Dame was definately on the list, the Eiffel Tower, Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetry, a little souveneir shopping of course, and some other things that LouAnn and Collere wanted to show us. But ultimately is was very difficult to decide knowing full well that with three kids under age 3 and only one day, that it was going to be a full day. And that is most definately an understatement!

So, in my next post, I will put up some photos of the various things that I will speak of. Hopefully Pat and I can decipher what's what as I didn't write on the backs of these photos. Not to mention that we saw things so briefly and quickly, trying to remember what is what has always been a struggle. **sigh**

So, my next entry will be about our 1 day in Paris. Of course it will probably turn into an entry for each place we visited but I will tell you this, my favorite entry/entries will most likely be from our cemetary visit, of all of my memories in France, this is the one that stands out even to this day so, stay tuned...........