D135 -- Crazy, fun-filled day

We introduced Sarah to the wonders of the chocolaty goodness that is the macaroon today. Ahh.. macaroon. The way we carry on about food in almost every blog entry, I am fully expecting that when we get home there will be some sort of intervention held by our family and friends with the help of a food addiction specialist.

After the chocolaty goodness we walked to Notre Dame. While waiting in line to climb the tower we met an American who appeared to be traveling on his own. We chit chatted for a while and he told us that we should be careful on the subway tonight because of all the rowdy soccer fans in town. There was a big match in Paris today between a team from Barcelona and a team from England. We'd already seen lots of people wearing jerseys and carrying flags, and when we got to the top of the tower (SO many stairs!) we could actually hear a bunch of the fans singing their team songs. Even the kids were singing out front. At least you couldn't hear them inside the church. It was very peaceful in there.

Our next stop: The Da Vinci Code. Thomas and I had both read the book and thought it was a real page turner, and since it is set in Paris we were excited to see the movie here. We told Sarah she could tour on her own while we went, since we didn't think she'd want to waste her precious time in Paris at a movie. But she opted to accompany us. Big mistake on all our parts! We waited through 45 minutes of commercials and previews – I kid you not! Do all Paris movie theaters do this? The movie was in English with French subtitles, which was good, but we hadn't thought through the whole language thing. Several important scenes took place in French, and of course there was no need for subtitles then, right? So, we missed a good bit of dialogue. And to top it off, the movie wasn't good! You know a movie is bad when half the audience laughs at what is supposed to be the most climactic moment. That's what we get for going to see a movie in Paris. Though in our defense, it's always an interesting cultural experience to see how foreign audiences react differently than American ones. For example, when a character in the movie compared the French DCPJ with the FBI, all the French people laughed. We didn't get it.

We walked to the Place de la Concorde to get back on track with our sightseeing, visited La Madeleine, a Catholic church that looks like a Roman temple dedicated to Mary Magdeline (how appropriate!) and then walked through the Tuileries to the Louvre (again, how appropriate!). And of course our first stop was the Mona Lisa. Beautiful as ever. I think Wedding Feast at Cana on the opposite wall is equally impressive. There is such amazing art work at the Louvre!

Not amazing enough to lure Thomas away from soccer, though. He went to go watch the big game at a pub while Sarah and I stayed to see more of the art. We saw Michelangelo's Slaves, an Egyptian mummy, the Venus de Milo, the base of the medieval castle that the Louvre was built upon (below), and tons more. Amazing!

We left the Louvre to travel to the final place on Sarah's short list of must-sees: the Arc de Triomphe. We took the metro from the Louvre so our first sight of the Arc was as we were coming up out of the metro station right in front of it. Beautiful!! Impressive!! Enormous!! I was excited to show Sarah the view, but while we were climbing the 284 or so stairs to the top it started to POUR! We had climbed all that way and this was Sarah's one shot to see the view so we went outside anyway. Our umbrellas were useless, and we could barely see though the rain. In a matter of minutes our jeans were soaked and we finally gave in and headed back downstairs, stopping in the museum to pause in horror at our bad luck. The statues couldn't believe it either.

To add insult to injury, it had completely stopped raining by the time we got back down to the ground!!! Oh, well. At least she got to see the Arc.

We were in a hurry to get home since we were soaked, so we stopped in at McDonald's. We could see the game was over because there were a lot of people in jerseys walking around. In fact, two of them almost got into a fight at the McD's counter. I remembered back to what the American tourist had told us this morning – beware of the subways! So I decided we should cab it home. But there were no empty cabs to be found, only full cabs and cars full of crazy soccer fans honking their horns. We were on the Champs-Elysee, and a guy came up to us and told us that we should try a couple of blocks up where it's not so crowded. We thanked him and walked off in the direction he pointed, and joked on the way there that maybe it was some kind of set up. “I tell these chicks to go two blocks up where it's nice and quiet, and then I have my partner in crime wait there to abduct them.”

While we were waiting on the quieter street, two different men approached us and told us that they weren't taxi drivers, but would take us where we needed to go for money. Uh, no thanks! Maybe we shouldn't have been joking about being abducted!

We finally gave up and walked back to the Champs Elysee to take the metro. But by this time the soccer fans were really out, and a huge group had congregated right in front of the entrance to the metro. This is going to be fun, I thought. But there were a lot of cops down below, so I felt better. There was one group of drunk, singing Englishmen on the platform, and I tried to discreetly video them over my shoulder. They were too drunk to notice, but another guy did. He came up to us and asked us if we wanted a picture, and said that he'd ask the guys to pose for us since he was British too. I told him no thank you, that I'd been taking a video of their singing, so then he calls a couple of guys over to sing for us. Uh-oh... I hope this doesn't get out of control!

It turned out to be fine, and we talked with the English guy on the train until his stop. He was very nice and funny and didn't appear to have been drinking, so that was refreshing. Alas, he was too old for Sarah. I'd like to think he would have invited us to the party he was on his way to had I not mentioned my husband several times. Yes, that's why – it had nothing to do with the fact that I looked like a wet hamster! Besides being wet, we were cold and exhausted once we got back to the apartment, but it was one heck of a day.

-Elva