Pouting, "French- style"

"Paris at Night"
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In typical fashion, we were persuaded to wake up extremely early so that we could have breakfast at the hotel in Lucerne before leaving for Paris.  We all looked forward to finally seeing the "City of Lights" but were somewhat distressed to hear that the bus ride would be about 8 hours long!  The long drive from Italy to Switzerland didn't seem too bad but the drive to Paris proved to be very different.

For the most part the roads leading from Switzerland to France resembled the NY State thruway.  In general the only things you could see were grass, trees, hills an occasional farm and cows.  Our tour director pointed out that cows in France were a particular breed and that they tended to be light tan in color.  In hindsight, I wish that I had had a digital camera on this trip.  I would've taken pictures of the cows as a means of entertainment.  I sat next to Mike on the bus and it looked as though he was doing his best to catch up on some much needed sleep.  I didn't want to disturb his rest so I never mentioned my observation to him.  All and I mean all of the cows I saw in the French countryside were laying down! Not a single one was standing or moving at all.  For all I knew they all could've  been fake cardboard cutouts! It was probably the strangest thing I observed on this entire trip.

"Eiffel Tower"
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Our bus made a few stops along the way and by late afternoon we arrived in Paris! To be perfectly honest, Paris disappointed me at first. Whenever we went anywhere in Switzerland, the cities appeared quaint and impeccably clean.  Paris was a big shock after that!  It is so much bigger in reality than I had ever imagined.  Because of it's size it also wasn't very clean.  I'd have to say that it was even worse than Rome in many areas! Talk about culture shock.  To add to the feeling of impending dome, we seemed to drive through  "the hood" to get to our hotel.

"Notre Dame Spire"
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In retrospect, I now realize that I felt this way for two reasons.  One reason being that Switzerland was so quaint and clean but the other was due to utter exhaustion. The rigorous schedule we had to keep as being parts of a chartered group was beginning to take its toll on me.  Each day we'd wake up early and go, go, go until we collapsed into bed at night.  The weather also didn't seem to be very cooperative.  It was quite cold and overcast.

When we arrived at our beautiful hotel, we received a complimentary map of the city (as we did at the other hotels we stayed at). I squealed with delight upon seeing that Pere LaChaise Cemetery was only a few blocks away! I was afraid that I would miss seeing it on this trip and it was very reassuring to see how closeby it was.  After a minor argument (we were all pretty tired) we began to head towards Notre Dame Cathedral. Mike walked in his usual quick pace and Christy and I had difficulty keeping up with him.  He seemed to slow down some once I informed him that Notre Dame would be closed once we reached it . (The cathedral closes at 5 pm and we didn't even leave our hotel until after 4:30.) We took pictures of the outside of this cathedral and of some typical Parisian streets before heading towards Ponte Neuf ("New Bridge") to board one of the historic Seine boat cruises.

It was very cold out that evening, especially when we got closer to the water. We boarded the boat and listened to the guide as she pointed out various monuments including: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Musee D'Orsay and the Louvre. First, she would talk about these sights in English and then would speak about them in French. It was interesting to compare the similarities and differences between the two languages.

Once the boat docked, I had a meltdown.  Intially I had hoped that we were going to eat before boarding the cruise.  Well we didn't and by the time we docked I was passed the point of hunger.  I told Mike and Christy to go on and find dinner somewhere because I just wanted to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.  It had been an emotional, tiring day and I figured that a good night's sleep would do much for me than any amount of food could.