MIA « My fascinating life

MIA

Yes, yes, I know. I promised to post more frequently, but I’ve been busy people! I’ve been places.

I’ve been here:

And then I was here:

All I can say is wow! Amazing places, both. In the interest of keeping this post at a length that you would actually care to read, we will start here:

and make our way slowly through this trip before beginning the next.

So, Paris, day 1. A lengthy travel day including one short bus ride, one longer (hour) bus ride, one 2 hour plane ride, and one absolutely interminable (almost 2 hours from Beauvais Airport to the city) bus ride. The Bug was a VERY good girl (and I’m not saying that lightly. There were times on these trips when she was not so very good, so I want to point out that I do notice when she is very good).

It was pouring when we arrived. Not a good sign. Got to Porte Maillot where the airport bus let off and took the Metro over to our hotel. Quite the ride, the Paris Metro at rush hour on a Friday. I’ve not been so cramped since the Path Train rides from Newport Pavonia to 33rd St. There was a lovely French girl and her boyfriend (?) standing on top of us and doing a lot of smooching. She was singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas and AN ‘appy New Year” over and over again. She would stamp her foot hard on the word “wish”. She thought she was hysterical, but her boyfriend (?) kept kissing her to get her to shut up. Did she stop? No. Kept right on singing into his mouth. I almost said it’s “A H appy New Year”, but my patented ”Look of Death” was all I could muster at the time being that I was carrying 85 lbs of luggage and was trying not to get separated from The Bug.

Got to the hotel and checked in. Priceline is a wonderful thing. The hotel was lovely. Their published rates for the time we were there were 280 euro per night. I bid $100 USD per night and got a room. Thank you William Shatner.

The rain let up so we decided to go explore in this general area:

We got some dinner. Le famous French Hot Dog for the Bug. The Parisians are Hot Dog Crazy kind of like the Swedes. But they offer a lot more of Le French Fry with Le Dinner. And there are always 2 hot dogs in a serving in Paris. Unless you order “Le Frankfurter” and then there is just one. I can’t figure it out. I had my favorite Salad Nicoise. No memory of what Mr. T ate. I do have to say in a city that is supposed to be so food-centric, the food that we found was pretty much the same whereever we went (I had Salad Nicoise every day, and Bug had, of course, Le Hot Dog). Here’s Bug and T. at dinner:

We finished dinner just in time to get outside to see this:

Absolutely breathtaking.

Bug said that this was the best birthday present that she ever had, but she wasn’t sure how we would get it home.

There’s so much more I have to tell you, but Mr. T. just called and said “It’s Friday and it’s sunny”. That only means one thing. You’ll find us here: