six girls and their favorite guy: Paris

I've never been to Europe.

So when Shane said he had a 1-2 hour repair in the Paris Temple I couldn't pass it up.

It was a LONG 10+ hour plane ride.

I think I slept for about 45 minutes unfortunately.

That being said, it's pretty awesome that a direct flight can be taken from SLC to Paris!

And we made it just fine.

Traffic is ridiculous in Paris.

Roundabouts are all over, and a free for all that I would have never gotten out of if I was driving.

There aren't any "lanes" in the roundabouts but you're about 8 cars wide, merging in and out.

It was frightening.

We finally made it to our hotel near the Eiffel Tower just in time to get a text asking why Shane wasn't at the Temple yet. I guess that hadn't been communicated well as I had planned for that to be the following day. But we got back in the car and drove the 45 minutes to the Temple.

It was super pretty.

I sat in the Temple waiting for Shane to finish his 1-2 hour job for about 4 hours when they finally kicked us out and said we needed to come back the next day.

(they had added lots of work he didn't know about.)

The gardens were beautiful, but I'm sure they are gorgeous in the summer when everything is growing.

This is our hotel elevator. haha

And that's our rental car in the back,

it gives new meaning to "blocking someone in."

We ate yummy food that night, I had fondue... which is Swiss not French, but I didn't complain.

We had planned on a Seine river tour during the day but since our plans were changed we took it at night. We might have got more out of the day cruise because both of us struggled to stay awake. haha

Did I mention it was cold?

I know we live in Utah, I know it's cold.

But the most time I spend in the outdoors during the winter is walking from the Spectrum to our car @ the Aggie game... not site-seeing for hours at a time.

Although, since everything was still super crowded, I guess I wouldn't want to be there with more crowds in the humid heat either!

We slept well that night, and easily got onto Paris time.

So it was blessing that we hadn't taken that much needed nap the day before.

We were up bright and early and headed to Versailles.

Something weird was going on since they were supposed to open at 9 am and when we arrived at 9:15 the line was backed up 200 yds.

When I finally asked the guard around 9:45 why they weren't open he said, "my coworkers are in a meeting right now to see if we are going to go on strike. Maybe we will open, maybe we will not. Maybe 10:30."

The line was so long, like down the block and back, we were RELATIVELY close to the front so we held out till 10:30...

(actually Shane held out til 10:30... I went and got in the car at 10).

Did I mention it was freezing?

Versailles was beautiful.

Honestly unfathomable to think how much time, money and effort went in to this vast building.

And how these beautiful buildings all throughout Paris were built was such incredible detail and craftsmanship!

The Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Battles

The Royal Chapel

Princess Quarters

The Gardens

It was incredible, we were glad we waited.

We went back to the Temple (The Temple is about 2 minutes away from Versailles) for another 4-5 hours. Much longer than expected, but we couldn't complain. I visited with the sister and couple missionaries in the visitors center this time.

Later we toured Notre Dame

Amazing!!

The next day we rented bikes.

We walked about 10 miles the day before so bikes were appreciated,

but after about 20 miles of biking I had had enough!

Note here, that it's freezing + we have to ride on the side of the street with crazy drivers.

At one point in our journey I was about one car away from getting hit in an accident that happened while I was crossing a street.

+ Shane wanted to go a lot faster than me...

And left me waiting at stop lights that he went through on yellows.

Also our bike rentals were the kind that you had to return every 1/2 hour and check out again, except we didn't know where the docks were.

So we survived, but I'm not saying it was blast... or that either of us were very pleasant.

We went to the Louvre.

I'm not a huge art fan.

I should be, I did learn tons of these art pieces for my art history class an eon ago.

But I just don't have a deep love for "art".

But we went.

And essentially we paid $20/person,

to walk a mile,

to stand behind 3,000 Chinese people...

to see the tiny Mona Lisa.

Honestly there were SOOOOO many Chinese people at ALL the sites.

I'm talking 4 to 1.

4 being Asian.

1 being the rest of the world!

Shane was in heaven.

There she is.

Mona Lisa...

Been there.

Done that.

Again, the architecture and the buildings/detail are incredible,

and of course the artwork is incredible too...

but, I'm happy just quickly walking through.

Venus De Milo

This is out of order but it fits.

Part of the bike problem was that we were riding from the Louvre to the Paris Catacombs.

According to google it should take us 25 minutes to bike there.

Apparently they weren't timing me.

So by the time we were ALMOST THERE we realized that we wouldn't be able to make it back for our lunch reservation on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. So we rode all the way back to the Eiffel Tower.

So the Catacombs were actually after we went back to the hotel to get our car. It took 1/2 hour to drive there but it kept me more sane!

The catacombs were amazing.

Eerie, awesome and crazy all at once.

Paris has nearly 200 miles of tunnels under it.

Learning the history was fascinating!

Basically six million remains were removed from cemeteries starting in 1786 and thrown down into the tunnels, it took 12 years.

The bones were all heaped up, then a few man made it their "life work" to "arrange" all of the bones.

What an odd life ambition??

But they did it, moving bones one by one, into shapes, borders, corridors etc.

In the early 1800's it became a tourist destination.

Elaborate parties were thrown, complete with orchestra's.

So crazy!!

Our lunch at the Eiffel Tower was delicious.

We rode the elevator to the first floor.

Then walked up to the second floor 360 steps for a better view.

We then decided to walk down the 669 stairs since the elevator line was long.

After all our biking + the stairs, I didn't feel bad about the crepes and ice cream we ate that day!

After 2 nights in Paris we drove about an hour to...

Paris Disneyland!

We were staying in a super inexpensive Disney Resort "The Cheyenne".

It was cute, and fine... but the bed left something to be desired...

SLEEP!

Paris Disneyland was NOT on Shane's "Paris bucket list".

Actually Disneyland anywhere is not on HIS bucket list.

But he was a good sport.

We stayed at Disney's resort for 2 reasons.

One it was next door.

Two we got to get in 1.5 hours before the rest of the guests.

The reviews talked about terrible lines.

But if you go when it's 38 degrees obviously people aren't as anxious to go. haha

We cruised through so many rides in that first 1.5 hours it was awesome!

Even Shane likes Disneyland like that.

We actually had a lot of fun!

We rode EVERYTHING that we wanted to in both of their parks by 4 pm, so we went back to the room for a nap before heading back for the fireworks.

I loved our day here.

It was fun to see the firework show half in French/half in English.

I think they did a great job of incorporating both languages.

The details were amazing.

The only thing that would have been better is if our girls were here for this!!

We stayed one more night in that terrible bed and then headed off on our 5 hour journey to Normandy.

We loved driving through the lush green countryside even in the winter.

So amazing to see old churches like this dotting the horizon along the way.

We stopped and explored a few.

And ate yummy French desserts along the way.

We went to Omaha Beach first.

The history, and the thoughts of what transpired here were overwhelming.

Unfortunately the visitors center @ the American Cemetery in Normandy that we had planned on was closed.

We headed on to Utah Beach.

It was a long drive but we were so glad we made it.

This is another church that we stopped at along the way.

I couldn't help but look at all of the little chateaus and farmhouses along the way and think that some of those still living there had experienced the atrocities of war right in their own backyard.

We had another drive to get to our next hotel on Mont St. Michel.

We LOVED this!!

It was something out of a fairytale.

In fact Rapunzel's castle in Tangled is inspired by Mont St. Michel... so it is like a fairytale!

No cars are permitted on the island so the shuttle dropped us off here to finish our walk, lugging our suitcases behind us... we should have thought this through and just brought a backpack, because the whole island is narrow, cobblestone, stairways... not conducive to large luggage. haha

We finally checked in behind a group of 30 Japanese. Who spoke some English, the French receptionist spoke some English, Shane was speaking Chinese to one of the Japanese who spoke Chinese and English. Everyone was trying to help, but no one could understand what the leader of the group was trying to say.

It was comical.

By the time we checked in it was, dark and POURING rain and we were lugging our suitcases up stairs and through narrow corridors looking for a "white door".

Luckily we were in good spirits.

But it was creepy, very dimly lit, raining cats and dogs and we didn't know where we were going.

See that little gable with the light to the left of it... that was our room, right below the cemetery. hahaha

Actually the room was quite modern, I was nervous, it was tiny... but pleasant.