My Trip to France and Italy, Days 1 and 2

Here we're loading up at my Grandma's house out near Chicago. That's Mindy on the left, and Becky currently tying her shoe, I believe.

Here's us heading in to O'hare airport, after Aunt Nancy and Grandma dropped us off. It's Saturday, June 7, around 10:30 or 11, I believe.

This is in front of my seat on the plane to Newark, New Jersey. You may notice the lack of a chair in front of me. This was by far then most leg-room I'd ever had on a plane, and it was wonderful. I spent the first 20 minutes or so just swinging my legs, feeling giddy, like a schoolboy. Then the plane took off, and I focused on not dying.

This is O'hare, while we're starting to roll out.

And here is Chicago. If you look closely, you can see BDF down there.

This is Newark. It was cold, rainy, and miserable there the entire time we were there. I had never been to New Jersey (that I could recall) before... and, well... based on the airport, and the fly-over, I don't think I was missing much.

Here's Becky and Mindy waiting in the Newark airport. We really didn't have that long a wait.

We're on the plane to Paris now, and this is the little TV screen that was on the headrest of the seat in front of me. I was excited about that.

These were the phones/remote controls/video game controllers for the TV.

We're flying out out Newark... and suddenly there was nothing. Just our wing, and all white. I felt like it was one of those twilight zones, where we'd decend finally, and we'd be at the 1912 World's Fair or something.

This is my first glimpse of land in Europe. Looks.... like farms.

And here is Paris, from the plane. The city looked large. and you can see the Eiffel Tower in the center left there.

There's a shot of the plane we flew on to Paris. Right now I'm standing in line for Customs.

Here's Mindy looking through the map in the airport, trying to figure out where we were, and where we're supposed to be going. This would be a pretty common thing.

Here we are on the train (RER B), and we passed a sign (well, many signs) for How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

Here's our first real look at Paris, once we got off the train.

The signs were in French... obviously... but seeing them gave me that feeling like "wow, we are actually here".

They call Anger Management "Self Control" out there. I guess they don't know what Anger Management is.

Here's the Basillica of the Sacred Heart. It was just a little walk from the Hostel we stayed in the first night. Well.. it was a little walk, and then a bajillion stairs.

There was a beautiful overlook of the entire city up by the Church, and you could see for miles.

Here's the church up close.

Here's a shot of one of those kewl looking statues by the entrance. Kewl looking statues would become a trend.

Another shot of the church. There were plenty of tourists and locals around... You heard all sorts of different languages being spoke. (French, English [with and without English accents], German, Italian, etc..)

yeah.. They call the showers in France "douche". This is in the Hostel we stayed at the first night.

We're on our way to Notre Dame, and we saw a number of impressive buildings and cathedrals on the way. This was the Palace of Justice.(Palais de Justice)

Here's Me and Becky in that square. We had made a rule that we weren't allowed to go to bed until 8:00 that day, to adjust to the time change, so we're all working on very little sleep at this point. I was still a little tired from having not slept Thursday night, and getting pretty much no sleep on the plane.

Seems like almost all the larger buildings had a ton of statues on them as well. At the very least, it made them all appear important.

Here's the Hotel de Ville at a distance. Like I said, we passed a lot of impressive looking buildings on our walk to Notre Dame.

And here we've reached Notre Dame. At first look it was not at all what I was expecting. It was really, really tall, and a part of it was under construction/repair.

We walked around the corner, and then it looked like what I was expecting. Here's Mindy in front of Notre Dame, just before it started to rain.

And here's me and Mindy in front of Notre Dame.jpg

Here's a statue of Charlemain in front of Notre Dame.

Here's the other side of Notre Dame. It had a very pretty Gothic look to it, which I liked.

Here's another shot of the Hotel de Ville, closer up. It was amazing.

We had been walking for a while, and after successfully finding Notre Dame, I suggested we head towards the Arc de Triumph (we were planning on hitting the Louvre and Eiffel Tower the next day, with Jacqui and Maryrose). As we headed off towards the Arc, we got our first good look at the Eiffel Tower.

I have no idea what this was for, cause I can't read French.

I believe this is part of the Louvre. That place was huge.

And here's the Académie Française.

This is a large park near the Louvre. Fountains, statues, plenty of people relaxing, painting, writing, making out. A very kewl place.

From the center of the park, you get a great view of the Arc de Triumph

And I believe that's another entrance to the Louvre.

Here's the inscription on the Obelisk at the Place de la Concorde

And here's a look down the street to the Arc de Triumph.

We decided to head to the Eiffel tower that first day after we saw the Arc. Here's me and Becky on the bridge on the walk there.

This is the National Assembly.

And this is on top of one of the columns on a bridge.

Esplanade des Invalides. There were quite a few people/kids playing soccer on those lawns out there.

This is a "smart" car. There were quite a few out there, and I can understand why. The streets are really narrow, and it's next to impossible to find a parking space. As a result, I'm guessing, almost all the cars out there were really small. I saw one SUV, and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

When we neared the Eiffel Tower, we came across a martial arts demonstration that was just wrapping up. A ton of Asian men dressed in traditional garb.

here's a closer look at them.

Here's a better shot of it.

Here's me and Becky in front of it.

Just me and the tower. We had plenty of time to kill, and didn't feel like moving anymore, so we were happy to just keep taking pictures.

Here's a video of the tower.

A closer look at the tower. They have the names of famous Frenchmen (and women, I'd imagine) written around it. You can kind of see them towards the bottom of the picture. I only recognized a few.

Another tower shot. At this point, we're all laying in the grass, trying not to fall asleep.

Here's a nice shot of me and the tower, taken shortly before we left.

This girl had blue hair.

Here we are at a metro station, waiting for the train to come and take us back near our hostel.