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Michelle's Gallery

Lucy and Mojo get me a going away present

Our first French gas station

My room, small but comfy

View from my room...not much to look at

French trees were trimmed meticulously

Bus tour, day two

Bus tour, Eiffel in the background

Darn it, can't remember what this was

Eiffel tower in the background

Lots of police due to strikes

Musee D'Orsay...used to be a train station

On our walking tour...

The girls: Catherine, Jordan, Kelly, Me, Allie

Bridges over the Seine

Me in front of Les Envalides (Napoleon's tomb is inside)

Eiffel Tower!

There were lots of gypsies that blew raspberries at you if you didn't give the money

Kelly and I at the Eiffel

Lots of sketchy salesmen at the tower as well

Versailles, day two

Versailles was beautiful!

It was the perfect day.... 70 degrees, no rain

Lots of ground to cover

The grounds at Versailles

The girls with their whisper sets....listening to French tour guide, Terry

Versailles from a distance

If I could do cartwheels, I would've loved to go run down there and try

Jordan at Versailles gardens

How's this for a backyard?

Louis IV had it built

...still more Versailles

I'd hate to be a gardener here

Posing at Versailles gardens

inside Versailles

Art inside versailles

more art... I stopped taking pictures of it, there was so much

Ceiling details were cool

amazing decoration

looking out the window, toward the gardens

Beds were up high

Chandeliers were everywhere

Approaching the hall of mirrors

The ceiling in the hall of mirrors

Looking into the mirrors

They have to replace the mirrors every so often due to vandalism

Us in the mirrors

Looking up at a chandelier

Me in the hall of mirrors

Area around the opera... we spent a lot of time here. Much shopping to be had.

At dinner, Kelly's happy

The famous Moulin Rouge

We didn't go there... it was 80 euro a ticket (120 dollars!)

Walking tour UP to Montmatre

To remember where we were...

Sitting down after walking uphill, I thought it would be a good idea to take a pic up a tree?

Oldest windmill in France

Beginning the walk uphill

Objective achieved!

Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart)

Sits atop the hill of Montmatre, one of the 8 (?) hills surrounding Paris

Getting our bearings...

Statue atop Sacre Couer

View from Sacre Couer

You can see the whole city!

Descending the steps to the lookout point

Description of the view

I never made it inside Sacre Couer... we took the walking tour there unexpectedly, after dinner. I was wearing shorts and wasn't allowed in. :(

detail over one doorway

Cool ivy... this was in a courtyard of a building where the king's residence USED to be

This was the king's old home

Monument where the Bastille used to be

Bastille monument

The fresh market, walking tour, day 3

Frommage! Lots of it.

One of our favorite stops... the Boulangerie / Patissire (bread and sweets)

My lunch. Lunch frequently resembles breakfast in France. Lots of egg and cheese. I also had an excellent quiche!

Allie and Catherine enjoy their onion soup and cheese plate

We were happy to have a rest from walking, plus it started raining outside. It was cold.

Ahhh... the Metro. Weird signs.

Underground, in the Louvre entrance

I.M. Pei's pyramid (inverted underground)

As we found out, you are not allowed to sit down and rest on the floor in this area. No matter how tired you are.

I wish I could remember the name of this....

I know it was a really old sculputure from antiquity

From the ancient Greeks

One of the two super famous works we saw. Guess what the other one was....

...the mona lisa

My pic of the Mona Lisa was blurry.... there are better ones from Kelly later on.

Ahh... the Eiffel Tower

On our way to Paris.... We all bought neck pillows. Allie rethought her decision to get an American one once she remembered where we were going.

It was Kelly's birthday, so we made her wear this crown. The stewards embarassed her on the first flight by pointing her out via intercom

On our bus tour, day two.

Catherine on the bus

Jordan and I on the bus

The city workers used strange brooms to sweep. Reminds me of Harry Potter

French trees were tall and majestic

A view through the arc

Detail on the arc

another detail on the arc

On the bus tour....

Good old Louis, the other one.

Cool french architecture

We never actually got a picture by one of the famous fountains.

The Opera House

Busy city street

Typical French style

Jordan on the bus

You can see it in the distance

Jordan over the Seine

Me, Kelly, Allie, Jordan, Catherine

Posing over the Seine

Isn't this the neatest statue?

French cars were tiny. This was a big one.

The girls out front

Just outside Les Envalides

See the golden torch? It's a monument to Princess Di. She crashed in the tunnel just under it.

Jordan and Allie

The oh so fashionable, holding it up shot

We thought it would be cute to have a signature pic.... so the girls "jumped" in front of every major monument. Made for some funny moments.

More Versailles.... a lot of pictures repeat because they're complied from ALL our cameras.

Fountain at Versailles

Another jump shot.

Hall of mirrors

Allie was so excited at Versailles... it was her most wished for destination

Us in the mirror in the hall of mirrors

Apparently, America thanked France for the gift of the statue of liberty by making three small replicas and sending them to France. This is one of them. Weird gift, anyone? I don't think that we got our most creative thinker on that one.

Paris Opera house. This is the one made famous by the Phantom of the Opera.

A street up to Montmartre

The French love Homer too!

Oldest windmill, again

Jordan outside Sacre Couer

We got some excellent glacee in this area (ice cream). Even though it was really cold.

This jump shot is funny in retrospect..... we noticed that Kelly's skirt appears to be a little too high in the back.

I believe this was the last jump shot in skirts. Yeah, dumb idea.

Montmatre at dusk

Jordan hanging out

Jordan hurt her foot on day 3 and had to stay at the hotel the next day, so she colored instead. Here is the result of her hard work. :)

In the evenings I did the responsible thing and taught the girls how to play Texas Hold 'Em.

We gambled with m&m's, which was difficult because we kept eating them

Kelly and Jordan

Allie and Jordan

Jordan's messing around

Isn't it majestic?

Jordan by the tower

These were from Jordan's camera, can you tell?

Jordan and Kelly on the Seine river cruise

Seine River cruise, about to depart

cool Eiffel shot

all the bridges were decorative

We decided we wanted to live in this building one day

Out for lunch, Allie and Jordan

Venturing down into the catacombs

Ooh... creepy. We saw TONS of this in the catacombs

As Kelly and Allie toured the inside of the opera house, Jordan, Catherine and I sat on the steps and watched the highly entertaining French street performers. Look at that guy!

The girls decided to try some French wine

Good thing we tried it at the restaurant at our hotel

We attempted a jump shot, but they barely left the ground

This one didn't work either

Neither did this one

See the gargoyle water spouts? They work like gutters

After the walking tour, Allie crashed right on her little American pillow. So cute.

Kelly crashed, too.

Jordan and Catherine attempt the metro on their own.

So far, so good.

Kelly, Allie, and I saw an opera that morning and met up with Jordan and Catherine later. It was called Melanchole. It was in German with French subtitles. I actually understood about 60 percent of it!

Waiting for dinner

After our LAST dinner with our tour guide, Nicholas. He promptly gave us directions to the Eiffel tower via the metro and I promptly forgot them. So... we covertly followed him and the rest of the tour group to the metro stop. When he saw us, he laughed and gave us directions again. This time, he wrote them down.

Our last night, we walked down the Champs Elysee and then headed over to the Eiffel tower. It was COLD. Kelly, Allie, and I were still wearing our dresses from the opera. Darn it!

This was at the base of the tower and the girls were told to just "jump on" by the attendant.

I didn't go on it... circles are not so fun for me.

How cool is this?

It's starting to get dark!

It's dark! I didn't get dark till nearly 10pm.

Our last night.... we had so much fun. We froze, we drank hot chocolate, we ate cotton candy and hot dog baguettes, we dodged the scary salesmen at the tower, we laughed and laughed. We'll never forget it. Totally worth staying out until midnight with a 5am wake up call the next morning.

Jordan and Kelly hamming it up.

Last jump shot!

This is the coolest picture. The tower "sparkled" with twinkle lights for ten minutes every hour after dark.

Ahh... going home. Passed time with cards in the airport.

We weren't too happy to leave.

Au Revoir Paris!

In Dulles. One of us was happy to reach American soil.

At the top of Notre Dame

View from Notre Dame

Neat embellishments

look how high we were!

Yes, we had to climb 400 or so steps up and back down again.

Gargoyles were cool. We named this one after Catherine because she always wanted fruit on the trip.

The big bell at Notre Dame. Where's Quasimoto?

Catherine in the bell tower

going down from the tower was treacherous

We all got in for free because we were 18 and under. Yep, even me. Hahah... plus ten!

At the top of Notre Dame

This was my gargoyle, pensive

French veterans gathered at the Arc for a celebration

LV.... purses in there were upwards of several thousand dollars.

Arc from a distance

We went out one night to a club. I promised.

We met some interesting French people.

The club was right next door to the Moulin Rouge!

Posing in the street... we look spiffy!

The final tarte

The final card game.

Out to eat our second to last night. Catherine ordered the Daffy Duck ice cream dessert, which piqued the interest of the little boy in the background. His name is Pierre... we got to meet him!

Shopping. We hit a giant flea market one of the days and the girls found some cool vintage finds. Allie got a cool book in French, which she plans to translate....and Kelly bought a Chanel wallet for a discount price.

Look Catherine has her own Perfume shop!

One of the many famous labels we saw there

Traffic in Paris was....interesting

On the bus tour

The back of our hotel

the bathroom was tiny

Catherine took top bunk

jordan and kelly took bottom bunk

Nick, our tour guide, navigated the metro for us. Thank goodness!

This was our first day there. We woke up early, flew from Tampa to Dulles, had a NINE hour lay over in Dulles, and flew from Dulles to Frankfurt to Paris. Then we went sightseeing after. We were TIRED.

We ALMOST missed the train at this station on our last night. We literally had to RUN for it. We were so delirious....laughing the whole way. TOO funny.

On the LONG flight to Frankfurt

Traveling to Paris

Our taxi to La Locomotive

There's Julian again

Our French friends

Allie's final croissant.... the last of MANY

Reviewing our pictures at the airport

Kelly was not so excited to leave

We got home from the Eiffel at midnight, packed for an hour, and talked for an hour.... so we were pretty tired today.

This was the most sleep I got all day.

Allie and her flag pillow

We ran into a bachelor party on the Champs Elyssee..... heheh

That poor guy.....

Me at the Notre Dame bell tower. I bought that jacket in Paris... I LOVE it.

Kelly's gargoyle.... very excited!

it was windy at the top

Kelly attempts a Marilyn pose

but when she tried, the wind didn't blow

Allie at the top

The birthday girl!

FULL room...happy I had my own

Allie slept on the floor instead of in a room with two girls she didn't know. Believe it or not, she was comfy!

Kelly and Allie

Kelly at the Eiffel

Some guy sleeping in a truck?

Cool doors at Versailles

We had mixed emotions about the metro

Hall of mirrors

Kelly hanging out

At Notre Dame... supposedly, if you touch this spot, you'll be back in Paris one day.

My one and only jump shot. Look at my hair!

The Louvre was HUGE

This painting was opposite the Mona Lisa, and in my opinion, far more impressive. It took up an entire wall.

The Mona Lisa... you had to push your way to the front to get a pic.

Umm... interesting picture

French crown jewels

More crown jewels

yeah, yeah, diamonds... whatever

The original foundation of the Louvre

The Louvre used to be a royal palace

In the Egyptian wing of the Louvre

What is this again?

Kelly at the base

On top of the Eiffel tower, we toasted our success

Clearly, this woman didn't see we were trying to take a picture

The champagne was 10 euro each!

Allie at the top

Kelly at the top

She was afraid of heights, she couldn't believe she was up here!

So she celebrated her victory

This was the champagne bar guy who hooked us up with a second, better, champagne glass for free.

Escargot..... I wasn't against trying it, I just didn't feel like paying. It was expensive.

Allie looks like she's getting it out, but in reality I had to get it for her.

I got Catherine's out of the shell also

Dessert crepe. I wish I got one!

We took the metro to the catacombs and got off at the wrong stop. This nice French lady (who spoke no English) helped us out without us even asking her. Kelly thought it would be funny to take a pic.

She said... "un petite maison vert"... which I remember meant little green house. That's all I could figure out.

Ahh.... there it is! Little green house

The catacombs!!

Kelly was fearful

Allie said... heck yeah!

Allie wouldn't be smiling if she knew how far down we had to go.

French building

On the Seine river cruise

Catherine with the Eiffel on her shoulder

Our favorite floating barge cafe...

...we warmed up there with cheap hot chocolates. We came back there on our last night to have some more (it was at the base of the Eiffel)

I don't know what was so funny

This was more awkward than it looked

All of us at the Eiffel

Princess Diana monument

On the RER when the power went out, briefly

On the RER... much nicer than the metro

Our river cruise departure

river cruise departure

Our favorite floating barge... there was a cafe inside where we drank hot chocolate

In the Paris Opera house

On the river cruise

Me, cheesing it up

under the tower, looking up, at night

Allie was never happy to get her "dinner metro ticket" since we invariably went to an icky part of town to eat sub par food.

In the opera house

Giant library in the opera house

Kelly practices in the opera house

Randomly, Kelly found her hero at the Paris flea market

In the catacombs... should she continue??

In the catacombs.... I"m trying to look scared.... I just look silly.

Michelle
photos

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