Mommy's Visit pt trois, Paris (This one will be long)

Two blog posts in one week? What's wrong with me? The reality is I need to finish the story about my Mom and Aunt coming to visit because I also need to update you on my adventure of this past week. No hints about it either, only my mom, teammates here in le France, and the people who actually read my tweets know what I mean. As I've done in most of my previous posts I usually take this last part of my intro paragraph to make fun of how much my friends don't read my blog and say I only have a couple of readers. According to the new info passed on to me by my mother I now know that Mr. David Bradford (who is the man, I need to come by and visit you next time I'm up around that way) and a lot of my Mom's co-workers read my blog. Thanks for tuning in to my drivel and stop giving my Mommy a hard time because she tends to snore on long journeys. (Just kidding, don't hurt me Mommy Love you :D) Check out the pics of this adventure on my Tumblr here, Mmalachi.Tumblr.com

On Thursday March 17th (St. Pattys day which will come into play later)  my mother, aunt, and me jumped on the TGV (high speed train) bound for Paris. Of course we rode first class like only real bosses can do, actually it was only 10 Euros more than the second-class ticket. Catherine and Pierre dropped us off at the train station and bid my mom and aunt goodbye as this was the last time they would see them on this trip, but will more than likely not be the last time. The train ride from Chambery to Paris is about three hours and if you've never ridden on a high speed train its pretty nice. Comfy seats, quiet smooth ride, and going through the French countryside (which is as good as advertised) is a pretty nice way to enter the city of light. After we got settled in our hotel the first thing we wanted to do was take what should have been a quick walk through the Parisian streets to the Seine river and catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower. However, what should have been about a 30-minute walk max turned into a journey of time and space. It took us about two hours because Paris is also a very confusing city for us Americans. If you've been you'll understand what I mean, but for those of you who don't I'll illustrate what I mean. Paris as a city is a giant circle, and within this giant circle are streets jutting every which way leading most of the times to roundabouts. These roundabouts accommodate more than just the typical four way roundabout. For Example, the Arc De Triomphe roundabout has 12 different streets that lead into it, one of the more ridiculous traffic events I've ever seen. The other issue with the Parisian streets is that about every 2 or so blocks the name switches without even the slightest warning and all the street signs are on the buildings not posts like ours. In essence Paris has these streets that change the name every two seconds and intersections that lead off into a multitude directions, which makes being a tourist in the city quite hard. I wouldn't have minded this walk so much, because I quite enjoy getting lost in new cities, save for the fact the two evil sisters where cranky because we hadn't eaten lunch yet. They would go on and on about how I was trying to walk them to death and blah blah blah. Luckily Paris has shops on about every block so when they saw something that caught their eye, the whining would cease. Eventually I was finally able to figure out the map and get us going in the right direction, all matters of direction were given to me and they only followed my lead. We finally made it to the Seine River after taking the scenic route and saw the Eiffel tower in the distance, a first for us all. At lunch we decided we wanted to do a river tour at night to see city lit up. After we finished lunch and my Aunt's hunger for shopping was satisfied we went back to the hotel to rest up for the night tour. The night tour was pretty amazing. We got to see the Eiffel tower lit up & up close for the first time, Notre Dame cathedral, all of the different bridges (with people drinking under or along them dressed in green for St. Pattys day) along the Seine, along with the Lourve, and the building the US stole the design from for the White House. After the boat tour and dropping the children back off at the hotel I headed back out into the night to meet up with one of my friends, (Lil) Kati (my nickname for her) who happened to be in Paris for spring break. I met up with her and the friends she was with who happened to be a lot of younger guys I actually went to high school with (can't escape the Belen Mafia, no matter where you are) and had a pretty good time. For the readers who actually have read all my entries up to this point will remember I said that beer is cheap in France. This does apply to Paris in anyway shape or form. Felt like I was back on South Beach handing out 6 to 7 Euros per Guinness, but hey it's St. Patty’s day, I can't not drink Guinness. After hanging out until the wee hours of the morning and avoiding all the guys trying to get me to go into the strip club they worked at (forgot to mention the bar we went to was right by Moulin Rouge and alot of similar type venues lol) I left the bar and made it back to the hotel and fell asleep.

Of course it wasn't for very long because on Friday we planned on taking a bus tour and being on one of the first buses to see as much of the city as we could. We bought our tickets at a little Internet boutique around the corner from our hotel and waited out at the stop right in front of it. We rode the Paris L'Open Tour which operates three lines that take you all around the city. The main line takes you to all the major attractions in Paris. You buy the ticket for the day or however long you want, and you're able to jump on and off at any stop as long as you have your ticket with you. We took the bus that ran on the line by our hotel to the major line and started the tour. Looking at the bus route we planned out what we wanted to get off and see because it's not possible to get off at every stop and see everything all in one day. Of course, this plan fell apart once we actually got off the bus and visited the attractions. The first stop was at the Lourve museum. As I've said earlier and will continue to say we are nerds, but honestly it was worth it. The bus company sends a bus by each stop around every twenty minutes for people to continue the tour and we claimed we were only going to be inside the Lourve for 50 minutes - 1 hour at the max because we just wanted to check out the major attractions and continue the tour. Major fail to say the least, I think we spent about two and a half hours in the Lourve and we only intentionally visited 4 exhibits. The rest we saw as we walked to our targeted areas. The only exhibits we went to see were the Venus de Milo, the Egyptian section, the Mona Lisa, and Napoleon III's apartments. The Egyptian section and Napoleon's apartment were my idea. The Egyptian exhibit is what took us the longest by far. The Lourve is a humungous building and to visit every exhibit in the museum would take probably 4-5 days at the least. We're going through the early parts of the Egyptian section and it's little trinkets, statues, different small things and we had already been through about four or five corridors. I was started to get a little disappointed because I hand't seen any sarcophagi. That all changed the deeper we got into the exhibit. Not only did they have about 100 different Sarcophagi, including the sarcophagus of Ramses III, there was actual mummy preserved in it's original state, and actual pieces of pyramids. I don't mean a slab or granite or two either, there was a giant chunk that you could walk in and look around for yourself. Which my Aunt Jackie didn't want to see because she was being crabby from being tired of walking and hungry, but due to me and my mom's constant insistence she finally went to see and her jaw pretty much dropped. We saw all of these things and we didn't even finish the entire Egyptian exhibit, there were still a couple of rooms left but we just had to call it quits before we spent the entire day at the Lourve. The Mona Lisa had a huge crowd of people around but the most impressive thing is just how many people go to see that tiny painting when the entire wing is filled with huge and impressive works of art. The Venus de Milo was pretty packed too but not as much as the Mona Lisa. The walk through Napoleon III's apartment was a walk through life as a true baller. One of the more impressive things was the dinner table sat almost 50 ppl comfortably. After we were finally able to escape the Lourve's grasp we sat down for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Actually we technically sat down twice for lunch because the first place we went, after taking one look at the menu we had to dip up outta there. While eating lunch Caleb met up with us for a drink because he was in Paris for the weekend too. After lunch we said bye to Caleb and went back to the bus tour. Yet you couldn't really tell any of us actually paid for the tour as we all caught the itis and took quick naps on the bus in between the ride from Notre Dame Cathedral and the Arc De Triomphe. We all were awake as we approached the Arc but I had to pretty much drag my mom and aunt off the bus because they weren't truly interested in seeing the Arc up close, but I was. One of the more memorable things about the Arc is the unique traffic situation surrounding it. If you recall I mentioned earlier there are 12 streets leading into this roundabout so there's pretty much a constant queqe of cars in the roundabout. Our bus driver did not seem to care and even with all of the cars already in the circle he didn't stop and was jutting in and out of traffic as if we were in a small car. Not exactly the most calming thing while sitting on top of an open top double decker bus. After checking out the Arc we got back on the bus and finished out the tour. We decided we wanted to check out the Eiffel Tower at night when it's lit up and it turned out to be a great decision because it started to rain as soon we got around the Eiffel tower. After we finished the tour we headed back to the hotel to rest up. We wanted to try and see if we could have dinner in one of the restaurants in the Eiffel tower but of course the line was about 300 people deep so went down the street to the Pullman hotel, which had a nice view of the tower. The Eiffel tower has flashing lights every 5 mins at the beginning of the each hour from sunset until midnight, and it was nice to enjoy this sight while eating dinner. (if I remember what the boat tour guide said correctly) After Dinner we headed back to the hotel and no late night shenanigans for this night because we had another early morning wake up planned.

Saturday was our last day in Paris and we actually didn't spend the day in Paris. We decided to take the train out to the beaches of Normandy and check out a tour of the beaches and whatever else we could get in. Before we headed to the train station we decided to check out the Sacre Couer. A church on top of a hill overlooking Paris with a spectacular view. Thanks to a great suggestion by Caleb I definitely enjoyed, because my mom and aunt refused to take anymore stairs. The trip to Normandy was an experience I'll always remember. If you've never been to a large WWII memorial I highly suggest it. I've now been to Pearl Harbor and the American Cemetery in Normandy and I've teared up at both. It truly is amazing to see the sacrifices made by everyone involved with the war and really just how bloody WWII was. On our tour was a late middle-aged couple from Arizona and our tour guide was a young French guy nicknamed Sly.  The first thing we saw was the Pointe du Hoc, where a battalion of Rangers had to scale 100 ft high cliffs on Dday as apart of the invasion effort. Along the ground there are still huge craters from all the pre-invasion bombing that took place to help soften up German defenses along that point that were heavily fortified due to the positioning of 6 anti-infantry guns. The bunkers for the most part are still pretty much intact which is insane considering the bombardment they took, as evidenced by the surrounding land. After the Pointe Du Hoc, which overlooks Omaha Beach, we rode down to Omaha beach and walked around. There are still German guns left there on purpose as apart of the monument and many bunkers are scattered across the hills. It was a beautiful day outside and people were calmly walking up and down the beach, a far cry from the scene that took place on Dday. Even with the craters of the Pointe du Hoc and the guns left on Omaha beach the most powerful place is the American cemetery. The cemetery is the final resting place for 9,387 Americans who died not only during the invasion of Normandy but also during the preceding battles and battles that took place afterwards. First in the Cemetery layout is the garden of the missing, where a huge wall lists all the names of the soldiers that are missing in action, a total of 1,557 names. The total number of lives lost is always staggering but when you the white headstones stretching out far out across the cliffs over looking Omaha beach it's quite a powerful moment. We also got to catch a small ceremony where the American flag was lowered and Taps was played over a loudspeaker. After the checking out the rest of Omaha beach we headed over to Gold beach to check out another German encampment where four artillery batteries are still left intact. Three of the guns have sustained pretty heavy damage but one is still in working condition. After checking out Gold beach we headed back to Paris and had our final dinner together in Paris around midnight. Awesome Thai food restaurant named Madame Shawn, which Caleb suggested and it did not disappoint. In the morning I my mother aunt and I took the Paris subway up to the airport. We were all leaving Paris that day me by train, and them on a plane back to Miami. I kissed them both good bye and hopped on the train to continue my adventure here in Euroland. If you actually made it this far thanks for reading all of it, I know most of my friends won't because some still don't even know I'm not in the US and others ask me to update them as if that's not the entire reason I write this blog lol. Until next time.