Let the good times roll

The birthday celebrations continued with meeting Big Brother in Paris for a whirl wind week of Europa!!
Paris; welcomed with a bit of spring showers, but only enough to make us appreciate the glorious weather we enjoyed for the rest of the trip. Stayed in the Latin Quarter – made it to our hotel, when we checked in the concierge kindly mentioned that we were welcome to use the lift (elevator) to get our bags up to our closet, I mean chambre, on the 5th floor, but that we’d need to take a few trips. This seemed strange only until J and I opened the lift door to find what seemed to be a broom closet converted to a trusty elevator.. I can’t remember if it took two or three trips between us and our suitcases, but it served twofold, one, as a nice example of why people are always exclaiming how Americans supersize everything and, two, to help our room feel that it was built to scale rather than a mere shadow box left over from someone’s 4th grade book report.
With little consideration of the time change for J, since I traveled almost directly north…we headed out to Versailles. After an afternoon in the freezing cold – quite possibly in the 50s, a 50 degree temperature change for me! – I’m just saying...
That evening we roamed around our neighborhood. The Latin Quarter is known for its Greek food these days, but... well there was a Mexican Cantina, and since earlier that morning J had surprised me with homemade tortillas straight from California my need for Mexican food was reawakened (from a very light doze) and we were coaxed into a dark snug stage for a cross-cultural experience. With Pacifico and Margarita in hand two of the wait staff unveiled their true callings when they brought out guitars, adding considerable spice to this little piece of Mexico so far from home, they kicked off our European adventure with a soundtrack that would strangely follow us the remainder of our trip, featuring classics such as La Bamba and by special request, Guantanamera.
The Paris portion continued with bright blue skies, trees in bloom over the Seine, Nutella & banana filled crepes and lots and lots of walking – YEAH!!
Now, because I don’t always have nice things to say about Abidjan, the acclaimed Paris of Africa, I will say that the warnings to watch one’s step while walking on the sidewalks in the City of Light is well founded, though I didn’t actually see many dogs during our stay, the evidence was unmistakable. However, to discredit Abidjan as the Paris of Africa – Paris has sidewalks.
Abidjan nor LA is known for especially dreary or grey winters but being the deeply empathetic individuals that we are, we celebrated the coming of spring – meandering through the Mussee Rodin sculpture garden (home of the Thinking Man), then by Les Invalides on our way to the Eiffel Tower and off to the Arc de Triomphe just in time to climb to the top and watch the sunset over the city, the Eiffel Tower light show being the finale, followed by a stroll down the Champs Elysee.
Oh, but the bonus round – the next morning, before catching the bullet train to London we walked through the Louvre… no, we didn’t have nearly enough time, but after randomly deciding to walk through the park on our way to the metro we happened to stumble upon the Paris 2000 Louvre motor show http://archive.cardesignnews.com/events/paris2000/index.shtml Paris, you were lovely, until next time mon Paris…