Wow. Paris was awesome... thanks in LARGE part to the Simmons family! - (7/21-24/05)
THANK YOU MR. AND MRS. SIMMONS! There's hospitality, and then there's what Evie, Stephanie, Lindsey, Eric, and I experienced from July 21-24 in Paris at 'Chateau Simmons' with Steve, Carol, and Laura. These fine Americans fed us the best pastries of our lives every morning (among other foods), they gave us their inside advice and knowledge of the city, after hearing us say that we missed Mexican food Mrs. Simmons made us enchiladas with all the extras on Friday night, and on Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Simmons took us out to the most incredible meal of our summer (year?) at a restaurant on its own island. We got to celebrate together while watching Lance Armstrong win his 7th Tour de France, and the Simmons even provided us with American flags to wave as the riders passed (much to the chagrin of the natives). By the way, the Star Spangled Banner sounds pretty cool when played in Paris. Thank you for everything... your hospitality helped to make Paris the best city that we've visited all summer!
View of the Seine from near the Musee D'Orsey
More Seine
Weird, more Seine
Another of the approximately 3,482,853 Arches in Europe (this one's across from the Louvre)
Eric being Eric
Evie, Eric, and Steph
The Louvre
I saw her. She wasn't that impressive, especially compared to the other gorgeous paintings in the Louvre, but it's another check off the list.
Leaving the Louvre
Eric doing something outside the Louvre
Eric can't believe that there's another Arch
Eric can't believe that he's not allowed to hold hands
Notre Dame
Me and Notre Dame. It's got nothing on Purdue.
While we were inside there was a service going on... sort of cool, but it sort of made us feel like creepy eavesdroppers.
Lindsey loves her some garden
Eric doing some reading on the balcony of the Simmons' apartment
Lindsey is a distraction
View from Sacre Coeur (spelling?)
ditto
Sacre Coeur
ditto
Underwear with two maple leafs on them... obviously I'm going to take them off the rack and give them a look-over. First of all, why are briefs on a hanger? Second of all, why were they 99 euros (roughly $120 USD)? Really? The back said "Born in Canada, Made in Italy." Ok.
Steph and Lindsey try to navigate the Paris subway system while Evie and Eric aren't fooled
This is where the Simmons took us for dinner on Saturday night... you had to get there by boat. I mean, really?
Evie, Lindsey, and Steph on the way over
Steph, Carol, Laura, Lindsey, and Evie
Pierre the Peacock. This guy was hanging out by our window waiting for food. Eric finally said "This guy's been here long enough that he's almost like family... I think he needs a name." Roughly six seconds later, Eric decided on Pierre. Pierre thoroughly enjoyed the bread.
The group shot... L-R: me, Laura, Evie, Steph, Lindsey, Eric, Carol, and Steve. We didn't all sit on that side of the table, we promise.
Lindsey, Steph, Eric, Evie, and me with some tower in the background. It looks vaguely familiar.
It's killing me... I'm convinced that I've seen it before. At least I know that the bright dome in the bottom left-hand corner is Napoleon's tomb.
Laura and Eric hamming it up
At night the tower lights up every hour, on the hour, for ten minutes. All the little white lights you see are like camera flashes... the whole tower looked like it was sparkling.
sweet
Welcome to Chateau Simmons. This is where we all hung out, usually while waiting for the girls to get ready.
The room that the girls stayed in... you could see the Eiffel Tower from the window.
This is Hercules. He seems to love Carol, Laura, and Steve, and that's about all. He loved me for a solid 10 seconds. I had a treat in my hand.
Eric is scoffing about the prospect of me becoming an American citizen. For now, I'm a North American and I have every right to cheer for Lance Armstrong.
This lady was signing on the subway. I think that I was the only one impressed, judging by everyone else's faces.
The parade that preceded the Tour de France was unruly. There were a bunch of floats like this one, many bigger, that featured big speakers and girls dancing on the trucks as they drove by. Confusing? Maybe. Entertaining? Probably. Absurd? Definitely.
We snagged some seats and tables right inside a cafe on the route near the end of the race. The went by us eight times as they finished the race, so we had plenty of opportunities to cheer. L-R: Evie, Steph, Lindsey, and Laura.
Videos of the riders at the Tour de France:
These will be best viewed if you right click on them then click 'save target as' or 'save link as' depending on your browser.
If you look hard enough, you can find Lance in each video... he's wearing a yellow jersey (weird) with a blue rectangle on the back, and he's surrounded by his teammates in each video, who are all wearing white and blue jerseys. These guys were fast. It might look fast on the video, but it honestly seemed faster watching them live.