Monday

I only get 3 weeks of vacation a year. A number of people in the USA think that's pretty good, but I think that after working for 25 years I should get a lot more. My company closes between Christmas and New Year's so that gives me an extra week of vacation. Usually we just stay home and celebrate the holidays, but this year Randy was off on her own, so it would be just Sally and me over the holiday break. Even though I had been to Paris 5 times and Sally had visited in August of 2003 we both love Paris and decided that it would be a great Christmas present to ourselves to spend a week in Paris.

The night before we left I had a lot of help packing from the cats. The pets don't like it when we take the suitcases out because they know it means that we are going away, but they also love to sleep in the suitcases. I had to take a bunch of photos of them because they just look so cute.

I found a good deal for Paris at francevacations.net. Randy and I had used them several times before and we had had good luck with them. One of the things that I liked about the previous trips is that France Vacations uses Air Tahiti Nui between L.A. and Paris. This means a nonstop flight from LA to Paris which will easily cut off several hours from a flight that makes a stop on the east coast. However, this year our flight wasn't so good.

Tuesday

We arrived in Paris early in the morning. We had some slight problems getting Sally's bag, but got out of the airport quickly and took a cab to our hotel. Our first stop was the liberty flame near then Pont de l'Alma. We then crossed Pont de l'Alma to take some photos of Zouave, a statue used to mark the water level of the Seine. We then went to the Musée d'art Moderne, which was partially closed for renovations. Our next stop was the Musée Marmottan, which is on the western edge of Paris. In the afternoon we headed to the Palais de la Découverte near the Grand Palais. Near sunset we took a walk down the Champs Elysées. That night we ate at an Indian restaurant near our hotel which was good, but a bit expensive.

Wednesday

We got up a bit late this morning. We had a complimentary breakfast at our hotel which was pretty good and managed to get out of the hotel by 11 a.m. We took the metro to the Palais Royal and from there walked to the Galerie Colbert and the Galerie Vivienne which are the two of the world's first indoor shopping malls. The Galeries are basically covered passageways. They have glass ceilings which let in a lot of light. Many of them have been recently renovated and are very pretty. We visited Place de Victoires, the first Place in Paris dedicated to Loui XIV. We then went to the Bourse du Commerce (the commodities exchange) and then over to Les Halles, a very large shopping center and then to St. Eustache a 16th century cathedral based on a floor plan similar to Notre Dame. Next we then went to the Galeries Vero-Dodat which is another indoor shopping mall. In the afternoon we went to the Louvre. Afterward we had enough time to see the Jeu de Paume and the Place de la Concorde then head over to the Trocadéro near the Eiffel Tower.

Thursday

Our first stop on Thursday was the Conciergerie and then the Crypte Archéologique on the Île de la Cité. At the Île de la Cité we stopped at the Marche Aux Fleur. We then crossed the Petit Pont to St. Séverin and Julien le Pauvre, two churches across the river from Notre Dame. We walked along Blv. St Michel for a while, but spent most of the day at the Musée de Cluny (Museum of Middle Ages) which Sally adored. We then went to see St. Etienne du Mont, which Sally and I had tried to see on our last visit to Paris, but could not. The Musée D'Orsay is opened late on Thursdays so it was our last stop of the day. We then went back to the hotel where we asked the guy at the front desk to recommend a nearby, non-French restaurant. He recommended an Italian restaurant about 3 blocks away. By the time we got there the manager of the restaurant was already waiting for us. We had a good meal, with lots of food. For a while we were the only people in the restaurant. Later when a family came into the restaurant the manager opened a bottle of champagne and we all toasted each other. Sally remembered that we needed to make reservations for New Years Eve dinner, so we decided that we would eat at the Italian restaurant on New Year's Eve.

Friday

We started the day at the Basilique St. Denis to the North of Paris. When we got out of the hotel I noticed that Sally didn't have her umbrella. I asked her if she wanted to go back and get it but she said that she had carried it around for several days and didn't need it and didn't think that she would need it today either. When we arrived at St. Denis it was cold and sleeting. St. Denis was very interesting, although I think that it was colder inside the Basilica than outside. We then went to the Nissim de Camondo, which is a museum but the building itself is as interesting (if not more so) than the art.. We were the going to go to the Musée Cernuschi, which was quite close, but Sally's boot developed a leak and her foot was soon cold and wet. We found a shoe store and bought her a new pair of boots and socks. By the time we bought the boots it was getting late so we decided to abandon the Cernuschi and went directly to the Jacquemart-André, another Mansion near Parc de Monceau. That night we went to a Chinese restaurant near our hotel. It had a buffet which was very reasonably priced, but the food was a little bland.

Saturday

Saturday was New Year's Eve. We started the day seeing more passageways of Paris. We took the metro to the Bourse (the stock exchange, which is different from the Bourse we saw Wednesday) and then went to see the Passage de Panoramas and the Passage de Joffrey. I bought a book on the bus lines of Paris and Sally bought a couple of souvenirs. We decided to go back to the hotel and drop of the things we bought and then to use our new bus line book to try out the Paris bus system. We took the bus to Montmartre. In Montmartre we visited St. Pierre and Sacré Cœur. We then went to La Defense to do some shopping at FNAC. That evening we went to the Italian restaurant for New Year's Eve dinner and then to the Champs Elysées to ring in the New Year.

After we got back to our hotel we watched a great "Educational Film" put out by the BBC on sex. It was dubbed in French and as far as I could tell it was originally in English. I was one of those nature shows tell about the different types of mating rituals of different animals. For example, those fish where all of them are female, except when it comes time to mate and them some of them spontaneously become male. Except, this program showed very little of the actual animals. Instead it had actors dressed up as the animals ( in very sexy costumes ) and they would talk to the host in sort of a psychologist office setting where they would discuss their unusual sex life. Sometimes the actors would break out into song and dance. The host of the program was this sexy woman who wore a short, tight dress. A several points in the program the animals would discuss their sex lives in a Jerry Springer type setting (complete with bouncers). It was great! I really want to find a copy of the original program.

Sunday

Sunday was New Year's day which meant that everything in Paris was closed. We decided that we would spend the day walking around the city, mostly looking at famous buildings or monuments. Since our metro station was closed we walked down to the Gare St-Lazar to catch the metro, but ended up walking to L'Opera and the continued to walk to the Place Vendôme. We went to Place de la Concorde and then to the Tuileries and over to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. I took some photos of the Musée D'Orsay from across the Seine. We went to the Fontaine des Innocents and then to the Hôtel de Ville and St. Gervais-St. Protais. Next we went to the Hotel Sens. By this point it was getting late so we headed over to Porte St. Denis and Porte St. Martin.

That night we watched "The Whole 9 Yards" in French. It worked very well in French.

Monday

We decided that we would spend most of Monday checking out some of the lesser known museums of Paris. Our first stop was the Musée Gustave Moreau, but on the way we stopped at Ste-Trinité which Sally thought looked interesting. We not only liked the art at the Moreau museum, but also the building. We took the metro to the Samaritaine hoping to get a view from the terrace, but it was closed for renovations. I think I read somewhere that it had been sold to a new owner. We then took the bus to the Musée Delacroix. The museum was very close to St. Germain Des Prés. Across the street from the church are several of Paris' most famous cafés including Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore. We decided to eat at a less expensive and less crowded café. We then walked down Blvd. St. Germain to the Musée Maillol. We had planned to go for a walk around the Faubourg area, but we had spent a lot of time at the Musée Maillol and it was getting late. We decided to go to the Pont Des Art and then over to the Square Vert de Galant. Afterwards we went to the Opéra district to have a class of wine before heading back to the hotel.

Tuesday

Monday night Sally began dreading the trip home. She was concerned that we would again have seats where the reading lights didn't work. She warned me that if she got on the play and tried the lights and they didn't work that she was going to just get off the plane. When we got to the airport we found out that we had the same plane as on the way out and that our seats were in approximately the same location. When we got on the plane we found out that the overhead lights and screens still didn't work. Even though numerous people complained to the staff, Air Tahit Nui didn't bother to fix the problem. Sally was furious, but one of the stewardesses insisted that she would move us once the plane was up in the air. We had heard that promise from them before, but decided to stay on anyway. About a half hour after the plane took off we finally got our seats changed.