Paris!

Chris is currently in N'Djamina, Chad (the armpit of Africa). To be able to get a visa for Chad, he went to Paris for a week. Conveniently, his assignment to Paris ran over Memorial Day weekend. So, I took a day off work, rode the train to London then another train to Paris, and spent four days in Paris with Chris. We had a great time!

Friday night, we took a dinner cruise on the Seine River. We chose the late cruise since the sun doesn't set before 9:30 in Europe right now. It was awesome to see the lights of Paris from the Seine River. Notre Dame was fabulous, the Eiffel Tower lit up with flashing lights at 11, and the miniature Statue of Liberty was really cool. Here we are on the cruise.

We decided to do a hop on, hop off tour around Paris for two days. We had a blast seeing all the sights. We loved the Cathedral de Notre Dame.

Here we are at the Arc de Triumph. The detail is amazing!

Here we are at the Pantheon. Many people have never heard it, but I promise it's in the History books! This was actually the only cathedral you had to pay to go inside.When we got to the Eiffel Tower, we saw the lines and thought we should probably skip the tower visit. Then, I saw an unusually short line and jumped in it. After about ten minutes, I noticed that the line was for stairs only...for the first and second levels. We figured, why not? It seemed like a good idea at the time... So we climbed the 700 stairs to the second level, stopping at the first level for some pictures and a break. We passed on the long line waiting for tickets and the other long line waiting to get to the top. We were just happy to get to go up part of the Tower and to look out over Paris at the amazing view.

My favorite Cathedral was Basilique de Sacre Cour (the Sacred Heart Cathedral). It was a perfect Sunday afternoon activity. There were people sprawled out all over the place on the lawn. The Cathedral was gorgeous inside and out.

We were also able to go to Church Sunday morning. It amazes us that we can go anywhere in the world and hear the same lessons and doctrine as we would hear at home. This church was a little different in that it was in a rough part of town. Luckily we had the address. We kept looking at this big blue door that had the number 12 over it. That was it. We usually see a sign for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-saints. Finally, we rung the bell and were let into a courtyard with several signs for our church on the wall. Apparently, the sign outside the blue door was taken off with a crowbar weeks ago.

Here are some more pictures of us in Paris.