CN Tower
Niagara Falls
Golden Gate
Mt. Fuji
Great Wall
Grand Canyon
Hoover Dam
Pyramids
Petra
Colosseum
Leaning Tower
Parthenon
Stonehenge
Big Ben
The Chunnel
Eiffel Tower
Mt. St.Michel
Empire St Bld

Alaska glacier
Tokyo Tower
Forbidden City
Sum'r Palace
LaBufadora
Bilbao Museo
BlarneyStone
Disney Paris

Eiffel Tower
	Built in commemoration of the French Revolution, The Eiffel Tower, was the tallest building in the world when it was unveiled at the Paris World's Fair in 1889.   Engineer Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel built
the 984-foot iron tower with an open lattice structure to avoid wind resistance.  I bet he got the inspiration from the swiss cheese at lunch at one of the many Parisien cafes.  Good ol' Eiffel also designed the framework for our Statue of Liberty. OK, I'd been told to avoid pickpockets near the Tower, so I didn't trust anyone enough to give them my camera, which is why my big head is there in this autoshot (which took about six tries to line the Tower up between the trees).   I ended up staying at the Tower for three hours from dusk to night, from 8 to 11 pm.  That's about as long as I spent at the Louvre.  I spent most of the time talking to this girl Katarina from Germany...and let me say that yes it's definitely romantic striking up a conversation at the Eiffel Tower.  At dusk, it is cool to see the city get dusky (about 10:15 pm in mid June), with the same weird not-day, not-night lighting you get all the time inside the Paris casino in Vegas.  That must be why the lighting's weird like that.  It's fun to watch the Paris monuments turn on their lights, including the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame (the H in the distance) and the bridges along the river Seine.  Which leads to the next adventure: What's the best way to see the City of Lights.

City of Lights
Paris' nick is City of Lights, but I aim to figure out what's the best way those lights.  Here is my rating out of 5 bulbs:

Seine Boat Cruise		Cool to cruise by buildings near the river.  Notre Dame, Louvre and others are well lit and you see them up close.  You end by docking near the Eiffel Tower.  Even baby Adam was Wonderstruck when we pulled up to the lit Tower.
Eiffel Tower		Also nice to see the city lit up from the Tower.  Any of the 3 platforms will do.  But the Arc, Notre Dame are so small, and there are patches of darkness around the city.  Most romantic.
Car		OK to see the landmarks; but a bit distant. Not as romantic.
Blades		Good cause you're closer to the landmarks than driving. But definitely not as romantic -  unless sweaty turns you on.
Seine Walk		The banks of the Seine are a UNESCO Heritage Site and you see people camped out on the embankments.  But it's not well lit in areas, and deserted in others.  Boat cruise is better.
Bus		Hard to really enjoy the lights when you're packed on a bus with other tourists whose big heads are blocking your view.  Yeah, the tour guide gives you landmark history; but just read a book instead as this is neither fun nor romantic.

Here's Notre Dame.  No Quasimodo around today.  Good, cause I hated that Disney movie anyway.

Louvre
The Lovure is a must because it has artifacts galore.  I spend three hours there checking out the collection, including the climax, Mona Lisa which I see first, the winged Victory, and Venus de Milo.  I also check out the ancient ruins from Egypt, Assyria, and Persia.

Impressive Assyrian lion

Jardins
We take a break from the Wonders-theme to do a park-theme tour of Paris so Adam can play in Paris' many great parks, or jardins.  We follow Adam to three of Paris'  best parks, including the Jardin de Luxemburg, the Jardin de la Concorde, and the Jardin de l'Eysee (near the Champs de l'Eysee).  The parks are so relaxing, we fall asleep in one of them.

This friendly French kid Jun lets Adam try to control his remote boat in the Jardin de Luxemberg fountain.  I'm psyched cause this is the fountain Marie always sailed her boat in in my French in Action class I took in college.

Adam and Chris play at another fountain near the Centre Pompidou

Adam's Baby-Friendly City Ratings
How baby-friendly is Paris compared to London?  OK, Adam's vocab is kinda limited, but from his da-Da-das, pointing, and smiles, I've pieced together Adam's baby-friendliness rating comparing London and Paris, with New York for scale.  Paris scores best.  Example:  when we come out of the train station we see a huge 40-person line at the taxi stand.  But when pregnant Christine pulls up with Adam in his stroller, the taxi stand dude bumps us to the front of the line so we catch the next taxi.  Baby rights, cool!  Chris and Christine, feel free to chime in on the ratings here!  Out of 5 rattles:

City	Rating	Comments
Paris		Paris has many parks with grass to run on.  Chris takes Adam to an awesome kids park in the Jardin de Luxemburg with tire swings, sand boxes, and hundreds of kids.  One of em said "Mom, this is the Best park , EVER!"  Most Metro stations don't have escalators or elevators for baby carriages, but the taxis are so cheap (about 10+ euro for most cross-town trips), we take them everywhere.  We eat in a few kid-friendly restaurants.
London		Nice parks, but not as many as Paris.  Some Tube stations have escalators and hard-to-find elevators.  Taxis often expensive.  We do find a few kid-friendly restaurants, like Pizza Express.
New York		Yeah, there's Central Park, but get outta there by dusk cause of mosquitoes and well, it is Central Park.  Subway's hot n muggy with mostly stairs.  Taxis are like the Crazy Taxi video game - not good unless you want your baby to get a concussion.  Only a few kid-friendly diners.  This explains why Adam's been to the City only once.

Centre Pompidou
The super modern construction Centre Pompidou houses a collection of modern art.  I also see a surrealists temporary exhibition with some of Dali's and Miro's wackier, perverted pieces.  If you see it you know what I mean.  Makes me think either the surrealists need to get real, or I don't get it.  
Centre Pompidou looks cool on the outside, and has some crazy stuff inside.
My new theory is that classic art, like in the Louvre, is considered art the day it's produced, and centuries later.  Surrealist art is debatable the day it's produced.

Picasso Museum
Picasso's paintings and sculptures are located here.  After seeing Picasso's art scattered in Barcelona, the Prado and here, I can say this has the best collection of his sculptures.

Summer Festivals
It seems like Paris has three or four festivals every weekend in the summer. 

• Fete de la Musique on June 21, the longest day of the year.  It's a day of free concerts in every Quartet, square and bar (it seems) in not just Paris, but celebrated in all of France.  Lenny Kravitz is the headliner in Paris, playing for thousands at the Place de la Republique.  I avoid the crowds and do the Fete in Rennes instead.  I do catch the... 
• Fete de la Cinema, where you pay a festival fee of about 9 euro for a pass that lets you see any movie at any theater for the 3-day festival (Sun-Mon-Tue) for just an extra 1.50 Euro.  So I see Disney's Lilo n Stitch; Samourais (French action comedy) and Asterix and Obelix, France's Number 1 movie this year.
• Fete Medieval.  I missed this Renaissance Faire cause its a few hours car drive from Paris.
• St German de Pres Jazz Festival.  On my way to the Metro station, I pass random jazz players in the streets.
• Piratages.  Free outdoor DJs and films on the banks of the Seine around the Batofar boat club. Once a month in summer.

Nightlife
The most popular thing to do is hang out an cafes and people-watch til 1 or 2 am.  I check out the Batofar club on a boat on the Seine, which is fun.  And don't forget the tourist trap....

Moulin Rouge
OK, you've seen the movie, right?  Well, the real Moulin Rouge show ain't much like it.  No plot, no bras, and no big windmill. The closest thing is a model rotating windmill on the roof of the theater which like they swiped it from some mini-golf course.  I ask an usher where the big windmill from the movie is, and he says that's from the old days, like around 1889 when Moulin Rouge invented the cancan.   Today's Moulin Rouge show Feerie is a 2.5 hour dinner-optional cabaret show featuring 60 topless cancan dancers wearing slinky outfits with feathers and lots of beads.   Imagine: Rockettes go to Mardi Gras.   That's mixed with pairs of acrobat dudes flipping off each other (a la Cirque de Soleil show) and randomly, a ventriloquist who pulled people out of the audience and put words in their mouths.  A fun show, altho missing fireworks and lasers you'd find in Vegas or even a cruise ship.

Friday Night Skate
My friend Juan reminds me to check out Paris' Friday Night Skate,  and it's a good thing cause it's quite an experience.  Every Friday night at 10 pm, thousands of bladers hit the streets for a 3-hour skate through the streets of Paris.
Everyone in this photo is wearing rollerblades.  Impressive.
I'm actually a member of a Santa Monica Friday Night Skate group that copies the Paris skate.  We usually have about 30 people skating through Santa Monica.  So when I arrive at the Gare Montparnasse and see hundreds of bladers, it's amazing.  It feels like a rollerblading marathon, which is good cause I've wanted to blade the LA Marathon, but they officially allow only foot and bicycle.  The bladers are supported by about 30 blading cops and yellow-shirt staffers who help control traffic.  And there's even an escort of  five ambulances following the pack to pick up the five or so injuries each time.  Out of a few thousand bladers, that's not bad. 

Food.  French are famous for their food, so I try it all. Except the cru.

• Crepes. You can get a crepe at one of the kiosks every other block it seems.  We try a crepe lunch, which includes a spinach crepe appetizer, a ham and cheese main course, and a sugar crepe for dessert.  It's enough to crepe you out.  Note that crepes are paper thin and folded into a square, not rolled up like an egg roll you see in the U.S.  And they switched silverware with every crepe course - so fancy for US.
• Cheese. Chris buys some cheese at a local fromagerie.  But by midday in the sun, you can see --or smell-- where the cut-the-cheese expression comes from.  I try a plate of three cheeses for breakfast, which is the most different kind of cheese I've had at one sitting.
• Bread.  The French are crazy for their baguettes.  While I'm eating my cheese at a cafe, I see a line of 15 people at the bakery across the street.  I go check to see if it's some special pastry...turns out it's the warm fresh baguettes. I buy one, it's fresh-outta-the-oven good.
• Fondue.  I dip bread and potattoes in cheese-and-apple-juice (Normandy style) fondue at a local restaurant.  Same as you can make at home.
• Salads.  Every cafe and even McD's serves up a ham and cheese salad. At the famous Deux Magots cafe, I get a chicken, green bean and raisin salad, which is tasty despite how it sounds. 
• Desserts.  I try the Tart Tartin, a baked apple pie.  Chocolate moose and pastries are popular.  Avoid the French-trying-to-be-American brownies at Billy Bob's Western restaurant in Disney Village - they taste like fudge.
• Escargot, frog legs.  Had em before; try em again.  Escargot tastes like pesto; thanks to the butter sauce.  Frog legs taste like chicken.
• McCroque.  Even McDonalds serves up a McCroque, a round toasted ham n cheese sandwich.

French Health Care: Ooh-la-la
For some reason, I always have eye trouble on vacation.  A few years ago, I got puffy eye in Brisbane, Australia.  And then this in Paris:  I start have trouble with my right contact, so I take it out.  Then, the next morning when I wake up, I'm pulling chunks of eye sleep out of my right eye.  I think, OK, weird, maybe it'll go away.  But it doesn't.  The next four days, I have a crusty right eye.  Figure I better see a doctor.  I go to a pharmacy near my hotel, and they refer me to an opthalmologist just a block away.  Bon chance!  I see the doctor right away, and she says I have a right eye lesion, which she sees all the time in contact-wearers.  She gives me a prescription for Vitamin B, which I get back at the pharmacy.  Total time: 40 minutes.  Total cost: $21.50, about $20 for the visit, $1.50 for the Vitamin B.  It's much cheaper to get sick in other countries, for small stuff anyway!  The doctor says no contacts for a week.  Good thing I anally brought three pairs of backup glasses.   Except the next day, I break my trendy hingeless glasses like a wishbone by just taking them off.  And then, my prescription glasses pop a screw.  Leaving me with just my old-school Harry Potter style glasses. All the hassle's enough to make me seriously consider laser eye surgery...But at least it's not as bad as my buddy Jeff, who slit his eyelid while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro  - use your browser to Edit | Find "contact" for that story.

French Language
OK,  I took intensive French 7 times a week (twice on Tues and Thurs) in college to learn French.  So I wanna see if it pays off.  I was kinda wary cause other travelers told me the French can be snooty if your French isn't flawless - with a Paris accent.  Some girls from French-speaking Martinique  on my Scotland tour said they even got the snooty nose in Paris.  But like with everything, I try it anyway. I'm really rusty at first and totally screw up the accent and make up random verb endings.  So most tourism people (eg at hotels, taxis, restaurants) do speak back to me in English.  But I would just talk back in French.  I even told this one French waiter, "C'est Paris!  Parlons en francais!"   But after a week of immersion, something kicks in and I start picking up stuff.  I even have a conversation with a father and son out to dinner, where I speak in French and they reply in English so we can both practice.  They even say I'm the best French-speaking American they've met, but they're from the country part of France, so I'm probably the only American they've met.  Analysis: From a cost benefit point of view (consulting background kicking in here), I took French for 30 weeks to kinda speak it for 2 weeks.  Okaaay, but hey, it's fun to try.  And speaking French does help talking to the average person-on-the-street for directions, etc.

Short Trips
Thanks to its excellent RER light rail system and the TGV superfast trains, Paris is a great home base for trips within France and outside France. 

• Day Trips: RER.  I take the RER east to Disneyland Paris (A line, 45 minutes) with its newly built second theme park, Disney Studios.  Another day, I take the RER west (C line 30 minutes) to see Louis XIV's famous palace at Versailles. 
  
• Overnight Trips: TGV.  I take the TGV 2 east to Brussels (1.5 hours) and then on to Amsterdam (3 more hours).  In Amsterdam, I realize there's a considered-Forgotten Wonder of the World in Normandy.  So I zip back from Amsterdam thru Paris to Rennes in a day to check out the nearby impressive castle-island Mont St. Michel 

Back to the USA
After a week in Paris; I realize it's the longest I've spent in any city; but well worth it.  I think it's the combo of cafes, food, trees, and architecture and rich museums that makes Paris so attractive.  I'm reminded it's time to move on when I notice a sign on my hotel that says Ben Franklin; John Jay and John Adams signed the Treaty of Paris recognizing America's independence there.  Quelle coincidence!  Time to wrap up the Euro-portion of this trip and head back to the U.S. in time for the Fourth of July.  And with an appropriate French connection:  Eiffel and another French engineer had Liberty-envy so they gave the Statue of Liberty as a present to New York.  So Next stop: New York.

Attack of the 50-fott Kev!  OK, this really the Arc de Triumph in Brussels model park Mini-Europe.  Just making sure you were paying attention.

I eat a salad at the Deux Magots cafe.  It's famous cause Hemingway, Sartre and others ate and philosophized here, which today lets them charge high tourist prices.  This is France so the bread is free but they charge 1.3 euro  for butter!

Jardin de Luxomberg

Tower at night.

At the Mona Lisa, people are taking photos like crazy.  I ask the guard why isn't there a sign or something like the one I saw when I was here several years ago saying No Photos.  The guard replies they did some tests on the painting and found out light doesn't hurt it.  Methinks that either the Mona hanging there is a fake conspiracy, or something....

Venus de Milo, because they found this statue of Venus in the Greek isle of Milos

Who woulda guessed Venus de Milo and Homer Simpson have something in common....

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Victory

Adam enjoys playing in the jardins.

Only in France would you get a mermaid fountain like this...Fortunately, Adam's too young to start wondering...

I felt very French with my routine of getting fruits from this market every morning, right across from the bakery and the meat store.  For some reason, whenever I go to the market, I always find myself humming the Bonjour Bonjour song when Belle walks thru the village at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast.  And I'm convinced that when fruit is easily available, it's easy to eat routinely.

I used to read Asterix comics, so I check out Asterix and Obelix the movie.  Gerard Depardieu is OK as Asterix surprisingly.

Moulin Rouge dancers

Blading through the streets at the Friday Night Skate.

Christine and Adam play at the fountain.  Too bad the water spray smells like duck crap.

I try a plate of three cheeses at an outdoor cafe.  Quite good. Soft and spreadable is the key.  No Velvetta or Kraft here.

Chris watches Adam at a park

French Attitudes to Americans
Note: I have a fun discussion with my hotel receptionist Francoise about French attitudes to Americans, or his anyway.
- FRANCOISE: The Americans, they are so naive.  When I worked in traditional French costume at Epcot in Florida, Americans would come up to me and ask if that's what we really wear in France.
- KEVIN:  Hey, most Americans don't travel abroad, don't blame them.
- FRANCOISE:  Yes, I know,  Only 7 percent of Americans even have passports.
- KEVIN:  Well, come on,  We're an ocean away and the flight's expensive.  In Europe, everything's closer so it's cheaper to visit other countries and learn languages.  Besides, unlike Europe, the U.S. has beaches, deserts, forests, and mountains.  Europeans have to travel to Africa, the Mediterranean or Croatia for a beach vacation.  Americans can just go to California or Florida.
- FRANCOISE:  Well, I do like Americans, because  while Americans are naive, they are upfront about it and will ask about questions. They want to learn.  Most Europeans won't want to admit they don't know something, and won't ask questions, so they'll never know.
- KEVIN: Uh, Yeah! 

Disneyland Paris

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