Je t'aime... un peu... beacoup... à la folie!

I've loved that ditty since I ran across it in a book years ago. It's the French version of the "he loves me, he loves me not" daisy rhyme. And it certainly applies to my weekend in Paris. I loved it... a little, a lot, madly.

I met up with 2 of my favourite people for a weekend in the city of lights and it was fabulous. Our hotel was only a 5 minute walk away from the Eiffel Tower - which of course was our first stop of the day.

Andrea and I frolicking in the Paris spring

In front of the Eiffel Tower is a peace monument. As you can see, the columns have the word 'peace' written on them in multiple languages. Although, to be honest, I only realized they said peace a little later - I walked over in the first place cause I thought I saw the word 'Candadian' written on a pole and I was seriously intrigued... And wrong...

aah... it's the one-legged, arm-wiggling, falling-over peace monster!

The walk up to the Eiffel Tower was hilarious. There are all sorts of people trying to sell you souvenirs. The best part? (Aside from being practically physically assaulted by these tenacious hawkers of course) They run when the police cruise by. How's that for sketchy?!

We didn't bother going up the Eiffel Tower - and can you blame us? Check out that line!

Chris and Andrea under the Eiffel Tower

And that was only for one of the four legs. I had better things to do in Paris than stand in line. Like take a million and a half pictures of the L'Arc de Triomphe.

Here's one.

What you can't really see in this picture is the crazy mad roundabout of death that circles the gate. First of all, it's HUGE - there are 12 roads leading into and out of this roundabout. Then you add the fact that it's roughly six lanes wide. But wait. That's not the ridiculous part. There are no lanes painted on the road.

Ya.

So basically it's a giant free for all. Chris made a great video of the traffic there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv8ngvvSuPk

It was mesmerizing to watch. Because even though it looked like a giant death trap to me, the Parisian folk appeared to know what they were doing. Organized chaos.

To calm our nerves, we wandered down the Champs-Élysées.

you may not see it, but there was more frolicking here. kinda...

Chris is a big car fan, and we made a stop in the Peugeot store to check out all things car. Although it took me a little while to figure out which end of this car was the front...

anyone else reminded of Toothless from "How to train your Dragon"?

At the end of the road was the Concorde - one of the major public squares in Paris. Complete with Egyptian Obelisk. See?

shucks... it's taller than I am

Now a trip to Paris just wasn't complete without a stop in the Louvre. (ps. It's huge.)

Chris and Andrea looking brilliant in front of the entrance to the Louvre

Once we figured out which wing of 4 we wanted to go in - seriously, just getting to the paintings is a challenge! - we made our way to... Can you guess?

the Grande Galerie

You guessed it. The Mona Lisa.

tadaa! Oh wait... can you find here among the hoard?

I had a really hard time keeping my head shaking/laughter under control - I think half the people were here just to say they'd seen the Mona Lisa. So you walk into this room and there are roughly 100 people standing practically on top of each other trying desperately to get a good shot of the Mona Lisa. Who has her own wall. And security guard.

And a lovely set of barricades to keep the public at least 10 feet away. Then comes the security guard. Then another barrier. Then a ledge. Then a sheet of bullet-proof glass. Behind which probably lives a community of invisible mini-ninjas armed and ready to cut off your feet if you even think about stealing this painting.

But she was lovely.

I turned my visit in the Louvre into a bit of a Dan Brown tour - I checked out the Mona Lisa, found the Madonna on the Rocks and then stopped by the inverted pyramid.

cheese!

Later on that night we went out for a view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up and looking beautiful at night. And it was stunning.

*sigh*

Day 2 was a holy day. Well not really, it was Saturday, but we visited churches all day long. First up was Notre Dame.

When we got there I thought to myself: "hmm, this church looks really familiar. Where have I seen it before? Is there a church in Germany modelled after it? Oh wait. Nope. I watched 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' as a child..." I'm brilliant, eh?

the nave

a view from the back

The second church of the day was the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.

there were all these cute little streets leading up to it... packed with people

the front of the basilica

All in all it was a brilliant weekend. And I got to scratch another thing off my bucket list. I don't know if you know it, but I have been waiting for years to take a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower with a baguette in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. The touristy of all touristy shots.

oh yeah.

And the best part? After we took the picture we sat ourselves down on the grass and had the baguette and wine as a picnic dinner. And liked it so much that we repeated it again the next day.

To sum it up, Paris rocked my socks off.

Au revoir mes amis

Sandy