Friday Fives!!!! Wedding style

1. What year were YOU married??

2. Did you watch the wedding this morning???

3. What did you think of the dress?

4. Would you like hats to be back in fashion? Would you wear one?

5. If you could do a second honeymoon, where would you go?

There were just a "few" more pictures of Paris I didn't show you....

Wanna see them????
I didn't show you any from inside Versailles, which was AMAZING........why don't I show you just a few???

the Golden Gate

The King's Chapel

Inside the courtyard

Marie Antoinette's dishes....well SOME of them!!

Can you imagine just keeping everything DUSTED????

It was an amazing palace and grounds.......hard to imagine living like royalty!!  Just to give you an overview, here's an artist's drawing of the complete grounds...which equals nearly 1000 acres.  Totally magnificent!

The ROYAL princess.....

Well, at least she's royalty in MY book!!!

the ROYAL wedding.......

Will YOU be watching......the national news certainly has it covered.....what do you think about it all?  Will you be getting up to watch???? Um, that would be 4 a.m. my time.....hmmm.....


  You can read ALL the details HERE....or just turn on the tv!! 
How would you handle going from being a simple commoner to being royalty?????  I'm not sure I could stand all the media coverage!!! 

---or you can visit this site...there is NO end to the places you can go and read everyone's prognostications of what will actually happen on Friday....so what about you...will you be watching?? I doubt anyone reading this will actually BE THERE!!!  If you are, give up the details!!!!

Were you actually one of the ones who watched Diana's wedding??? I remember being a newlywed myself watching all the tv coverage of her wedding!
What would you like to see about the festivities....ALL of it, or just the coverage afterward??? 

Okay I need to finish my Paris posts.....

Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart)

People will do many things to make money!

???

Money makers??

going down was not as hard as going up!!!

St. Sulpice

The Funicular.....beat climbing up the stairs...our legs were already so tired, and it was hurting my knee to climb.  Walking was ok, but climbing, not so much!

A harpist at Sacre Couer, played beautifully!

Yes, I need to finish up and finally blog about something else.  The few of you reading my blog have been so gracious and seem interested....but I have a feeling I've  lost readers!!! I must find something interesting to blog about!!! ha.  This was the day we went up to the Montmarte area.....known for its Bohemian culture, and for Sacre Couer.  It was magnificent but no pictures were allowed.   We bought a book to remember all the pictures we would have taken!  Behind it was a very active tourist area...this was the one place I felt very, very wary of pickpockets because the crowds were thick.  A lot of people come up here and there are dozens of shops, restaurants and tourist catering services!  We did do most of our souvenir shopping up here, though.
Afterwards, we strolled over to the Pigales area and caught a glimpse of Moulin Rouge.  Our next stop was St. Sulpice, which is the cathedral mentioned in The Da Vinci Code.  The brass line that runs through it is mentioned, and they make it clear by posting a typewritten disclaimer that there is no truth to the mystical nature of what is mentioned in the book.  It was gorgeous architecture as well, and a sight to see!!!  I will have to have at least ONE more day to show pics....I just can't cover them all in one blog post!! See you soon!

Moulin Rouge....a famous cabaret, and the line to get in!

The Pipe Organ at St. Sulpice

the Brass Line and the disclaimer

More about Paris.....

On the way up to the TOP of the Eiffel Tower...oh MY!!!

Eiffel Tower view at night....Blogger is not cooperating today and this pic is suppoed to be at the bottom!!

I decided to mix in my Friday Fives today on our Paris Tour....and whoever finds all five, since Blogger is not cooperating very well today, gets a prize from me!!! =)
At the Louvre.........................

Mona Lisa.....is she smiling????

The next day we spent almost the entire day in the Louvre.....which is massive!!!  I'll show you a couple of pics, but pictures just don't portray the massiveness of  this once Palace turned Art Museum.  It's over 550,000 square feet of art museum!!!  Since it's divided into three floors and large rooms and small rooms, one could easily get lost.  So glad I don't have getting lost in the Louvre on my list of things I did on vacation!!!  1.  What about you, do you enjoy museums???

An example of the gorgeous ceilings in the Louvre!

One hall in the Louvre....look at the size of the paintings!

Outside the Louvre in the Tuileries garden

Venus de Milo

Thinking about a pedicure...oh my aching feet!! =)
2. Have you had a Spring pedicure yet??? Ready for sandals/flip flop weather????

That night, we decided we'd go back to Eiffel Tower since the first time we went, we got rained out!  That was the only time we had to run for shelter because of drizzles!! Blogger is not cooperating with putting pics where I want them, so the pics for this are at the top!


3. Is it rainy where you are today?? Texas needs rain BADLY!! We got a tiny bit this morning!

4. Do you have weekend plans made?  Is there an Easter Egg Hunt in your future???

5.  Do you have any travel plans for this summer or your near future?  I can't wait to get back over to see Catherine, who celebrated her six month birthday this past Tuesday!!! Can you believe how time flies!!???

Sunday in Paris

This is the front public area in front and it became MUCH more crowded later in the day!  Notice the large round stain glassed window....you'll see below from the inside.

The gargoyles that surround Notre Dame

Hubby goofing off, but it shows you just how large one of the bells was.....

Some of the famous steps up to the top!

The large round window from the inside!!! Spectacular!

On Sunday, the second full day we were in Paris, our plans took us to Notre Dame.....just the inside of the church itself is spectacular....but it also has stairs that lead up into the tower....OVER 400 of them.  I need a t-shirt that says I survived the climb!  There are stone steps that circle up around to the top of the tower....and you get there to discover a fabulous view of the city!  You can come face to face with the gargoyles that surround Notre Dame and get a bird's eye view of the bell as well, which is massive!  One interesting thing to note is that they allowed tourists to go in while the worship service was going on.  It was somewhat dark in the area that tourists could walk around, but I would have been so distracted if I were trying to worship there.  Anyway, magnificent architecture and such massive stain glass windows and artifacts... Amazing!

We left there and walked a few blocks over to Saint Chappelle.  The security was much stiffer here, so we had to stand in line for security.  It was a must see if you love stain glassed windows.  Apparently, the whole Bible is told in stain glass window form....massive windows, but a little difficult to tell which story each window portrays.

Looking to the front of Saint Chappelle

This massive window told the story of Genesis, but it was very difficult to tell what each square represented.....

After leaving this church, which only had 200 steps, we were on to the Arc de Triomphe.....which by the way also had 200+ steps......I got my workout in that day, so it didn't matter about that Pain au chocolat I had that morning with my coffee!!!  Whew!

When we were walking back over to catch the Metro, we also came across a large group of people rollerblading thru the city. There were people of every age, so it must have been some fundraiser or rollerblade-athon or some such thing... and a few blocks over from that, we saw some college aged young men, rollerblading much more elaborate moves, I suppose hoping to wow the crowd for a few coins in their boots!!!

Can you see him in the air? They would skate in and out of these yellow cups and do tricks to entertain the crowd; we did video them, but it wouldn't load to blogger, so you get to see the pic instead!

Well, this was our full day of step workout!! I'll be back with more sights and such of our trip to Paris in March 2011!  Au revoir, y'all!

Paris Restaurants/Food

Cathy asked me about restaurants and food in Paris, so I thought I'd tell y'all a little about that.  FIRST of all, there is a Patasserie or Boulangerie on nearly every corner....by definition, I think the boulangerie has the breads and rolls, etc., and the Patasserie has the sweets and pastries.

The pastries in the windows were so lovely and definitely eye candy.  There were two nice ones near our apartment, and we visited them on a number of the days we were there.  I read somewhere that the government regulates the price of a baguette, so that everyone is able to afford that.  Clearly they do not have the same regulations on pastries, though, because they are very proud of their artisan pastries and they can be fairly expensive.  Of course, I felt like it was my duty to come back and tell you all about some of them, so therefore, my responsibility to TRY OUT a number of varieties!!! Oui????
My favorite thing was a pain au chocolat with my coffee every morning!  With almonds, without......nonetheless, such a treat!!!  At the end of the day, you would see many people on their way home from a long day carrying their baguette...often with the first two or three inches broken off.  I guess they didn't have the same problem with their bread being bare in the open air!! I kept wanting to cover mine up, to keep the end of my baguette clean!! Ha!
So we definitely engaged in No Carbs left behind.....
Since we were in an apartment, and had a refrigerator, a microwave and a cooktop, we also did some grocery shopping to keep our fridge stocked.  We bought wine at the grocery store as well, and enjoyed that a few evenings.  We didn't do a whole lot of cooking, but we did enjoy what we did.  And I find it SO interesting to look at the groceries in other (especially international!) grocery stores! Do you? I was looking at the vegetables, thinking "um, I think champignons are mushrooms...I think".....etc....
As far as restaurants, we did eat out a few times, and the open air cafe we ate at the first full day ended up being the most delicious.  I ordered the Plat du Jour , which was roast of veal, along with some roasted potatoes and leeks.  It was delicious, and with the fresh bread, the gravy was also tasty!  As I remember hubby ordered something like a crepe with roasted vegetables.......
Things are very expensive...we often wondered how the French people could afford to go out to eat!  They would often have a "formula" price for a meal, especially at lunch, which meant you could have a sandwich, a dessert and a drink for a certain amount.  We ate at a very classy restaurant when we were at Versailles.  It was a fine dining kind of restaurant.  I had a chicken caesar salad, with coffee and water.  Nice but again, pretty pricey! See a slide show HERE.
So all in all, we learned a lot about eating in Paris.....we did enjoy shopping in the markets for fresh fruits and veggies, as well as the wonderful French bread and pastries.  We did not shop many of the fine cheese shops, because hubby has eliminted dairy from his diet.
  Many places have what they call Take Away, a crepe or sandwich to go, if you will.  It costs less to carry it away compared to sitting at the table to eat!!   It is easy to pull together a picnic by hopping in the Monoprix (grocery) and then finding a bench to enjoy.  But if you go, budget a good bit for food.  Or you might be hungry!  It is not hard to save some money, but you want to have enough to enjoy!
I'll be back to tell you a little more about our trip, that is, if you're not bored of it by now!!!!