our last day in france. sarah wanted to sleep in this morning, but i wanted to squeeze out every possible moment i had in the country. so i got up early to head to the Marmottan museum because i found out that they possess my absolute favorite painting. Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, the very painting from which we get the term “impressionism.” i got there right as they opened and quickly made my way to the Monet room. the rest of the museum was basically the Marmottan house and had original furniture and art from the Marmottans, and i wasn’t too interested in it. the Monet room was actually two interlocking rooms, one circular, one rectangular. the circular room had nothing but waterlily paintings. the other room had various other paintings including a couple of his haystacks, one of the many of Rouen cathedral, one of the famous Houses of Parliament, and, of course, Impression, Sunrise. i spent about 20 minutes just looking at the painting. it completely captivated me.

however, that was about ten minutes too long and i was now running late for when i was going to meet up with sarah so we could go to lunch. we had planned to go to a restaurant that we had heard great things about in order to have a traditional french meal. the museum was over in the same area as the Eiffel Tower, something we had yet to see, so i hopped on the metro to get off at the station in front of the tower, snap a few pics, get back on the train and head back to the hotel to get sarah. inevitably…..i got lost. got off at the wrong station and ended up about a mile away from the tower. of course i didn’t know i was that far away as i thought the gigantic tower was closer than it appeared on the horizon. i booked it over towards the tower, again about a mile, got my pictures and then decided to try and find the metro station that i thought i had gotten off at. i couldn’t. fifteen minutes later, i was now about a mile and a half away from the station i had gotten off at and just going in circles. i probably should have just asked someone where the nearest stop was, but i wasn’t thinking clearly, nor did i really want to look like the dumb, lost tourist that i was. so i booked it back to the station and got on the train. i was supposed to meet sarah at noon. i didn’t actually meet her until about 12:50. but all was well as she was just finishing getting dressed.

i changed because i was dripping with sweat after running all over Paris and being bundled up because of the frigid weather, and then we headed out to the restaurant. which apparently wasn’t open for lunch. only dinner. they were to open at 7:30pm, so we decided that we would just come back then. when we got off at the station near the restaurant (absolutely starving) we had noticed (more like smelt) a sandwich stand nearby. so we decided we would act like real Parisians and get a sidewalk panini sandwich. all the cool kids in Paris were doing it. sarah got a chicken curry panini. i’m……not really sure what mine was. i asked for a bacon and mozzerella one, but that’s not the stack that the guy pulled from. he pulled from the “langue et mozzerella” stack which was next to the bacon stack. if i know my french correctly, “langue” means “beef tongue”. so it’s possible that i had a tongue sandwich. the reason for the ambiguity is that the french don’t do bacon like we do in the states. they do thick slabs of bacon, as opposed to thin strips. so my sandwich could have been bacon. but it also looked like tongue. and came from the tongue stack. at any rate, it was VERY good and i just chalked it up to a unique experience in Paris.

after we had eaten our sandwiches we headed over to St. Chapelle to see the small chapel. brilliant stained glass in this chapel, supposedly the most famous stained glass in the world apart from Chartres. it was very nice that the sun decided to shine this day, one of the few, maybe two, that it had. it made the glass that much more vibrant. after the chapel we went to the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs d’Elysees so that sarah could have a Paris shopping adventure. it was fun seeing all the famous Parisian stores, even for me. of course sarah had a blast and it was much easier for me to say “no” in stores like Louis Vuitton than it would have been in like…..target….or something. the prices were just outrageous. i think the cheapest thing we saw in that store was a small brass, yes, brass, keychain that didn’t even appear to have the Vuitton logo on it, for 75 euros. ridiculous. we spent most of the afternoon and a good part of the evening walking down the famous street, killing time until we were to go to our restaurant.

we got on the metro and headed that way about 6:30. we got to the restaurant about 6:50. so we still had a good amount of time before it opened and definitely did not really want to be the first ones there when it opened up for the evening. although it probably wouldn’t have made much difference because we spent a long time looking at the posted menu while the staff inside were right by the door. worried that it would be awkward for us to just stand there, tapping our feet, until it opened, we walked around a bit and got some croissants (which weren’t very good it turns out) for our long day of travel starting the next morning. about 7:25 we slowly walked back to the restaurant and stood at the head of the street until we saw other people going in. i know. stupid. but oh well.

the restaurant, by the way, is called Le Petit Prince du Paris and is located on the Rue de Lanneau in the Latin Quarter, or 5th arrondisement area. i unwaveringly recommend this restaurant to anyone that goes to Paris. it was the gastronomical highlight of our trip.

when we finally went inside, it was a very pleasant surprise that the maitre’d spoke english and he asked us if we had reservations. we didn’t. so he said, “i can seat you, but can you try to be out by 9:15 because we have reservations coming in?” as a reminder, it’s 7:30. he’s asking us to be out in two hours. this was strange to us as i guess we’re so used to a fast food, get it in under 30 minutes or its free kind of culture. we told him it wouldn’t be a problem and he was happy to seat us. it’s a very small little restaurant with a ton of charm. the quintessential romantic french dinner kind of place.

after we were seated, the waiter came over to us and he too spoke english! it was so nice. he didn’t seem to speak as much as the maitre’d, but he spoke well enough for us to understand him. his first question was directed at sarah (i don’t know if it’s a french thing or what, but it seemed that the waiters and waitresses always addressed the female member of a couple. i noticed this several times, not only with us but in watching other people as well. i didn’t know if there was something wrong with me, or maybe they just like women a whole lot over there or what. strange, haha) and he asked her if she needed some “helps” with the menu. she said she did and he proceeded to translate the menu for her. the entire menu. it was amazing. granted there were only about 15 things on the menu, but it was still so nice that he took the time to do that. he even explained several of the wines for us so we could make a good choice in that department as well.

Le Petit Prince is a fixed price menu place, but doesn’t include a dessert like most of them do. dessert was extra. the fixed price was for an entree and a plat, or an appetizer and an entree in american terms. for my choices, i chose escargot for an appetizer and veal medallions in a foie gras (goose liver. apparently a delicacy in france and we even passed a store one of the days that sold nothing but foie gras) sauce for my entree. the escargot was excellent, but it was not what i expected. i expected a plate of snails still in the shell with the fancy getter-outter instrument that i’ve seen on tv before. instead, it was about a dozen shelled escargot with bowtie pasta in a pesto sauce. although i was slightly disappointed that i didn’t get to play with my snails, the escargot appetizer was VERY good and i was content that i didn’t leave france without having tried it. the veal medallions were also very good and the sauce was excellent. i had my doubts about it but it “cest magnifique!”

if you know sarah at all, what follows will shock you. to your core. you will never guess what she had for her appetizer. i don’t remember the full title of it, but it definitely included the word “lapin”. for you non-french speakers out there, that’s bunny. yes. bunny.

sarah elizabeth cozart ate a bunny.

not only did she eat a bunny, but she did so knowingly and willingly! remember that the waiter had translated everything for us. and she liked it! it was strange bunny too. it was shredded bunny meat mixed with a sort of streusel-like crumbly sweet concoction, served in a bell jar with cinammon sprinkled around it’s accompanying plate. i tried some of it and it was definitely very good. but i am still shocked that she ordered it. i had to ask her several times if she was sure she knew what she was ordering because i just didn’t believe it. not only did she eat a bunny, she also ate a lamb! her entree was a lamb stew with a saffron (which apparently is the most expensive spice in the world) creme sauce which was also very good. for dessert i had some kind of sweet breadish kind of thing with seasonal fruit and sarah had a dessert of two sorbet (apparently, according to our french friends at the restaurant, pronounced sorbeT, hard “t”, as opposed to “sorbay”, like i’ve always thought it was pronounced) scoops and a mint liquer.

we didn’t get out by 9:15, but that was not our fault. we were actually waiting on them. but our experience at Le Petit Prince was memorable. we will definitely go back to this restaurant, even if we only have one day in Paris. we decided that it can be “our little place in Paris”. again, to anyone who reads this and may be going to Paris, do not leave the city without going to this restaurant. you will not regret eating there.

after dinner we strolled back to Notre Dame to see it at night and, again, just stood there and looked at it for a while. we didn’t want to leave because that was basically it for our trip. we figured that the longer we stood there, the less we’d have to think about leaving the next day. but seeing two men get arrested in front of the cathedral and seeing the french police rough someone up a little was enough for us to think, “i think we should be getting back to the hotel.” so we did, and thus ended our travel in Paris.

the next day, we got up around 6:45am and headed to the airport for our 10:15am flight back home. well. back to montreal. then toronto. then atlanta. THEN home. it was a long day.

mondays are apparently the french “Sabbath” as most museums and shops are closed. so, like we did the previous day, we figured that at least the churches would be open. so we decided to take a little day trip to Chartres, which is about an hour southwest of Paris. we got up, got dressed, and set out for Gare Montparnasse to catch our train. we barely missed the one we had planned on taking (mostly because we couldn’t figure out how to work the self-ticket buyers because they were in french), so we had to take the next one which would be leaving about 45 minutes later. the train arrived and we set out for the Centre “county” of france. once we got out of Paris, the scenery was very beautiful. we went by the Versailles area, but couldn’t see the chateau although we did see some of the grounds.

perhaps the best part of the train ride was discovering that a couple of rows behind us there was an american family traveling! more than that, they were southern! it was really funny, and slightly bizarre, to hear thick southern accents (we found out that they’re from Savannah, Georgia) in Paris.

when we got to Chartres, we could immediately see the famous cathedral towering over every other building in the city. we started to make our way towards it and discussed how quaint the old medieval town is. when we came upon the main plaza in front of the cathedral, we were able to fully take in the front edifice of the cathedral. ever since 9th grade, when i took my first humanities class which included architecture history, i have always loved Chartres cathedral. it was one of the things i was most looking forward to on this trip. but when i finally saw it….i wasn’t disappointed…..but i guess i thought i would be more impressed or something when i saw it. i guess some of the awe might have been taken away the previous day after having seen Notre Dame. however, the cathedral is still beautiful and impressive. the two vastly different spires have always been something that i wanted to personally see and i am very grateful that i got to see them “up close” (as up close as i could get to something a few hundred feet in the air!).

before going into the cathedral we found a small italian place to have lunch. we each got our own pizza (we didn’t know how big they’d be, but surprisingly we each finished our whole pizzas) and a carafe of wine to share. even the pizza in france is wonderful. but not the german food. remember, don’t eat german food in Paris. or anywhere.

Chartres is famous for its stained glass, and rightly so. so famous, in fact, that there is even a color named after the unique blue glass that is found in many of the windows. the pieces in the cathedral were just gorgeous. it’s hard to even really describe them, they’re that beautfiul. much more beautiful than the windows at Notre Dame. one of the most interesting things within the cathedral is the floor. we thought the floor was made up of big circular stones or something, but later found out that the floor is one giant labyrinth that pilgrims and congregants would walk in the days that there were no chairs.

after wandering around inside a bit, we went outside and to the back of the cathedral. behind the cathedral there is a small garden area and then the city seems to just drop off about 100 feet and continue from there. closest to the wall on which the cathedral sits was a fairly large manor house whose garden was arranged in the same design of the cathedral labyrinth, kind of like a maze-ish type thing. there were children running around in it and it was funny to watch them. we then just walked around several of the streets to see what was there and what was open. disappointingly, most of the shops were closed, including the stained glass shops that i was told would be open. but oh well. we’ll just have to come back! we did find the stained glass museum, but it was largely unimpressive and not worth the admission price.

satisfied with our afternoon trip, we made it back to the train station……and again missed the train we wanted to take. this time by about 15 seconds. stupid ticket agents that take FOREVER to print two tickets. so we had to wait about an hour for the next train. we passed the time walking along some other streets, but made sure to get back to the station in plenty of time to ensure that we’d be on the train.

when we got back to Paris, we decided to do a little shopping, so we headed to the Louvre mall that we had noticed the day we spent in the Louvre museum. but first, we needed to eat dinner. across the street from the museum was a very familiar spot, a McDonalds. i know, i know. we’re in Paris. why on earth would we want to go to McDonalds? you’d be surprised, though. after so many days of strange and new food, it’s nice to have something that you’re used to. however, you definitely pay for it. for both of us to eat there, it cost about 13 euros, or between $15 and $16. and that was just two combo meals. ridiculous. but it tasted the same and was a nice comfort (that was the cheapest meal we had, as well). after wandering in the mall a bit, we decided we had had enough excitement for a day and headed back to our hotel.

but not without a stop at our pastry stand.

(oi. the last couple of weeks have been crazy busy and i haven’t had time to sit down and finish our travel posts. but now i have some time, so hopefully i can get one or two of them knocked out. these will probably be shorter than the previous ones because the events are not as fresh in my mind. oh well)

bonne année (happy new year)! after an uneventful new year’s eve, we woke up sunday morning to a new year in a foreign country. strangely enough, it’s not all that different! since most things were going to be closed this day, we decided we would go to the only place that would be open on a sunday that also happens to be a holiday: the city cathedral. the gorgeous Notre Dame. but first we had to eat.

we left the hotel around 11:30 and headed for the Ile de la Cité, the bigger of two small islands in the middle of the Seine River. when we got there we looked for a good place to eat. we found a small corner cafe that had the words “AMERICAN COFFEE” painted loudly on the side of the building. it’s funny to me that this place would think it would gain business by painting such words in the heart of espressoland, but i guess a lot of tourists just HAVE to have coffee they way they would back in the States. when we sat down, we were one of three occupied tables in the covered veranda area of the cafe. about half an hour later, the place was packed and we were literally elbow to elbow with three other tables. apparently there’s no conception of fire codes in french cafes. we each had a croque madame sandwich, but these were different than ones we had before. these had a poached egg on top and that made the sandwich even better!

after lunch we moseyed on over to the cathedral and it was……breathtaking. literally. i remember walking around the corner of a street and bam! there it was. it stopped me dead in my tracks and i just stood there in awe of the building for a bit with my mouth open. i don’t think that i have ever been so affected by a piece of architecture before in my life. Notre Dame is truly a remarkable site to behold. we walked around outside the front of the cathedral for a good while, took some pictures, and just tried to take it all in. we then found the line to go inside and secured spots in it. while we were waiting, there came a strangely familiar sound behind us. english!! there was an australian trio (a guy and two girls) a few spots behind us and we saw a chance for someone to take a picture of us in front of the cathedral. the guy was happy to, and his friends held our places while we had a kodak moment. we found out that they were from canberra and were traveling all over europe.

we soon found ourselves inside the cathedral and it was almost as breathtaking as the outside. it’s just incredible to be in something that gigantic and old! even more amazing was standing there and thinking “how the heck did they build this thing without cranes” or other modern equipment. it’s just remarkable. after we had done our tour of the inside, we found ourselves back outside and started to walk around the side to see the famous flying buttresses and to walk along the river wall.

we walked to the end of the island and happened upon something we had not even known was there or expected to see. there was a monument that was sort of underneath the island. as we came upon the steps, we tried to make out what the information plaque said. after some attempt at translation, we were able to see that this place was a “memorial to the deported.” apparently this was the place where the Nazis had gathered Jews, gypsies, musicians, etc. in Paris and the surrounding area to deport them to concentration camps. in the underground memorial there are several holding cells and other rooms, as well as a candle for each person that was deported from this place, over 200,000. on the walls above the doorways, ruggedly carved in red letters, are the names of the camps that french persons were taken to: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Drancy, Dachau, Buchenwald. the memorial is very cold and harsh, a fitting tribute to what went on in this place over 60 years ago. leaving the memorial, above the exit portal is the phrase, “Forgive, but do not forget” in the same, chilling red letters that the camp names are written in. in comparison with the noble sites of Normandy that we had seen a few days earlier, this memorial was a stark reminder of arguably the worst event in human history and was very sobering.

after we climbed the narrow steps back up to street level, we decided to walk to the other island in the Seine, the Ile de St. Louis. there was a large crowd gathered around a street performer, so we watched him do crazy stunts on a bicycle for a couple of minutes and then just strolled along the streets of the oldest part of Paris. i don’t know if i’ve said so in previous posts, but my favorite memories of Paris are the times when we just leisurely walked among the streets and backroads of the city. you get so much more of an idea of what daily Parisian life is like by doing this than just visiting the highly trafficked, overy priced tourist areas. we found a small patisserie and got some very excellent snacks (i definitely miss the Parisian pastries, and i don’t even like sweets that much!). having been on our feet all afternoon, we went to a nearby park to sit down for a while and enjoyed watching a little girl run around in her little pink coat. we then made our way back to the train station, stopping in and out of a couple of the really tacky tourist shops to see what was there. these are the places where you can by a small, copper Eiffel Tower for 6 euros (ridiculous!) or other just plain stupid trinkets that are specifically aimed at dumb tourists.

when we got back to the arrondisement where our hotel was, it was dinner time. we had passed by a chinese restaurant several times since we had been in Paris and decided to give it a try. little did we know that new year’s day is apparently a special day for chinese people. even when it’s not chinese new year’s. we were one of three non-chinese parties in the place, and we were definitely not at seats of honor. we were actually the last non-reservation table to be accepted, and we were at a table with folding chairs! it was odd. the food was excellent, though, and was probably the best chinese food i’ve ever had. sarah ordered roast duck, and i ordered pineapple chicken, but we both mooched off each other’s dish. very good stuff.

after dinner, we strolled around our district a bit and found “our” pastry stand. we wished we had found this place earlier! once we found it, though, we definitely made a tradition of making this our last stop of the night. it had the best (and cheapest!) pastries we had while we were there. i got the same thing every time, but sarah mixed it up a bit. i don’t remember what she got the first night, but i got a framboise beignet. basically that’s a french sweet bread (kind of like…..a donut…..but not really at all) cut down the middle like a hot dog bun and stuffed with raspberry or strawberry jam. so. freakin. good. i couldn’t believe it.

we ate our goodies on the way back to the hotel and settled in for the night.

New Years’ Eve we got a late start. today was the day we were going to spend in the Louvre and had seen on the website that they are open til 9:30 on saturdays. so we didn’t set out until about noon or so and looked for a place to eat lunch. we had noticed a creperie in our arrondissement (neighborhood or district) and had actually tried to go there for dinner the night before, which would have been way better than the crappy German food, but they were closing for the night when we got there. most places in Paris work on a fixed price menu where you get an appetizer, an entree (or plat to them as entree means appetizer in French), and a dessert. at this place you got a salad, a salty crepe, a sweet crepe, and a jug of cidre for 9 euros a piece. pretty good deal, i think. the salad was pretty tasty and then sarah and i both had a ham and cheese crepe for our main course. then she had a butter and sugar with lemon juice crepe (which she says was “SOOO good!”) and i had an apple crepe which was excellent. our waiter was really nice. he didn’t speak much English but he tried really hard and kept apologizing to us for not speaking clearly enough which was very interesting to me after hearing that the French hate to speak English and are snobby about it when they have to. but that was not the case with this guy and that was very encouraging to us.

after our lunch we headed to the center of the city to go to the Louvre. the day before we had seen all the bookstands along the Seine River, but they were all locked up and unmanned because it was so cold. this day, however, it was warmer and a good many of them were open. so we decided to walk along the river and browse the various selling stations before heading to the museum since we had until 9:30 to go through it. a lot of the stuff was pretty cheap and we got a nice charcoal drawing of Notre Dame done by a local artist for something ridiculous like 2 or 3 euros. definitely a bargain. after a good amount of walking among the street vendors we started to head over to the museum about 2:45.

so remember when i said that we knew we had until 9:30? well apparently all publications and websites failed to mention that the Louvre would be closing early on New Years’ Eve because of some gala that they were having there. it was now 3:00pm and the museum would be closing at 5:00pm, and they would start moving people out of the galleries between 4:30 and 4:45. so in the biggest museum in the world, we had about an hour and a half to go through it. utterly impossible and just plain stupid to art critics across the globe, i’m sure. forgive my blasphemy, but an hour and a half was enough time for me. i probably would have preferred at least 2 hours, but i saw everything i wanted to see in the small amount of time that we had there. overall, i was pretty underimpressed with teh Louvre. at least the art that was there. i’m just not a big fan of the “grand master” painters and much prefer the Impressionists and later. but all the same, it was fun to see really famous works of art that i’ve only studied in school. that’s not to say that i didn’t enjoy the Louvre, like i said i saw everything i wanted to see, i just didn’t find it to live up to its hype that i’ve heard all my life.

my favorite pieces in the museum were not even paintings. the Louvre has several Babylonian gates that i was VERY excited to see. i was not really prepared for them to be as big as they were and was quite taken aback when i entered the room that housed them. they were probably about 15 feet tall and much more detailed and intricate than i had remembered from pictures, even more amazing since they are over 2500 years old. as i stood in their shadows looking at them, i could imagine them back in Babylon standing over Ezekiel and other prophets as they prophesied against Babylon. aside from the ancient Mesopatamian artifacts, i also wanted to see the ancient Egyptian exhibits. the Louvre has the normal Egyptian stuff, sarcophagi, death masks, obelisks, etc, but it’s always cool to see stuff that is that old.

of course there are the Louvre “staples” that everyone must see when they visit the museum and that, of course, everyone flocks to. the first one we came across was the famous Nike of Samothrace. situated at the top of a set of stairs, Nike is beautifully placed. pictures simply do not do this statue justice. it is more beautiful than i had imagined and we stood looking at her (and being bumped around a good bit by other tourists) for a good number of minutes. the second staple we really had no intention of seeing and just sort of happened to come across her as we were looking for other things. this, of course, is the famous Venus de Milo, another very beautiful statue. we then made our way to the Grand Gallery, a very long hallway containing the museum’s collection of Italian paintings, including the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. having just finished Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (total rubbish, by the way, in content, scholarship, and composition) the day before we left for France, the Grand Gallery was very fun to stand in.

as we walked down the gallery i made a game out of trying to remember which works i had studied and then we came to “the room”. everyone always says how different the Mona Lisa looked from what they expected, usually citing how small it is. i had heard this so many times that i pretty much expected the painting to be like an 8×10 or something. so i guess i am probably one of the very few people who was actually surprised by how big it is! i guess, with it being the most famous painting in the world, people expect it to be this massive painting that covers an entire wall of the museum or something. if so, i can see how it would be surprising that the Mona Lisa is only about 30×20. i was amazed at how beautiful the painting is. with such a cultural icon, i think a lot of its wonder is lost through seeing it so many times in so many different ways, be it in art books or through commercial gimmicks. but it’s just a beautiful and wonderful painting that definitely deserves all the talk that it gets. again with reference to Dan Brown’s book, it was funny to hear someone actually say “she really DOES look like she knows a secret” followed by their friend’s “you’re right, she DOES. interesting.” again, i say, rubbish! but funny, nonetheless.

the museum was soon closing so we made our way from the Grand Gallery back toward the pyramid entrance and made a small stop at the museum shop. we then headed to the Carrousel shopping center attached to the museum to see what was there. as we entered the mall, we saw another very amusing site. there it was. the blade and the chalice (again a reference to The Da Vinci Code). if you haven’t read the book, “the blade and the chalice” is a large inverted glass pyramid hanging from the ceiling (the chalice) with its point nearly touching the point of a cement pyramid coming out of the cement floor of the ground (the blade). this location is said to be the (ficticious) resting place of the “real” (ficticious) Holy Grail, a set of (ficticious) documents guarded by the (ficticious) Priory of Sion which contain the (ficticious) genealogy of Jesus Christ, who was (ficticiously) married to Mary Magdalene and had a (ficticious) daughter with her. the blade and chalice seemed to be a point of pilgrimmage for many visitors to Paris as there were as many people around this site waiting to take pictures and touch it as there were around the three “staples” of the Louvre.

after having a good laugh at this, we made our way up to the food court of the mall to have dinner. this food court was unlike American food courts. i guess this was the French equivalent of “fast food”, but it was still quite expensive and still in the “fixed price” fashion (i guess our “combo meals” are sort of a fixed price kind of thing). we found the cheapest place, a hamburger joint where a drink, fries, and burger cost 8 euros (a little over $10). it was…..decent, definitely not worth what we paid, but still filled our bellies.

after dinner, we walked for a while and made our way to the end of the Champs D’Elysees, the Place D’Concorde, where an Egyptian obelisk stands to mark the place of guillotine beheadings during the French Revolution. people were starting to gather here (even at 7pm) for New Years’ Eve festivities, and it was already starting to get rowdy. we were pretty tired from being on our feet all day, plus it had started to drizzle (miserable, slow rain. the worst kind), so we decided to make our way back to our hotel and enjoy a nice New Years’ Eve inside. plus, we figured that the festivities would be featured on tv, so we could watch them there. when we got back to our hotel it was about 8pm, so we read for a little while and then turned on the tv to experience French television. after skimming channels we found a French variety show where the hosts were all dressed formally and figured that this would be a good candidate to show New Years’ festivities (we figured there would at least be fireworks at the Eiffel Tower) when the time came. the show was pretty funny. it had magicians, acrobats, and other various kinds of acts.

midnight came….and nothin. no changing to live coverage of downtown Paris or anything. so we searched channels again. we found London’s festivities, Berlin’s, Amsterdam’s, Madrid’s, Moscow’s. but not Paris’!! in Paris, there was no coverage of anything going on in Paris to ring in the New Year. this was quite curious. even the next morning (during our five minutes of internet time), i couldn’t find any pictures of anything that went on in Paris. strange. apparently, however, there were more vehicle burnings and mild rioting, though most appeared to be in Paris suburbs as opposed to the center city, so we were quite content with our decision to stay in instead of braving the revelry in a foreign place. hardly believing that it was now 2006, we went to sleep.

we woke up on December 30th about 9am and showered and dressed and were ready to head out to explore Paris. we first looked for a patisserie, got a couple of croissants and then headed to the metro station to buy our metro and museum passes. we then made our way to the center of Paris and started walking around the banks of the Seine River. like Normandy, i was amazed at how old everything looked. it was hard to believe that i was actually in Europe. i had only seen places like this ini pictures before, and now it was all spread right before my eyes! it was very exciting. we continued walking along the river and crossed a bridge and started making our way to the Orsay Museum.

having just bought our museum passes, we didn’t have to wait in the hour and a half long line to get into the museum. we pretty much walked right in and started browsing. we were both hungry, however, so we went to check out the museum restaurant. it was our first experience with French food and a French restaurant. luckily, being a museum, the staff spoke English. so that was nice. i had pumpkin soup and sarah had shrimp penne pasta. both dishes were very good, although mine was thick and creamy so it got old about halfway through the bowl. it also had slivers of something slimy that i still have no idea what they were so that didn’t make it any better. it could have been mushrooms, but maybe not. who knows?

after lunch we headed into the museum exhibitions which were very nice. the Orsay is the museum centered around Impressionism, but also includes works from the pre-Impressionist artists as well as Post-Impressionist artists. there was an entire room devoted to Monet and it was pretty packed. there were students from an American art school there with pads of paper and they were reproducing the works that hung on the walls which was pretty impressive. it’s strange not only seeing buildings and monuments that you’ve only seen in pictures but also seeing works of art that you’ve only studied in school. it’s especially interesting to be able to get right up close to them and see the layers of paint and the brush strokes that the artists had made. in many of the paintings the paint looked very fresh and was still shining, even though some of them were over 100 years old.

while we were in the museum it started snowing pretty heavily outside. the snow in Paris was much different than the snow in Normandy. in Normandy it was beautiful as it covered the countryside and was just picturesque. in Paris though, it was all slushy and muddy and brown. not so nice at all. we trudged our way back to the hotel to rest for the afternoon after a morning of walking around and freezing. we had seen posters for a concert being held that night and had decided to go. it was at St-Eustache cathedral and was basically a chamber orchestra performing both Schubert and Gounod’s “Ave Maria’s” as well as the whole of Mozart’s Requiem.

the concert was at 9pm and we got to the church at about 8:15 or so, but it didn’t look like anything was going on there. we found what we thought was the front entrance but it was barred and locked and all the lights inside appeared to be off. we walked around the entire church and finally saw a line of people (we planned to get tickets at the door and figured that this is what the line was for) and went to get in line. as we got closer it became apparent that the line was mostly of scruffy looking men. upon approaching the line, there were several men that let us go in front of them and they were all smiling and appeared to be quite happy. we stood in line for about five minutes, moving closer to the front as the line was being processed, and then we noticed a sign at the front of the line. i don’t remember the whole phrase on the sign, but i do remember the word “soupe”. here we were, two fairly well-dressed Americans trying to get to a classical music concert to hear Mozart’s Requiem, and we were standing in line with a bunch of scruffy men……at a soup kitchen. we stood there for a few moments wondering if we could slip out of the line without being noticed, especially not wanting to offend the men that had been so welcoming to us to join them in a free meal of hot soup, but we were trapped. so we just sucked it up and began moving out the back of the line saying “pardon” and “excuse moi” until we were finally free. we were now thoroughly confused. again we walked around the church and finally found the correct entrance, hidden under a good bit of scaffolding, bought our tickets and found our seats.

the church was beautiful. apparently many people think it rivals Notre Dame, at least on the inside. having now been to both, i can see how some would say that, but i still think Notre Dame tops St-Eustache. at any rate we sat waiting for the concert to begin and admiring the cathedral. the concert was superb and the acoustics in the building were surprisingly amazing. i thought it would be real echoey, but it wasn’t at all. the renditions of “Ave Maria” were very beautiful musically and the Requiem was absolutely phenomenal. even though it was just a small 20 piece orchestra, it definitely sounded like a full orchestra and the choir and solists were wonderful. it’s a very special treat to hear such a piece of music in such a place as a cathedral in Paris.

after the concert we were both starving so we headed back to the area near our hotel where we had seen many restaurants. it was about 11:30pm so not much was open except for a German restaurant that i can’t remember the name of. the name’s not important though because it’s not to be recommended. if you’re ever in Paris, don’t eat German food. in fact, if you’re ever in Germany then don’t eat German food. the restaurant was just not very good at all. at least what we had. we chose to go there for two reasons: first, it was open. second, the menu had both English and French on it (Paris restaurants are required by law to post their menus outside) and we were too tired to go some place where the menu was only in French. sarah had some thing that she thought was going to be like a little quiche or something but was, instead, a big flat cracker-type-thing (kind of like matzo bread) with munster cheese all over it. it was good enough, she says, but it just wasn’t what she was expecting. i ordered some kind of sausage plate that did not look at all like the picture that accompanied it. it was basically a gigantic mound of sauerkraut with a little slab of bacon, two boiled potatoes that tasted like they came out of a can, a link sausage, and a frankfurter. the frankfurter was nothing more than a hot dog. it was just dumb and the service was slow.

after our “meal” we went back to our hotel room and decided the plan of action for the next day. satisfied with our first adventures in Paris (apart from the German restaurant) we caught up with the news on the BBC tv channel and then went to bed.

we were scheduled to head out on the rest of our D-Day tour between 9 and 9:30am, so we got up around 8:00 (again with it still dark outside) to shower and get dressed. we had a nice breakfast of various types of bread and jam, a cup of tea, and then we were off. our first stop was Pointe-du-Hoc, a German emplacement atop 150 foot rock cliffs overlooking the ocean. this spot is special for me because Colonel James Earl Rudder of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was the one who led his men up the cliffs. Rudder would later become President of Texas A&M University, my alma mater, and would hold a special place in the hearts of all Aggies, especially if they had had the wonderful privelege of meeting Rudder’s widow, Margaret, before she died.

it was VERY cold up on those cliffs. even as bundled up as we were, we were still freezing. i think Tony said it was about -12 celsius up there (with it being about -4 or so down where they lived) and i did not doubt it. the Pointe is very well preserved with most of the shelled earth still the way it was 60 years ago after the naval bombardment of the area. the craters were amazing! it was hard to imagine one shell making such a hole and you had to wonder where all the earth that was in the hole went! the ground was covered with enormous potholes, but the cement bunkers still stood, seemingly unscathed by the intense shelling they underwent. the concrete was as thick as 17 feet at some places, providing a wealth of protection for the guns and troops contained within them. the Pointe-du-Hoc memorial was barbed off because the cliff it has been on for years has been eroding pretty badly and they don’t want people slipping off the cliffs onto the rocks below (which was sad because i had wanted to get a picture of my Aggie Ring sitting on the plaque dedicated to Colonel Rudder).

after looking over the cliffs onto the ocean and thinking of Colonel Rudder’s famous words (when he returned to the Pointe in 1954 he looked at a journalist standing next to him and said, “Will you tell me how we did this?”) in a completely new context, we made our way over to a couple of the six gun emplacements that the Rangers were charged with taking the morning of June 6. strangely enough, the guns had been moved farther inland without the Allies knowing this. so, essentially, the Rangers scaled the cliffs, losing many great men in the process, for nothing. however, it was still a courageous and remarkable feat. after seeing the gun emplacements, we went over to a couple of the German bunkers that are still there and i went down inside one of them while Tony and Sarah remained top-side. there was a hall and two quarters rooms. the rooms were a good size, probably about 15′x15′, and i could imagine the way it must have looked and the chaos that must have ensued the morning of the invasion when the warships in the Channel began pummeling the Pointe. after going back up to ground level, we walked along more craters (i tried to go down inside a couple of them, but they were too deep, steep, and slippery because of the ice and snow and i wasn’t sure i’d be able to get back out if i got down inside one) and then headed to our next destination.

we were now headed for Utah Beach. the place i wanted to see more than any other thing on this trip. my grandfather, William “Bill” Cozart, came in with the second wave of invaders on this very beach so many years ago. unlike Omaha (which we couldn’t get to because the roads were too slick and the car would not have made it back up the causeways if we had safely gotten down), we actually got to walk around on this beach. Utah, like Omaha, is about a 4 mile stretch of beach, but it was not as well defended by the Germans because of the topography. it did not have a shingle wall or bluffs looking over it. the only natural defense from the beach was about a 4-6 foot seawall that is covered in brush. the German pillboxes that were built to defend this beach were a lot closer to where the invaders would have landed than at Omaha, but there were not as many of them, nor were the German troops the best that the Nazis had to offer. the landings at Utah were much more successful than Omaha, with only (and i don’t use that word lightly) about 300 casualties, compared with over 2,000 at “Bloody Omaha.” it was amazing to be down on that beach, walking in the same sand that my grandfather ran for his life through, and imagining what it must have been like to be either an American soldier storming the beach, or a German soldier looking out at the forces coming right for them while dealing with the intense shelling from the ships in the channel and bombers overhead. adding to the atmosphere on the beach were small bursts of gunfire. it’s hunting season in Normandy (there’s not periods of time where you can hunt specific animals like in the States, there’s a month-long period where everything is fair game) and there were hunters out shooting rabbits, foxes, and various birds. while this may have seemed strange, it was actually quite fitting and i tried to imagine the gun shots to the millionth power to even begin to get an idea of what the invasion must have been like. after taking the beach in for a few more minutes i found a rock as a memento of being there, slipped it in my pocket and we left the beach behind.

after driving around the area a bit more and seeing some sites of famous battles, our next stop was St. Mere-Eglise, a small town that was the site of paratroop drops and made famous in the film The Longest Day, which showed John Steele getting stuck on top of the church in the town when his parachute hooked on to the steeple. there is still a memorial to John Steele in the town as a dummy hangs from the church by its parachute and a bar down the street bears his name. this town was key in the linking up of the 4th Division which had landed at Utah and elements of the 82nd Airborne that had parachuted in on the night of June 5th. we had lunch at a small diner that served as the “headquarters” of one of the majors that had dropped in. since neither Sarah nor i spoke French, Tony ordered for us. the three of us had sandwiches called Croque Madame. sarah and i loved it. it’s basically a ham and cheese sandwich except they use some fancy French cheese and melt it over the top of the sandwich instead of the cheese being between the bread. it was great.

after our visit to St. Mere-Eglise, it was getting late in the day, so we started making our way back to the house. we went through Carentan, the site of another key battle and vitally important for the Allies to have captured if they were going to move in to and liberate Paris. sad to be leaving Normandy, we made it back to the house for more tea and to get ready to head to Paris. we recounted our day with Pat and the friends they had staying with them and had fun watching them trying to figure out the DVD player that they had just installed. after packing, Tony took sarah and i to the train station in Bayeux where we had about an hour and a half until our train was to head to Paris. the time went by really slow and there was this strange man that just appeared to be….hanging out at the train station (he would also have like these little outbursts where he would yell a word or two in French), so that was a little strange. our train soon arrived and we were headed to Paris.

when we got to Paris, we caught a taxi and went to check in to our hotel room. the hotel had gotten rave reviews on one of the hotel ratings websites and it definitely lived up to those reviews. the staff is incredibly nice and informative, and the room, though a bit small, was quite cozy and pleasant. we set our bags down and got ready for bed, planned out our first day in Paris and went to sleep.

if i’ve been disappointed about anything on this trip, i think it’s that the museums in Normandy were not open because this is not the high tourist season. i knew that some stuff would be closed, but i did not know that the major museums would be closed. even though that was disappointing, i still had a great time going around and seeing what very little of the D-Day sights that i could see. and that just means that i’ll have to come back again in a better time of the year and for a longer period of time.

as we headed out, about 2pm, Tony told me the story of how he and his wife came to live in the Normandy area and why he was so interested in everything having to do with the invasion and the area it happened in. he also told me about some of the veterans that he’s met doing what he does, including many of the men that Stephen Ambrose wrote about in Band of Brothers. we started our trek by going up to the American Cemetery just behind Omaha Beach. he had warned me that since there was about a foot of snow on the ground, i would not get the full effect of the stark contrast between the white marble crosses (and Stars of David) and the brilliantly green grass. when we got there, however, i found the snow to make the scene still pretty moving as crosses seemed to eerily appear out of nowhere as you walked among them. it was truly an emotional experience. i had seen pictures and movie clips with the cemetery in them, but they do nothing to show the size of the cemetery, nor do they give the effect that one experiences when they visit there. there’s a scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan, where an older James Ryan is walking among the crosses and is moved to tears and falls to one knee, overcome by the emotion of seeing endless rows of perfectly uniform crosses. even though i am not a veteran, it was hard not to be moved in that way. the cemetery is a true monument to and a stark reminder of the price of freedom that the 9,387 American men and women (4 women are buried in the cemetery) buried there paid the ultimate sacrifice to secure for us all. American or otherwise. words can simply not begin to describe what one feels in that place.

after the cemetery we headed up to Longues-sur-Mer, the site of a German battery that still has the original guns that were fired on the beaches and ships over 60 years ago. two of the guns are beaten, but not broken, one of the guns is totally demolished. the casemates that housed the guns were simply remarkable. i’ve never seen concrete so thick that it can withold relentless pounding of bombs and artillery shells hurled at them for hours on end. there are a couple of pot marks in the concrete, but the casemates are pretty much fully in tact. the two guns that are still in good shape were eventually taken out by grenades, but they had already done considerable damage to the Allied forces by that time. the gun that was totally destroyed had taken a direct hit from an artillery shell, and the mangled metal shows what kind of destruction one artillery shell was capable of, making the strength of the casemates even more impressive. about 200 yards or so in front of the casemates is an observation post where a German officer would have stood with binoculars and radioed firing coordinates back to those operating the 105mm guns. in fact, this was the very observation post filmed in The Longest Day where the German officer yells “invasion, invasion” at the sight of over 5,000 ships approaching the beaches.

we then made our way down to Omaha Beach. or as close as we could get to it. the roads are very steep leading down to the beach, and they were very icy that day, so we didn’t risk it. we could’ve gotten down them ok, but getting back up would have been pretty tricky. we drove along a little lane between the beach and the bluffs in front of it where several German pillboxes still remain today. seeing movies about the D-Day invasion give you the idea that the German bunkers were right on top of the beach and not very far from where the Higgins boats would have landed. while this is true for some places along the five beach stretch, it is not true at Omaha and this is one of the reasons that Omaha had the overwhelming majority of casualties as compared with the other four beaches (Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword). the pillboxes are set atop a high ridge of bluffs that are about half a mile to three quarters of a mile away from the beaches. their position is not only greatly defensible from a beach invasion, but also is the perfect place to prey on those coming ashore. however, there were many other obstacles that the American troops who landed on Omaha had to overcome besides the German emplacements. at the head of the beach was a shingle hill, a hill made up of pebbles and larger stones that bullets would bounce off of or back at the one shooting. if one was lucky enough to make it from the beach to the shingles and over the shingle hill, he would have come upon a row of garden houses with large gardens in the back yards. each of these gardens was mined and over 1 million mines of various types were placed in those gardens. after the minefield gardens is the bottom of the bluffs, still about a half mile away from the German bunkers at the top of the hill. Hitler called the defenses along the French shore of the English Channel the Atlantic Wall (which ran from Calais to Cherbourg), and a wall it defintely was. a seemingly impenetrable wall, at that. the rifles and machine guns the Americans came ashore with, however, were lethal up to a mile away, so some well-placed shots would be able to take out the Germans assaulting the invading forces at the top of the Omaha bluffs.

after spending some time just looking around and taking it all in, we got back in the car and started heading back to the house. not only does it not get light this time of year at about 8:30-8:45am, but it also gets dark about 5pm. it was about 5:30 and Tony and Pat were expecting friends of theirs from England to be arriving. they had arrived when we were out, and were there waiting for us with tea when we got back. they were a charming couple and sarah and i both enjoyed listening to the banter between the two British couples that had been friends for quite a long time. Pat made a lovely spaghetti dinner, complete with salad, French bread, and French wine, and with a choice of apple or pear tart for dessert. it was a brilliant meal. after supper we went in the main room for a while and i looked at some of the war books and photos (and other interesting items that i’m not at liberty to talk about) that Tony had and we went to bed soon after that. after my trip to Omaha and the cemetary that day, and seeing how large an undertaking the D-Day invasion must have been (it’s a much grander scale than one would expect by only watching movies, reading books, and looking at maps), i keep coming back to one thought over and over again:

how the hell did anyone make it out of there alive?

i got a good three hours’ sleep on the plane. sarah did not fare so well as she could not get comfortable. so she stayed up to watch Ocean’s 11. in the last post, i forgot to mention the funniest dialogue that we overheard on the plane. if you read the first post, then you know about the Canadian high school group that was traveling with us to France (by the way, after spending two days with a British couple and a few days in Paris, i’m finding it difficult to pronounce “France” the traditional American way as in “Frants”. it just doesn’t sound right anymore. i keep saying “Fraunse” and i think i like that better. so Europeans have gotten to me that way. c’est la vie).

anyways, back to the funny dialogue. one of the high schoolers sat behind us, to which we both rolled our eyes, and was sitting next to an older woman who was not with the group and was traveling alone. “There’s a lot of you,” she said. “Do you have staff traveling with you?” at this question, sarah and i both snickered. the high schooler replied that there were several chaperones going with the group, and the older woman was satisfied. but she was not finished. she then said, “Are all of you ready to go to sleep?” i about fell out of my chair (except that there was no room in front of me to do so) laughing after that comment and sarah and i were both struggling not to guffaw and disturb the whole plane. but it was nice to know that we were not the only ones who had reservations about being on an 8 hour flight with a bunch of high schoolers. we had also assured ourselves that as much as the French were going to hate us since we were American (not only American, but Americans that do not speak French), they are not going to hate us as much as they are going to hate this group of Canadian high schoolers. a reassuring thought, indeed, if even a very small one.

after i had woken up, i changed my watch to French time and saw that it was about 7:00am. i opened my window expecting to see daylight and was surprised to find that it was still pitch black. this was very strange to me, since it usually gets light about 6am in certain parts of the States. i did not see the first hints of light until about 7:45am, and it was not fully light until about 8:45 or 9:00. we landed about 8:10 and were starting to wonder if we would be able to make it out of the airport and to Gare St. Lazare in time for our 10:43 train to Bayeux, especially since we had to go through customs and collect our bags. when we got to customs, there was a tremendously long line. we waited for a bit and then it looked like the high schoolers were going to try and push their way through. i was not about to let 40 of them get in front of us and cause us to miss our train. so we sort of weaved our way through and finally made it into the narrow line that moved much faster than the mass of people trying to get into the narrow line. but we got through in about 20 minutes, which was great. greater still, our bag appeared after about five minutes of standing around the carousel. we had hoped to get out of the airport by 9:00am and we were sure that that was an unrealistic goal. however, we got to the line for taxis about 8:55. perfect.

by about 9:05 we were headed towards the train station. between the airport and the station is not the prettiest part of Paris. it’s very industrial and very commercial. there are giant neon signs on the tops of buildings letting you know whose offices are there. my first impression of Paris is not very good. in fact, i think i said to sarah, “is all of Paris this ugly?” i knew that it wasn’t, but still. we went by the Stade de France (”Stadium of France”; the soccer stadium) and had a moment of silence to lament the fact that our first plans for Paris fell through and we were not able to visit the Stade to see U2 in concert.

we thought we would be very close to our train’s departing the station, but we got to the station about an hour before the train was to leave. now came the hard part. finding where we were supposed to go. after wandering around aimlessly for about five minutes with a bunch of bags, clearly showing that we were tourists and had no idea what we were doing, i decided it was time to brave speaking with the locals. i found a man in a window that looked like he was a ticket seller. “Parlez vous anglais?” i asked him. “Non,” he said with a wave of his hand. great. he hates me. “uhh…..train du Bayeux?” “Bayeux? Oui, oui, [a lot of French i didn't understand but could see well enough from his gestures that i was to go down the way a bit].” we walked down the station a good length and saw, much to our great joy, Union Jacks! maybe they speak English! “Parlez vous anglais?” i asked a young African-looking man. his answer was a coy smile and a point of the finger towards the Union Jack sticker on his window. great. he speaks English, but he still hates me. however, we were able to get our tickets from him and then we still had about 40 minutes until our train would depart.

we walked up and down the line of train emplacements and could not find one that said “Bayeux” on it. we were actually supposed to find one to “Cherbourg,” Cherbourg being the last stop, but there was not one that said that either. so we were going to have to try and converse with the French again. i find an official looking fellow and say, without trying to let on that i’m a stupid American that can’t speak French, “Ou est l’train du Bayeux?” he was on to me. he replied in English and told me that i should look for a train to Cherbourg, but that it won’t show up on the boards until about 20 minutes before departing. i thanked him and we went and sat until the train showed up and we began boarding.

we had first class train seats and were in a little compartment like in the Harry Potter movies. it was very fun. out of six seats in the compartment, four were filled, with the other two being a couple of French men traveling alone. one had a friendly face but i don’t think he spoke English. he kept to himself most of the time, but would smile at us and greeted us with a “bonjour!” and left us with an “au revoir!” he listened to his mp3 player for most of the trip and appeared to be listening to some kind of heavy rock music. which was funny because that’s not what i would have pictured at all. the other fellow in our compartment was a young businessman who spent most of the trip working on a PowerPoint presentation that i assumed he would be giving when he reached Cherbourg. from the short glances i got at his monitor, i could tell that he was some sort of production engineer or something. he did speak English, which was good because we did not understand any of the announcements that the conductor was making over the intercom. so it was good that we had a translator.

the train ride was beautiful. it was snowing and the French countryside was littered with snow-covered hills and trees and cows. i remember thinking, “i could definitely live here.” after two stops, Liseux and Caen, we finally reached our stop at Bayeux. the stairs off the train had ice on them, so we had to gingerly step so that we did not end up on the tracks below. we safely made it on the platform and began making our way to the car park where we were to meet our hosts. we found Tony shortly thereafter, and were on our way to he and his wife’s farmhouse in Port-en-Bessin. again the ride was beautiful. everything looked so old and Tony told us that some of the structures, especially a few of the churches, had been there since Norman times, before 1066. amazing. most of the other buildings had been there a long time, but not quite as long as that. the farmhouse that they live in is just over 300 years old.

we got to their house, met Pat, Tony’s wife, had a spot of tea, and got settled. sarah was pretty “knackered” (to use their term) and decided that she wanted to lay down and rest. not wanting to waste any time while i was there, Tony and i went hunting to see what we could see.

so like we did for our Charleston trip, for our France trip we’re going to continue to put up journals of our traveling adventures. they may come sporadically (as this is already day 4 of our trip and i’m just now posting this) because we only get about five minutes of internet time per day (the hotel internet is not the best system in the world), but there will be accounts of each day posted eventually.

our first day of traveling started as we awoke from an Atlanta hotel on Tuesday, December 27. we got up about 8am (EST) so that we could make the airport shuttle around 9. we arrived at the airport around 9:15am and quickly checked in and checked our bags. then we got to security. a long, snaking line of people that were waiting to go to their various destinations. it took us about an hour to get through security and we got to our gate at about 10:45am. our plane was scheduled to depart for Toronto at 12:15pm, so we had a little over an hour to wait before we would begin boarding. sarah found a Quizno’s and i found a Burger King and we had a nice lunch and then boarded our plane. the plane we were passengers of was a true puddle hopper. it’s probably the smallest commercial jet that’s allowed, as anything smaller would be a private or charter plane. it was so small that sarah’s small carry-on bag had to be checked because it would not fit in the tiny overhead compartments. however, it was still a plane and would help us get to France. the flight to Toronto was only about a two hour flight, which surprised me at first. after looking at a map, however, i could see that this made sense.

we landed in Toronto about 2:15pm, 15 minutes late, and began our 4 hour wait until our plane to Paris would take off around 6:45pm. we spent the first hour reading and then i got restless. so i decided to go exploring. Toronto’s airport is quite nice. it’s very modern, and they’re adding a huge terminal to it that will be open in 2007 and will handle 90% (so the sign said) of all Canadian trans-Atlantic travel. there were many nice restaurants and shops in the airport, but nothing that really interested me. i was asked by a shoeshine if i wanted my shoes to be shined before my trip. apparently he hadn’t noticed that i was wearing tennis shoes and even after i had alerted him to this fact, he insisted that there are still bits of leather on my tennis shoes that could be shined. he must have been really desperate. after politely refusing, i decided that i had had enough exploring in this airport. with about two hours to go until our flight left i returned to the gate where sarah was still reading. 20 minutes later, our mood for our upcoming flight would drastically change.

we had expected a nice, mostly quiet 8 hour flight to France. what we had not considered was that there would be a large Canadian high school group that would also be going to France with us. there was about 40 of them, with maybe two chaperones, and they were probably 9th or 10th graders. they were annoying immediately. It was quite funny to watch them as they quickly broke into cliques. you had the popular girls group, the not-so-popular girls group, the un-popular girls group with the one girl who was trying to make it in the popular girls group thus forsaking her rightful group, the “we’re cool because we’re not cool” group, the dorky group, and then the one popular guy who spent his time fraternizing with the girls group. he was funny to watch because you could tell he was annoyed with squealing and giggling of the popular girls group, yet he was definitely flaunting his colors. he had rolled up his sweatshirt sleeves and spent most of his time among the popular girls with his arms crossed, clearly over-flexing his forearms trying to impress the girls that were more interested in taking pictures of the plane on the runway rather than him. this trip, hopeful relationship-wise, was not boding well for our lone popular guy.

now, greatly annoyed at the circumstances that had come about, we decided that it was time to go eat. we did not want to eat a full meal, however, because we were told that we would be getting a meal on the plane. we found the cheaper-looking restaurant and sarah had French toast while i had some onion rings. after our meal, we went back to the gate where we had about a half an hour before they would begin boarding. the half an hour went by fairly quickly as time always flies by while you’re watching people, especially teenagers at that….awkward time of life. we then boarded our plane and would soon be on our way to Paris. the plane was smaller than we had expected, but it was still nice. we had a nice meal of salad, roast chicken, and vegetables, and then settled in for the rest of the flight. the two movies that would be shown (Must Love Dogs and Ocean’s 11) did not interest me, so i spent a good amount of time reading. sarah watched the first movie, said it was ok, and then we decided it was time to sleep.