We said our goodbyes to Jim and Mick, the ultimate in French hosts, since they know all the French stuff and have the American background to make sense of the somewhat insane practices you'll run into regularly in France.  I kid you not..

Caroline and I boarded the TGV and headed to Paris.  Caroline's foot was doing much better so we left her Frankenstein boot and the crutches with Jim and Mick to give to some poor Grenoblite in need this winter.  Caroline was able to carry her own pack, which made my life a lot better.

The train ride was uneventful.  We cruised across a lot of French countryside that all farms.  It seemed when you went through the towns there was always a wall of earth blocking your view of anything.  This happened in the countryside too, but not as frequently.  Thus I had to turn my attentions to the inside of the train car.  

And what did I see?  Several highly nubile college kids in the seats across the aisle.  I have to admit that the French women we saw on this trip were consistently quite spectacular in many ways.  And this is a completely superficial assessment, but as a male of the species, I can tell you that it was great fun to observe all this luscious bounty running around loose, so to speak.  ;-)

After getting to Paris, navigating the metro to the hotel with Mick's excellent guidance all planned out, we started walking around.  And since we were a short distance from the tower, we walked over there.

And then I start to see the effects of fatigue and strange food have their effect on Caroline.  She says to me, "I need a picture of the Eiffel tower coming out of my head".  I look at her, wondering what happened to my normally level headed wife, and proceed along like she hadn't said anything, only to be asked again if would take this picture.   So I did.  Two versions, because Caroline needed the top part coming out of her head.  And this was before we had been to the Dali exhibit where she might have gotten some really strange ideas.  So now you understand where the second two pictures came from.

Afterwards we went to a Chinese restaurant and spent $50 on a dinner for two.  I guess Chinese food hasn't become cost effective food source it is in the US.  But since Caroline is really an Asian in disguise, and hadn't had her rice fix, there was no way we were going to pass up this chance to assuage her need for rice. 

The next day Lisa came over to our hotel in the morning, and we set out to be tourists.  And we were not alone.  It seemed like most of the people were Americans visiting Paris.  I was wondering if all the dot-commers had done the same thing we had and decided to go vacationing while the economy gets it act together back home.  But there were one hell of a lot of English speakers running around loose.

We headed for Montmartre to see where all those last century modern painters and writers hung out and got their inspiration.  The section of town is quite pretty today, although it seems to have become very chi-chi.  It has the advantage of being on a hill overlooking the entire city, which is quite spectacular.  

We did manage to see a real artist, doing real painting, on a street that had been painted by Utrillo and others before him.  The funny part was that when we walked past him, he turned out to be Asian.  Another twist that threw our stereotypes for a loop.

There is a statue, that was relatively recently done of this man walking out of a wall.  It's a representation of a local city official that was supposed to have this ability, and some local artist actually rendered it.

When we came across the statue, there was a small group of actors blocking out a scene they were rehearsing.  So, it seemed appropriate to have Lisa and Caroline act out the statue scene in a true French style. Basically, a guy is chasing two women, who are running from him.  He just happens to startle them since he's appearing out of a wall.  I call it, Bon Vivant Amuck.

OK, maybe I'm never going to be a great artist, but I can have dreams too..

We continued to walk around Montmartre looking at various parks and places of interest. And we came across this little street with such picturesque houses and plantings.  And then it really hit me how the artists got inspired by this place.  The light, the houses, the gardens, and the juxtaposition of everything was just perfect.  If I was going to paint a scene, this might be one place I'd start.  I might call this one Caroline in Wonderland.

Since it was getting a lot warmer we decided we needed to cool off and get a drink.  We happened upon the Maison Rose, or Pink House.  This wasn't just any pink house, it was painted to great effect by someone who's name I can't remember, but I'm sure would recognize.

Lisa is holding a postcard of the painting of the pink house behind her, which is given away by the pink house, to make you feel better about their extraordinary high prices.

We continued further into Montmartre and came across the Lapin Agile, or Dancing Rabbit bar.  It has a history of being the place where a lot of the impressionists and Dadaists came to talk, drink, and pick up chicks.  It's also a very picturesque little structure, and lot's of artists were across the street drawing and painting it.  So we knew we were looking at something a great importance.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Montmartre looking at kitschy artists sketching tourists or singing for their keep.  And we checked out some churches.  The old church at Montmartre has really cool stained glass windows.  The rest of it is pretty run of the mill.

And there is the new church.  This one was built in the late 1800's.  Yes, in this part of the world that's really new, especially for a church.  It's so new, they don't let you take any pictures inside, so I snapped the top half of the facade.  I'd can tell you it has much better light inside from the bigger windows and better use of electricity.  It also has a plainer demeanor since it's not done on the baroque style you see so often.  There is a lot of gold illumination in the ceiling and other paintings inside as well.  Otherwise, it's just another church in Europe, without any real history other than the fact that it was quite a tumultuous issue to get the land to build it in the first place.  But since there was no blood shed over the issue, it hardly bears mention along side the truly gruesome doings around all the other churches you run into.

We then ran across the Salvador Dali museum in Montmartre.  Caroline and I are both Dali fans because he really appeals to our mutually bizarre senses of the world.  We saw a lot of paintings and drawings that we hadn't previously seen which was great.  And to top it all off there were a set of photographs along one set of stairs that had a series of interviewer questions and Dali's witty replies illustrated by various configurations of his mustache.  

Caroline got tired so she went back to the hotel.  Lisa and I went over to stroll the Champs-Elysee and do some cafe time until we had to meet for dinner at a place nearby.

At the meeting place Erin and Draha came over, so now there were five of us.  Lisa and I showed up first, because Lisa is always on time, even when she's dragging me along.

We spent some delightful time catching up with everyone, and then headed off to a Lebanese place for dinner.  I think we got exceptional treatment because Erin kept making the Maitre De blush, and after all, what French guy can resist a table full of lovelies.  I just got to watch and chuckle to myself as the evening played out.  It was delicious, and the company great.  Caroline and I headed home around midnight to get some sleep before we had to start another grueling day of exploring Paris.  We do have a rough time of it..  :-)