PARIS - - - DAY TWO

It is freezing here ! I thought it was cold in England but this is rediculous. I didn't bring my really heavy fleece because it is supposed to be warmer in Paris than in Jolly Old England. NOT ! But the food makes up for the cold weather.
Last night I couldn't get to sleep thanks to a fabulous chocolate pastry and a cup of coffee, (the real stuff, no decaf in Paris), just before bed. I knew what I was doing but I couldn't resist and it was worth every hour of lost sleep! We fell asleep at 10 with the window open because we didn't know how to turn off the heat in the room. (I was wishing for that heat today as we were out and about freezing in the city.) But the police cars that kept flying by with their very European sirens going full blast, (think of some movie where the Nazi's are coming with sirens blaring), kept waking us up. And every time I woke up the chocolate pastry rose up to let me know I should not have eaten it. I finally fell asleep around 1AM when Ger shut the window and then we both slept till 9:45AM. So much for the plan to get up early and get moving. Considering it was pouring rain it really didn't matter that we slept in and got a late start. We weren't going to be doing much walking around today. We got moving and caught the OPEN TOP (OH JOY!) tour bus just around the corner from the hotel. Lucky for us it was near the start of the route so there were plenty of seats inside. With the ear phones plugged in, (that was worth 10 minutes of trial and error), we were off and creeping through the Paris streets. I have NEVER seen traffic like this. Even NYC at rush hour isn't this bad. It took forever for us to get to the transfer point where we got off our yellow line and on to the green line that would take us to the Lourve, Notre Dame, The Eifle Tower and just about any other tourist stop you could imagine. Because it was raining and we had to sit inside we really didn't get the full effect of this beautifrul city. The city is so much more crowded than I remember it from 42 years ago and there are ugly modern building stuck in here and there. Looking North from the second level of the Eiffel Tower there was a huge complex of modern building in the distance. (It was sort of looking at the city of Atlanta from Stone Mountain.) Except this mass of buildings was surrounded by buildings hundreds of years old. Paris is such a beautiful city and still a favorite of mine even in the rain and cold.
We stopped at Notre Dame and went inside. I got a tour tape and listened to it as we wandered through. Ger chose to just wander. At noon we attended mass in French. What a treat to be able to receive communion in this amazing place. From there we walked across the street for some lunch where we had a very personable waiter and some fair food. It was a long cold wait for the tour bus but finally we were on our way down the Champs Elyse to the Arc de Triomphe and then on the the Tour Eiffel. We looked down the streets to see if we could see the one were our little hotel was where we stayed on our honeymoon but the city has  grown and changed so much in these past 42 years. We got off the bus again at the Eiffel Tower and took the elevator, (lift) to the second level where we could see the whole city spread out before us. Even in the rain and fog it is beautiful. We had a cup of hot chocolate and a pastry, wandered into the gift shop and then left to return to the bus. At one point I went up on to the top of the bus and even in spite of the cold and the rain it was an amazing sight. We are hoping that tomorrow will be dryer and maybe just a little warmer so we can tour a little more and get off at the Louvre for some sight seeing there before we head back to England. Our train leaves at 5 tomorrow night and we should be back with the kids in Windsor by 9 tomorrow night if I don't decide to stay in Paris.