Tres Bien!

I know we're supposed to be all about Brazil and South America but when Patrice and Taylor mentioned they wanted to celebrate 16th birthdays in Paris, Hannah and I were all about it! We left Sao Paulo for Paris last Saturday and spent six great days in the City of Lights.

Patrice found a hotel near the Opera House and it was a perfect headquarters for all the fun. Man, there is a lot to see and do in Paris. I feel like we hardly put a dent in it. I have been there three times for work but I never really have had a chance to play tourist. We tried to see as much as possible, with gusto...Notre Dame, Louvre, Pompidou Center for Modern Art, bike excursion, boat tour, hands on bakery visit, Montmarte, Eiffel Tower, Sacre Couer,Versailles and the Champs Elysees. The Metro sure is an easy way to get around. In between each stop, we put quite a dent into the credit cards of our two families. The stores are amazing.

We were definitely tourists....a snobby French waiter said my choice of chardonnay was "ordinary," we trekked up to this recommended restaurant from our bike tour guide only to find it closed and we tried to go to a Third Eye Blind concert and the show was canceled. Oh well. C'est la vie!

I think my favorite thing was the bike tour we did the first day. We spent about five hours on the bikes and rode through a lot of side streets. It was a group of about 10 people so we really learned a lot. (I took my sling off that day and used a bike with pedal brakes and the dislocated shoulder survived just fine!)

Fun fact: Did you know there are five kilos of butter in every batch of croissants?

As a sleepy Patrice said on the last morning when Hannah and I left the hotel to catch our plane, "We'll always have Paris."