Mom in Paris

For a few days during Mom's visit, we went to Paris and visited all the touristy attractions. We stayed from Tuesday, February 17 - 19. After the 3 hour high-speed train from Marseille, we checked into our Hotel Grand Magenta which was super pink all around. The room was mega pink and actually not too bad. After the few minutes in our hotel room, we were ready to experience Paris. We saw the Arc de Triomphe and then headed right over to the Eiffel Tower. We actually ran into my friend Cathy and her cousin while getting out of the metro. In a city of millions of people, we ran into her. What are the odds? The Eiffel Tower was amazing at night, as it was in January. We went all the way to the top of the tower and saw a great view of the city all lit up. My favorite part of the Eiffel Tower at night is the cool light show that happens on the hour, every hour, after sunset. Here's the video I finally got of it:



Our second day in Paris was devoted to visiting Versailles castle and seeing Laurent's parents for dinner. Versailles castle is where Louis IVX, XV and XVI lived along with Marie Antoinette as well. It's about an hour outside of Paris by train.
The inside of the castle is amazing as well but the pictures are kind of dark so I'm not posting any of those here. The gardens are beautiful as well but the weather was a bit overcast so they weren't as impressive. I guess they had turned off the fountains because it was still winter but trust me; the castle and the grounds/gardens, along with the fountains, are amazing. After our visit to Versailles and touristy shopping, we were picked up by Laurent's parents and went to their house for dinner.

Here is Mom and Laurent's mom having a great time after dinner. The food was scrumptious, the champagne was plentiful and the cheese was new and interesting. It was a wonderful evening and I hadn't seen Laurent's parents since I lived in France 10 years ago, so it was great to visit with them again. Laurent's mom is much like my grandmother who passed away and both my mom and I really noticed a lot of similarities. It was great to see them! We got to take a cab back to our hotel in Paris, which was fun since I rarely ride in cabs in the first place. The cab driver got a little lost leaving the suburb, Bievres, where Laurent's parents live. That was entertaining since we definitely couldn't help him.

Our 3rd and final day in Paris, we took another tourist bus, as we did in London, and went all over Paris. Inside Notre Dame, we saw this fire blanket box.
Notice on the 2nd picture here, how CALM the guy on fire is just waiting for his friend to put a blanket on him. :)

The bus took us all over the area of Paris including all the touristy spots. I finally saw the Moulin Rouge which made me really happy. If only it wasn't over 100 Euros to see a show. Even if a half bottle of Champagne was included, it's still too expensive. :(

Anyway, we had a great time seeing everything in Paris and the photo album below can attest to that. Feel free to skim if you are interested since there are a TON of pictures (and this was after editing).

Here are all the pics from Paris:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jkimpfbeck/MomInParis#