Night Out! :]

Me & John before we left :] Being silly!

1. We were trying to be tough guys.
2. I realized we looked like we could get a picture for a Christmas card. hahaha

CHEERS!

Me & my Tequila Sunrise. It was pretty :]

Teddy & I waiting for our food!! :]

Well as you can see from the photos above we had a good evening out! It was our first night on the town doing something besides touristy things! It was fun to sit down and have a drink. Need I mention, A drink haha. One of those sunrises were 8 Euros! I figured I'd have one, sip on it and call it a night. We ended up being back to FIAP (the university we are staying at) by 11-11:30 ish. We got some Nachos and just had a good time sitting around a table and talking! Maybe these boys are too bad, afterall :]

Well...that's not a decision I can make yet... I have to share a bathroom with them for 9 DAYS!!!! AHHH!!! haha.

Well today was a pretty calm day. I slept in until 12. Then I was having the craziest dreams I didn't even wanna sleep any longer! Plus, I figured by that point it was time I start my day.. I did some laundry and started some homework. Being Americans, we went to McDonalds (out of all places in Paris!) for lunch. haha. Their McDonald's in France are a lot nicer than at home! It doesn't feel like a "fast food restaurant." It was good though.

Umm.. So that was today. Tomorrow Gerry is picking us up at 9:30 here. He is driving, so I'm assuming where we are going is too far for the Metro / train. I'm not exactly sure what it is...guess we'll find out!! :]

Tomorrow will be a full day, then packing and guess what.. FRIDAY = ROME! already!!! I cannot believe it's here. Well I better get to bed early tonight next week is going to be crazy doing this and that! Saturday John says we have to be at a church by 6:50 AM! Oh boy this should be fun! haha. I'm looking forward to my travels to Rome... I may not be able to update my blogs daily as I have been privaledge enough to do so here in Paris. We rented an apartment for the week and will have to use an Internet Cafe to get online.. It shouldn't be too bad, but we'll wait and see what happens!!

Well have a good evening! I'll update you tomorrow!! :)

Oops! I skipped a day!

haha. Okay well as I was reading over some of my previous blogs, I realized I forgot to tell you about yesterday.. our sixth day in Paris! Well we were orginally suppose to visit Versallise (which we ended up doing today). We went to the train station and stood in line to buy tickets. We glanced over and they were closed!! Of course, the only day..

So instead we just switched days and went to another church.. this one was called Montmartre I think.. ha, well that was the name of the museum.. and.. it was closed too!! AH! haha. So we ended up doing a lot of walking around; which wasn't a bad thing because it was an absolutely gorgeous day out in Paris!! Here are a few pictures of the church, it was beautiful.. It was in the Northern part of France and overlooked the city...

Rain, rain go away

8:30 am comes way too fast! Going, going, going.. That's all we do here in Paris! I can't complain. I enjoy it more than sitting around bored out of my mind. The metro (like a subway) is PACKED with everyone going to work. Man oh man, you are squeezed so tight in there with so many people! Ugh!

Well anyways. We meet up with Gerry and headed off to Versailles. Wow! This place was huge! Gorgeous! It was King Louis XIII hunting lodge; King Louis XIV changed it into a central government palace. It was soooo big! There were beds and dinning room sets that were still on display, today! Then not too far away, the Queen had her get-a-way to stay away from all the visitors. Boy was this pretty! They still had, ducks, rabbits, swans, horses, cows, and chickens running around. It was a huge garden but was soo pretty! The only downfall to today was the rain. Everything was so muddy and dirty. YuCkK!

The Gold gate to enter the palace in Versailles. Here is where the saying came from something like...
"if you don't have bread, come eat cake."

Here was some of the houses for the Queens get-a-way.

We were really this close! I wanted to get down to see if I could pet it! BAD IDEA!
I put my foot down towards him: he hissed and opened his mouth. AH!
I freaked out and went back up away from him! haha

After that we had the option of going to the sites we were to visit tomorrow or head back to FIAP (the university that we are staying at). We chose to visit the sites this way tomorrow is a free day! WOO HOO!

Well we went to the Rodin Museum. Here were a bunch of sculptures on display. It was very interesting; again, would have been much more enjoyable if the weather was nicer. There were sculptures outside.

Where Nepolean is burried.

Then we were going to go to the place where Nepolean is burried; however, Gerry made a phone call and got us into meeting a sculptur[ist]...is that a word? haha. Well, he's a guy who does sculptures..by hand! He has the block and pounds away. He starts with a tree trunk and just goes to work! It is amazing!! He is 80 years old and is a survivor of the holocaust. His work is truly amazing. All four of us were in awe of seeing him at work.

Here he is...doing his work!

Well now that we have tomorrow's visits out of the way we are going out tonight and seeing Paris at night!!

catching up..

So yesterday was full of excitement! Shopping with the girls was a blast! I have to explain to you this mall!! Well it's not even a mall; it is a department store. This department store takes up two city blocks!!! And has 3 buildings too it!! The one building is 7 stories high! It' is huge! The whole center of it is taken out so when you walk in you can see 5 floors! It is huge. One hour was just enough time to browse 6 floors, not look just see what is where. haha. It is wayyy overwhelming!

Soooo then I came back here got ready within 15 minutes. I was running a little late but made sure I was still ready to leave at 6:30.. I walk over to the boy's rome and they aren't ready!! They figured that I wasn't even back yet, so then I had to wait another 15 minutes. We hopped on the Metro, meet up with Jim's family and headed off to Gerry's!

Gerry's was great!! He sang and played the baby grand piano. It was soo much fun! After that we went to see Notre Dame all lit up at night!!

This morning we attended mass there at an International Mass. It was HUGE! We could barely see the priest up front! It was a great experience. There was a cardinal there. I'm not real sure who he was, but John was surprised he was here.

After that we visited a small museum. There were no specific works in this one that we were looking at, just browsing the whole thing.

Then souvenir shops! These were just along the roads, some nice little gifts we bought for our families.

We came back here ate dinner and were going to meet up with Jim & his family. He wasn't feeling too well, so I went to bed after dinner and got up and wanted to update you!! It was a nice few hours of extra sleep that was definitely needed!!

Well, tomorrow we don't have anything planned until 2:00 PM!! WOO HOO!! :) We are going to meet Gerry at his house and hop in his car and head to a monument. I forget how it's spelled, so I'm not even going to try! hah :)

Have a great night everyone! Sorry there were no pictures again, I forgot to download them onto my computer earlier! I will do that tomorrow!


God Bless.

PICTUREESS!!!

gorgeous.

Okay, Well I couldn't upload pictures. I've tried 3 times within last night and today. It continues to tell me "bad request." I don't know.. I'll try to get some up here as soon as I can. Yesterday was great!! As I mentioned we went to the Louvre and d'Orsay. Two large museums and beautiful museums. Umm.. After that we came back here, hung out and what not..

Then we meet up with Jim's mom, sister (Christine) , and sister's best friend (Leann). It was so nice to see them!! You could tell how excited Mrs. Ondesko was to see Jim! Well, we took some pictures of the Eiffel Tower.. As Leann said to me "You can't take too many pictures of it." And it's the truth, you really can't. They all look the same, maybe from a slightly different angle or something but.. it's just so beautiful, you can't get enough! We went and got something to eat. John was talking French like always.. and the waiter goes "Anglais?" YES! haha. We got an English menu.. and of course there were still questions of what everything was! hahah. How sad is that?! Well we went back to the Eiffel tower and it was lite up white!! We took more pictures and finally got in line.. WE'RE GOING UP!! AH! It was sooooo high up there. But the point and the over look of the city was amazing. Words nor pictures can begin to describe the view. (I did take pictures, I'll have to show you later!) Then we walked Jim's family back to their hotel. We wanted to make sure they found their way safely. They actually arne't too far away from us! It's even nicer that they are on the same metro that we are!! After that though, we came back here. It was a day FULL of walking! My legs were pretty tired! haha

I decided I wanted to sleep in today. So this morning the boys meet up with Mrs. Ondesko, Christine, and Leann at the Louvre and toured it again. I figured a few hours of extra sleep for me might be best! So, I wrote this for you ... and I'll hop the metro (BY MYSELF) and ride to meet up with them! I'm excited to finally do this myself! It's day time, so I'm not worried. Plus to get to the Louvre you only use only two metros. It's not bad at all! After I meet up with them we are going to grab lunch and me and the girls are going SHOPPING! FINALLY! GIRLS + SHOPPING = YESSSS :) haha. We will shop for a few hours and then head back. I'll make sure they get off at their metro and I'll come back here. We then have to get ready and out again! This time we are going to Gerry's apartment! He is having a bunch of people over, I believe including us & Jim's family, there will be around 20! I'm looking forward to this. Of course, it will be a normal "French dinner." So, with us arriving at 7, we probably won't be leaving until 12! haha. Well I better go get ready to leave soon!! I'm meeting up with everyone at 12:30, it's 11 now.. I want to ge ta few more things together and hit the metro up!! I'll write back tonight.. and hopefully upload some picturesss!!

Paris .. Day 3

I will upload pictures tonight. I've figured out it's best to do it later then I can upload them all.

It seems like our days are pretty much planned out for the morning. We come back to Fiap and usually have dinner here. I sign on for a few then and will put a small detail about the day. Then we'll have dinner and go out for the night on the town! Checking out monuments and places we want to see (plus doing some shopping here and there ;]). But I'll add pictures at the end of every night!

So today we went to the Louvre & d'Orsay. Two museums full of wonderful arts. The paintings that can be found in them are breath taking. And truly amazing. The Louvre was HUGE! I mean HUUUGEE! Words cannot describe how big this building is.

We walked and walked and walked to find somewhere to eat during lunch. Around this area most of the restaurants are expensive or extremely busy. We ended up finding one and sitting outside to eat.

Gerry left us at the museum and we found our own way back here to Fiap.

We are meeting up with Jim's mom, sister, and sister's best friend here soon! So we must be getting ready and hitting the town! Tonight we are going to the top of the Eiffel tower and overlooking the city.. I'm so excited!! :)

Paris. Parisss!

Well.. I had a few extra minutes so I thought I would show you guys a few pictures from today!

here we were standing on a bridge and were able to see
the Eiffel Tower on the right and the Statue of Liberty on the left!

Here is this gorgeous walkway I was describing earlier! :)

Today we learned why the Eiffel Tower was lit up in the color blue last night....
If you look closely there are 12 stars in a circle, and the blue was representing the European Union flag.

Here is the opera house.

Me & the boys at the metro ready to hit the town!

Strike a pose John!

Okay.. I have to explain this. This is the monument that Napoleon built and there are two unidentified soldiers buried here. Well we realized you had to get tickets to go. So we decided we weren't going to pay to go up.. we were just going to leave. Well John found stairs so we went up.. Jim mentions, "I may not know a lot of French, but I know that a red circle with a white line threw it means do not enter." Well turns out, we entered in the exit! So illegally!! OOOPS! We took a few pictures and I said lets get out of there. There were police and I'm not ready to be arrested in Paris! So we casually walked down the exit and left :) haha

Well this is it for now, bon nuit (good night!)

Paris.. Day 2!!

Well, I didn't upload the pictures from today yet.. But I will do that soon!

Soo.. my morning started off kinda rough. I woke up an hour late! I wasn't late, I just didn't end up eating breakfast. Stupid me, last night, set my alarm for 7:00 PM!! Duh, Lindsay!

Well anyways we went walking around the city all day!! Wow, it was a long day. But it was soo much fun!!

We went on an island that many tourists do not see.. It was soo pretty.. the pathway had trees on each side of it. Their leaves were turning colors because of the season. There were rivers on each side of us and the Eiffel Tower was in view. It was absolutely gorgeous.

We went and saw the opera house today along with the story of Paris. We bought a CD for the computer that you can tour Paris on you're own. It's pretty cool!

Well I'm going to go eat now.. I'll update you guys soon!!! :) :)

Paris: Day 1! :)

AHH! WE'RE HERE!! FINALLY! So the flight and day have been great!! I added a few pictures.. Well anyways.. I got a few of the Eiffel Tower up! Hope you like them, and I will add more soon!!

So MY DAY!: We flew here, the flight was pretty nice and wasn't much longer than an hour. Then we came here to the Fiat. It's an university. We meet a few American students who are from Chicago, they were soo nice!! We decided, since we had the night to ourselves to hop on the metro and go out! We saw Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower! It was definitely a great first night!

Well we have a really busy day tomorrow. We're touring the city by foot and checking out an opera house. I'll add more as I can. We'll be busy, so if they are short.. sorry!! I'll update you guys as soon as I can, promise! :)

God Bless You All.

Just a Monday... a little bit of here, a little bit of there!

Okay.. well you give you a little information of the last Monday in Ambialet before we left for Paris!

First we went and visited a castle called "Chateu De Brousse." Unfortunately their hours had changed because the season changed and we didn't get to tour it, but looking at it from the outside was pretty cool!

Here was the stream that ran infront of the castle.

A door that was built in 1629 (if I remember correctly..)
It was only about 6' high. Tim couldn't fit in it!

Here is where the women did the laundry.

Here is a picture of the castle!! :)


Next.. we went to see the worlds largest bridge!

Amazing.

Getting closer!! Still HUGE!

The scenary below the bridge was gorgeous.

At this point, we were standing beside it.. It's seriously soo pretty. Breath taking.

Next on the agenda was to look at another castle!

Here was a smaller model of the castle and the wall surrounding it.
Basically it's a wall surrounding a small village. This is an excellet view to understand what it is.

Here is where we first walked in.. some of the buildings.

Some more..

... and again! :)

After this castle we went and saw a cave where cheese is made. Photo's were not allowed to be taken. But it was such a long process.. It was different.. It takes a few months to prepare the cheese in order to sale it.

Then we went back to Ambialet and started our packing and finishing papers. Soon..PARIS!! :)