Spring Break: Day 9, 10
Paris, France

          Days 9 and 10 of spring break were spent back in the beautiful city of Paris. The morning of April 2nd, at roughly 5:20 am, Tym and I headed to the nearest metro station where we took the train up to the airport to pick up Tym's younger brother Logan and his cousin Kirk. We got to the airport, picked up Logan first because his flight got in first and then went and picked up Kirk. Both had good flights but we glad to be out of the airplane.

Logan sleeping, like always :)

          From the airport, we rode the metro back to my apartment and Tym and I made breakfast and washed our clothes while Kirk and Logan slept. After resting and recuperating a bit we headed out so I could show them around Paris. From my apartment we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens towards the Notre Dame, along the Seine to the "Lock Bridge" by the Louvre, up by the Louvre Pyramid and on through the Tuileries Gardens. From here we walked through the Plaza de Concorde, where the guillotine was, up the Champs Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe...while stopping to get a crêpe along the way. We took the metro up to the Sacré Cœur and wandered around up there for awhile before coming back to my apartment to have dinner and sit for a bit. We ate and rested for a while and then headed out to see the Eiffel Tower for the night. After walking and walking and walking, just under a mile and a half...because we took the long, but safer, way we ended up at the Eiffel Tower. No matter how many times I go there, the Eiffel Tower will always amaze me. Unfortunately there were so many people in line that we thought we wouldn't make it up to the top in time before it closed. Instead we went to the fountains across the river and watched the light show from there. I was disappointed that Logan was not able to go up the Eiffel Tower but I'll make sure he gets to come back and go up to the top!

The Eiffel Tower during a light show.

         The next morning we woke up early and headed out to Versailles. We only had a few hours before we had to come back and pick up our luggage and rental car so we hurried to get on the train. When we got to Versailles there were quite a few people standing in line.When I came the first time, we didn't even have to wait in a line, we just went right in. From the time we stood in line, for maybe 20 minutes, the line grew and snaked up and down the large courtyard at least 5 times. I would say there were nearly 400 or 500 people in line. We were 20 people from the front when we heard alarms going off and all kinds of "important looking people" rushing to the North wing. After another 20 to 30 minutes and loads of people pushing to the front, we finally made it into Versailles, got our nerd sticks (audioguides) and headed to tour the castle. There we so many people it was sometimes hard to move! Even though it was my second time, it was still beautiful and breathtaking. We tried to get into the gardens but since it was nice enough outside for the fountains to be on, you had to pay to go into the gardens. When I went the first time, we could wander all over the grounds if we wanted to....so that was mildly disappointing. From here, we grabbed some postcards and headed back to the metro.
           We decided to take the metro straight to the car rental place and then come back and pick up our bags. Once we got there, Kirk realized he didn't have his passport and we could get the car without it. We hurried back to my apartment, got packed up and headed back to Hertz to pick up the car. After seeing how much luggage we had, the lady upgraded us to an "American" sized car. Turns out it was a Chevy car and had enough room for all of us and our stuff. Kirk drove, Tym took passenger and Logan and I took the back. After the stress of actually getting the car we then had to figure out where we were supposed to go. Paris is surrounded by a circle, anything inside the circle is Paris and anything on the outside of the circle is suburbs. We had some trouble getting the car to do what it was supposed to, it wasn't automatic, and we had some breakdowns in the middle of Parisian intersections. I think we all saw our life flash before our eyes several times while laughing so hard we were crying because the car would smell like toot every time that happened. After nearly 30 minutes, we made it to the city circle and found our exit up to Normandy.

Us in the car :)

          Although we tried to help, Logan and I realized we were much more helpful when we were asleep. So we slept, all the time :) We made it safely up to Caen to the Caen War Memorial and each pulled out our iPhones and our one iPad to download directions to each of the places we wanted to see. Mind you it was roughly 6 pm by this time and only had about 2 hours of daylight left. We decided to head up towards Omaha Beach and saw some beautiful countryside along the way. For some reason, everything in the car seemed to be funny and we all were laughing so hard! The car smelled like toot, the roads were so little and sketchy we weren't even sure we were going the right way and everything just seemed to be funny. We made it to Omaha Beach or so we thought, turns out it was a golf course/resort. This added to the funnies and after driving a little ways we found Omaha Beach. We stopped along several points to see the open area of the beach and another time to see the memorial. The sand on Omaha Beach is the finest and softest sand I've ever felt in my entire life. It was beautiful! We each took stone as a keep sake and enjoyed walking up and down the shoreline picking up rocks, getting my shoes full of sand and taking pictures. The American Cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach and we tried to get in but it had closed at 5 pm and there was no way to get in. The sun was setting and we were all hungry so we headed back on the road towards Rouen, where we would be spending the night.

Caen War Memorial

Omaha Beach Memorial

Tym taking a picture of Logan taking a picture of a little orange tractor pulling a boat. Can you tell we're from a land locked state?

Omaha Beach

Log and I 

          Rouen was less than a 2 hour drive and Logan and I slept most of the way, again. We stopped for supper at a gas station and made it to Rouen just fine. Getting through Rouen was a completely different story and we had the same issues of the car stopping the middle of intersections, driving on the wrong side of the road because that was what the sign said, driving down several bus lanes and seeing the same group of drunk people multiple times. We all had the giggles again and we all had to go to the bathroom! We checked-in and headed up to our room where we watched television in French and I was the only person seeming to enjoy it :) And then heading to bed before heading out to Amsterdam in the morning!