Tour Eiffel and a Seine River Cruise

Wow, what an afternoon. We went to Hard Rock Cafe to pick up the Paris Pass. We had lunch there as we were starving. They didn't have two sets of four day passes, so they gave us four sets of two day passes. Then one of the guys asked me if he could buy the second set of coupons off of me since we probably wouldn't use them. I was going to give them to him, but then he insisted that he purchase them. I said that I didn't think that I was supposed to sell this stuff off separately and we left.

We decided to return to the room, pick up our Bateaux Mouche tickets (for the river cruise) and head for the Eiffel Tower. Wow! and Yahooo eee. This photo is the first ever sighting (by us) of the Eiffel Tower. Kalen took it as we turned a corner. I was so excited. The sky was dramatic as it would rain and then the sun would shine. Kalen has decided that he wants to go to the top (I'm NOT walking it) and we think that we can go Thursday morning. I was approached by a few women who said that they were from Bosnia and needed money for the family. But they stopped approaching me when I draped the US Airways blanket around my shoulders and used my new paper bag from Hard Rock Cafe as a carry-all. I did figure out why scarves are so popular. It's hot and then it is cold, so you can make quite a fashion statement with that scarf. Much more can be done with it than with my US Airways blanket. I think that I will leave the blanket in the room and look for my ultimate Parisian scarf.

We are really tired and have an early morning to go to Versailles tomorrow so we wanted to grab a quick and light dinner. We found a cute restaurant in the neighborhood called "Saveurs D'Asie". Sounds fancier in French than it does in English. It was Chinese takeout. We ate in, and brought some home.

We found our neighborhood store. I had to buy my own deodorant since Kalen was getting tired of loaning his. I did find "Veet", which is a 3 day deodorant. Cool. I'll update you on how it works.

We are in the 7th District (arrondissements). Adorable neighborhood with skinny little streets in between wide boulevards. The motorcycles park on the sidewalk, so people have to walk in the street. SUV's are non-existent and there are some really cute tiny cars. They are about as high as Kalen's waist!

Dogs are friendly and walk without a leash. (Kelley, you said that it couldn't be done!)

Samantha: Kalen has taken on the role of trainer for our 3 Day Walk. He is making me walk the stairs instead of taking the cute little "lift" and we are touring on foot instead of by Metro. You better be working on your training! Besides the stairs, I swear that we have walked at LEAST 20 miles a day.

We left the hotel and walked on Avenue Rapp towards the Seine. Crossing Pont de l'Alma bridge, we took a little down ramp to Port de la Conference to the boats.

Oh, and we were one of the first people on top of the Bateaux Mouches boats. http://www.bateaux-mouches.fr/ (We are in the type of boat with seats on the top.) We were right behind a busload of Asian tourists. I like touring with them best of all because we have the same fascination with cameras and taking photos. Kalen commented (again) that we are always in the thick of the Asian tourists and we ALL have our cameras out clicking. We saw Notre Dame and the Louvre and other treasures that line the river. We also saw a Statue of Liberty. I wanted to point out that the one that we have is much bigger and is on its own island, but Kalen felt that it was better left unsaid. I also noticed that they put it in the line of site (and Photos) to the Eiffel Tower, which makes it look much bigger if you take a photo of the two of them together. I think that it was very nice of France to send us the bigger sized "Statue of Liberty". I need to buy one of those souvenir Eiffel Towers. They sell them in stores and a lot of entrepreneurial fellows have a variety of them for sale on blankets. If any one has experience with buying these highly marketable items, let me know. (I already have a Statue of Liberty lighter from New York, as advertised on David Letterman.)