Paris

We finally did it...we went to Paris!!! Sai had some time off of work so we decided to take a quick trip to Paris. And believe me, it was a quick one! Sai got home from work on Thursday at 1pm. We packed up and headed out. It took 8 hours to get there instead of 6 1/2 because of a few REALLY bad rain storms we hit and traffic.
We decided to go to the Palace of Versailles first so we decided to leave at 7:30am to get there since it was 45 minutes away from out hotel. Well, that would have worked out except that we had to find fuel before and finding a gas station was impossible! We finally got fuel after an hour of searching (so frustrating). By the time we left at 8:30 our navigator said it was going to take 3 hours to get there (mainly because of traffic) so, after having to figure out way around construction and closed freeway entrances we were on our way. We got lost to Versailles because the address we had didn't compute in our Tom Tom and we had to ask some random French people where we could find it. And although they didn't speak much English at all, they got us on our way! We finally got there at 11:30am and bought out tickets. We walked to the end of a LONG hour/hour and a half line when some of the workers came up to us and told us that we could go straight to the beginning since we had a baby! Wahuu! We headed straight up there, went in and started our tour! It was sooooo amazing, and we hope you like the pictures! We were so sad because we forgot our baby carrier and Sai had to carry Inoke everywhere! After the palace, we went to walk through the gardens to the Grand Tiranon and Marie Antionette's Estate. Sadly, we didn't go into her estate because it started raining really bad and we thought that if we left we could hit more attractions that day. Uwee were we wrong!
We headed out and got stuck in traffic! It took us an hour to go 6.1 kilometers to KFC...Sai's choice! lol. Then after that we tried to find where the Catacombs were to get some info on it. It only took us about 3 hours of driving everywhere to finally find it. We were all so frustrated! All of the addresses I got from online just weren't reading in our navigation system! But we got there and got the information for the next day and then we drove 15 minutes to the Eiffel Tower. Amazingly enough we got great parking and didn't even have to wait in a line once we got there since it was 10pm! What a perfect time to go to avoid a long line! We could only go up to the 2nd floor and not all the way to the top since it had been raining, but that was okay. I was just glad to go, and actually the view of the Tower is best when you're looking at it, not being on it. When we came down from the Tower there were some Brasilians behind us in line so I got to talk to them and it was so nice! Then we headed back to the hotel.
The next morning we went straight to the catacombs and got there 45 minutes before it opened. so we waited in line and went straight in for the 2.2 kilometer walk. It was really amazing to see so many bones! They were to bones from the cemeteries throughout Paris, being relocated due to health hazards. At first they were just thrown down there but then the guy in charge of the quarry told the workers that they needed to organize all of the bones and hence the nicely stacks of larger bones and skulls. There are about 6 million people burried there! I was glad we went. And again, Sai was a trooper and carried Inoke (who slept the whole time)!
That was our trip pretty much! We drove the 7 hours back home and were happy to be back!

Things I learned from the trip:
1. 1 1/2 days is NOT enough time to visit Paris.
2. Get a hotel in town, close to at least one of the attractions.
3. Don't drive! I have decided that Paris is the city of CRAZY motorcyclists!!!
4. Do a bus tour that takes you to all of the main attractions. You can stay at the attraction as long as you want and jump on the next bus to the next attraction!

But all in all...I LOVED IT! I had waited so long to go and now I can say I've been to Paris! Ooo la la!