That does conclude the Paris trip pictures, though I would like to wish my ex-co-worker John and his family a great trip to Paris, as they have just headed there now (after much difficulty getting a plane to fly them there). Our next trip we have booked is four weeks in Canada starting mid-July.

We started out Monday in Montparnasse, where we visited the cemetary. Some famous people like Sartre are buried there. Montparnasse is also famous for this ugly tower that is one of the tallest buildings in Paris. We did not go up it, but apparently the line is not as bad as the Eiffel Tower. It seemed expensive too though.

We didn't eat here, but it was strange seeing the city we lived in turned into a Japanese restaurant. Their slogan has the ring of an invitation to Godzilla though. There were tons of Japanese restaurants throughout Paris though, which really surprised me. We did eat at one early in the trip, though the waiting staff were obviously not Japanese as they were extremely rude, and did not understand us when we spoke to them in Japanese.

On the walk back into the center of Paris, we passed by the Palais du Luxembourg again, but did see a different part of the gardens this time.

We also swung by the backside of Notre Dame, after visiting the Latin Quarter first. There we found a really neat bar where we sat for a couple hours, which was much better than the touristy places right in the center of the Latin Quarter where a coffee cost about 10 euros (15 dollars) and a Coke even more.

Our last stop of the day was Bastille. You might expect there to be a prison here or something, but sadly all that is left is a big column. There are similar big columns for the Nation and the Republic. Nissim said protests often march between two of the three columns (or all three).

The last day of the trip was Tuesday, and we spent the morning shopping then went to the station in the afternoon for the long trip back. It was thankfully uneventful on the way back.

After walking for awhile, we stopped in the Palais du Luxembourg gardens to sit in the sun.

Many other people had had the same idea as us though.

Next we went to Notre Dame, where we met up with Nissim. It was extremely crowded there, so we did not go in. Instead, we headed towards the Latin Quarter. No, it's no full of Spaniards. Apparently it refers to when students used to live there and spoke Latin.

The Latin Quarter is some of the only remaining old neighborhoods in Paris. The rest were mostly torn down to make way for the sweeping boulevards that Paris is famous for. You can see an old city wall in the middle of this photo.

The Louvre.

We headed towards it through the dustiest gardens ever (behind Victoria)

We stopped off for hot chocolate at Angelina's, a cafe/lunch place next to the gardens which is apparently quite famous. The hot chocolate was the thickest I have ever had.

We saw how long the Louvre was....

We saw the pyramid entrance....

And finally we saw the queue and recognizing our own lack of desire to enter, we moved on.

Paris continued:

Sunday morning we went to the area around the Louvre, which I think is called Tuilleries. You can see the arch de triumph in the distance.

I had some good news finally on the financial front. Barclay's bank has approved me for a debit card and checkbook. I got tired of waiting with Nationwide, who basically said I needed to be a citizen to get a debit card. This will help with my building a credit history for the future.

My parents have gone off to visit the baby in Japan now, but I still have a lot of work to do before Victoria's and my vacation. This year we are going to Canada for four weeks, so that should be great. Victoria deserves a break after all her work this year. Apparently the first year of full time teaching is also a lot of work though.

I'm thinking about starting a distance learning master's in e-learning at Edinburgh. I have to figure out if I count as a foreign student or not. It will affect the cost a lot potentially.

At work I've been busy creating a web 2.0 treasure hunt, which will serve as a staff development event to encourage our staff members to find out more about new things like blogs, wikis, and youtube. Hopefully it will be interesting and a bit fun.

Yay! I have a nephew now. He was born today early morning in Japan. His name is Ray and he is a large one, at 9 pounds and 11 ounces. He has deep blue eyes, and is cute as a button.

The end of our walk took us to Paris Town Hall, pictured here.

After the park, we followed some canals back to the center of Paris.


It was a nice walk, and there was a large arty district near there. There were also lots of homeless people leaving by the canal in a tent community. Apparently there was a project the year before to give tents to the homeless to help raise awareness. I'm sure the tents provide a good basic shelter too.

Here's Sarah and Nissim in the park.

Victoria and I went camera happy in the park, as it was such a nice day.

Those dots on the hillside reflect how many other people had the same idea as us, probably because of the nice weather. Sarah and Nissim said you can't sit on the grass in many of the parks, so this park is especially popular as you can.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but this is the Cheese-fest itself. I think there were over ten types of cheese, plus we had rolls and matzah bread.

Here is the view from the hill we were on for our cheese-fest.

Saturday morning we went to a park on a hill overlooking Paris and had a cheese-fest. Sarah had brought back lots of types of cheese from her trip to the south of France. On the way, we crossed over Montmartre Cemetery, which you can see bits of in this picture. The road went right over the tombs, with some of them pointing up into the supporting beams of the road.

On Friday night, we took Nissim and Sarah out to eat at a restaurant called the Green Mouse (that is translated of course). It had lots of vegetarian food for them, and a make-your-own salad that Nissim could have, since he was celebrating passover and wasn't eating grains. They had the funniest toilet ever. The ceiling was only about 5 foot 10 inches, and the toilet was on a raised platform like in Japan. So I ended up feeling like a mouse myself in the cramped space.

It looks like Victoria did a self-photo in front of this unusual-looking store on the Champs-Elysées, but I took this one.

The Arc de Triomphe of course. Victoria overheard an American explaining to her family that it means Arch of Triumph. Takes great French skills to figure that one out...

Eiffel Tower from up above


More Eiffel Tower


Still more Eiffel Tower... it's just so photogenic I couldn't help myself. The weather was beautiful and tons of people were sitting on the grass (including us for awhile).

The Eiffel Tower poking over the tops of buildings.


The famous Eiffel Tower up close.

We got to see Victoria's favorite building in all of France.

Who's that on the streets of Paris?

We went shopping in an interesting department store. What's Victoria taking a picture of?



This incredibly decorated dome in the department store.