Paris, France

We only had 2 full days in Paris and so we decided that one of days would be spent touring some of the major sites and the other would be spent at Disneyland Paris. I know, with so much that Paris has to offer it seems a waste to spend an entire day at an amusement park. Even though my sister and I are both reaching our 40's (her earlier than me) we still loving these parks and all amusement parks in general. Plus we had free tickets.

I still find going to Disneyland parks to be a special place, especially the original one in Southern California. While I'm old enough that some of the magic has gone away there's nothing better than seeing little kids lose their minds as they see their favorite Disney character in person the first time.

Everyone always seems to be on their best behavior and don't even think about doing some of the things they would do in other parks (i.e. line jumping). Having been to all the parks but the one in Hong Kong I expect the same behaviors at all the parks. I especially like how the staff at the parks seem to be right on top of things. Which is why I was surprised with how our day started in the Paris park.

Kimberly needed to get stamps to mail home some postcards (even though they'll probably arrive a week after she gets back) so Kinsey and I waited in the shade. There was a girl about 7 or 8 that was sitting right outside the Disney hotel and she seemed a bit upset. I saw a couple of ladies speaking to her but after a while they left and the little girl was still there and she still seemed a bit upset. I thought maybe she was in trouble and was told to stay there, but the women never came back. It took Kimberly a bit to make it back to where we were waiting, probably about 15 minutes, and the girl was still there. We got our tickets to get in, but it was still bothering us that the girl was there by herself. I figured that the other women would not have left her there by herself if they thought something was wrong, but we figured it couldn't hurt to just check to see if she was ok (I'm almost sure that at the LA park that security would have been on top of the situation immediately, they have some many cameras all over the park.). So we went over and first tried to ask her in English if she was ok and got no response, Kimberly asked her if she spoke French, then we tried Spanish, still no response. Kimberly went into the hotel to try and get help. It was at this point that one of the random/useless facts that take up space in my head actually was of use. I noticed that she was wearing the very popular Brazilian flip flops (Havaianas), but these were very decorative ones so I figured she might have gotten them in Brazil. So using the only Portuguese phrase I really know I asked her if she spoke this language and she said yes. I then asked her where her parents were and she said that she did not know. Kimberly had returned with someone from the hotel and she took the girl inside to try and help find her parents. It seemed as though the girl may have been staying at the hotel with her parents. So I'm assuming that the other ladies that had been speaking to her gave up when the little girl didn't repond to the language they were speaking, which to be honest was shocking to me, especially since one of them had a couple of kids herself. How they left that little girl by herself when she was clearly upset still surprises me. Also that fact that we didn't see any parents frantically looking for their child also shocked me. Later that same day we saw a lady that lost her little boy and behaved in a way one would expect when looking for a lost child. I can only hope that the little girl was reunited with her parents and had a really great day in the park.

This is my 5th trip to Paris, it's just a great city. I think one of the reason that people like Paris is that it is so easy to get around on the metro that you almost feel at home right away. Even the most directionally challenged person can get around with their color coded maps.

For our second day in Paris we hit some of the tourist hot spots. We started by going to our new favorite bakery and getting the best donut holes in the world. Then we jumped on the metro and headed to Notre Dame. Kimberly and Kinsey climbed the bell towers (I had already done it so I decided to give my aching feet a rest). From there was stopped for a quick bite and then it was off to the Louvre. I like the Louvre but it's just so big that you can't really do it justice in one day. We of course saw the Mona Lisa and then Kinsey picked another wing that she wanted to see and we were able to see one floor of the exhibition within our given timeframe. From the Louvre we took the long stroll down Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph. We stopped for ice cream at the Haagen Dazs and looked around the Louie Vuitton store. We of course did not buy anything, but I was surprised by how many people we dropping some serious cash in that store. From the Arc we cabbed it over to the Effiel Tower. The first time Kimberly and I visited the tower we walked to the top as I did not want to wait in the lines for the elevators, of course we were much younger then. This time we waited in the hot sun to take the elevators to the top.

Finally it was time to relax and grab some dinner. Early on in the trip Kinsey had asked if she was going to have to try escargot which of course we said she did not have to, but if she wanted to she could. Since this was the last night she decided that she would and order them as an appetizer and then ordered a hot dog as her main course. Her thoughts being if the escargot was really bad at least she would have something familiar to eat afterwards. We got some pretty good video of her digging the first one out of the shell and working up the nerve to eat it. Kimberly and I were not very supportive and were laughing the entire time. She swallowed the first one whole and so I'm not sure if she realy tasted it. Since there were 6 I went ahead and ate one and I chewed it which really surprise Kinsey, Kimberly also tried some, they were really good. Kinsey tried another and admitted it was in fact really good. We ate the rest of our meal and at the end Kinsey stated "the snails tasted better than the hot dog". I'm sure my Mom is going to love this quote because everytime we eat hot dogs in front of her she reminds us what there made of.