Katie's Arrival

Katie has officially arrived in France! I still think her trip is cursed though... let me know what you think.
Saturday morning I got up at 4am to catch the first train to Paris. It was especially important since the transportation strike is still going on and there are far fewer trains running at all. I made the train and after arriving in Paris started to look for the Air France bus that would take me to the airport. Luckily one happened to be at the stop as I walked out and I got on. Only about halfway through the ride did I realize that I was on the wrong bus. I was going to the Orly Airport, which is south of the city, instead of the Charles de Gaulle Airport to the north. Since it was so early in the morning, my brain wasn't really working in French and I was tired and susceptible to breakdown. Luckily the bus driver was nice enough to personally take me to the director's office and we got it all worked out, free of charge. In the end I guess it was just another good opportunity to practice my French. I made it to the correct airport in plenty of time to meet Katie off the plane. :)
We got the next bus back to Paris and then decided to take a taxi (remember, because of the strike there's no metro) to our hotel. Apparently either they have very false advertising or I just pick bad hotels because ours wasn't even in Paris city limits. It was north of the city a bit in a town called Levallois. About a 30 minute walk to the Arc de Triomphe. If there was a metro running it would have been simple to reach... but oh well. Throwing caution to the wind we decided to walk from the hotel to all the sites and then get a taxi back after dinner. The exercise would be good for Katie's jet lag.

Saturday we stopped at the Arc de Triomphe and went to the top for the view.

We strolled down the Champs Elysees and stopped for a crepe.

We walked through the Jardin des Tuileries and then over to the Musee d’Orsay for some speedy Impressionism.

After that we wandered down to Notre Dame de Paris and stopped inside, where we were even lucky enough to catch a concert!

Then we did dinner in the Marais and looked for a taxi. You try finding a taxi on a Saturday night in a city that has no working public transportation. To make a long story short, 4.78 very long, frustrating, and incredibly tiring miles later we stumbled into our hotel after walking around 12 miles in less than 9 hours. I don’t know that I’ve ever slept so well.

Sunday there were some buses and sporadic metro traffic, so it was a bit easier. We weren’t able to do the Eiffel Tower due to cloud cover…

…but we did see the Conciergerie (an old prison where they also held some of the most famous victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution)...

...Sainte-Chapelle…

...and we climbed the towers of Notre Dame. That was an incredibly impressive view.

After a quick lunch we did the world’s fastest tour of the Louvre Museum...

…and then walked up to the Paris Opera where we hopped a ride back to the hotel and then a bus to the train station. We were able to get a train out of Paris relatively well and arrived in Chartres to cold, dark and pouring rain.

Today Katie explored Chartres while I battled it out with the worst class of all time. Tomorrow the teachers are going on strike… well some of them anyway. The good part is that I only have 1 class instead of 6 so for the rest of the day Katie and I have some plans. What plans? I guess you’ll just have to wait and see! :)