Paris Day 4

On our fourth day in Paris, a Sunday, we spent a large portion on a HOHO tour. That day, le Tour de France was having its final stage down the Champs-Élysées, which contains a ton of huge tourist attractions in Paris. Our tour bus normally would have gone down that avenue, but it had to be rerouted. That meant that a lot of the time, it didn't have commentary and was just going down random streets. When the commentary was on, it wasn't necessarily telling us about what was nearby us; that made it difficult to keep up with what we were seeing. We saw a ton of stuff, but I honestly couldn't tell you what half of it was! ha It was all very cool to see, though.

One of the interesting things about the tour is we had a chance to talk to a lot of Americans and hear what they thought about the city. Everyone we talked to had the same opinion and experience in the city as us--the city was pretty gross and the people were rude to Americans. We met a kid who was probably somewhere around 12 years old. He was with is mom and grandparents. They had come to pick him up as he had been staying in a French village for a month. They all said that the village he was in was great and that everyone was wonderful. It seems that really the only rude city in France is Paris. Thats either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.

We spent a large part of the day working our way towards a certain bus stop, one close to the Rue Cler district. My mom had wanted to go there to eat lunch. We made it there and found that many of the places were closed as it was Sunday. We were particularly looking for a restaurant that served French onion soup. We finally found one and sat down to eat. The waiter brought us out an American menu and then proceeded to wait on pretty much everyone else in the restaurant before helping us. It was pretty frustrating, but we made it through. The soup was delicious!

After that, we wandered through the neighborhood. We bought a Nutella crepe at a stand, but were disappointed when the guy just heated up one that he had made earlier that day. It was still yummy, though! We also stopped in a gift shop and met one of the few nice French people of our trip. The lady spoke good English and was very friendly! My mom bought magnets for her coworkers and I bought some postcards. We then got back on the bus and made our way towards Lurve, the closest bus stop to the Champs Champs-Élysées.

We walked up to the racecourse just as the bikers rode by on their 7th lap of 8. We got a fairly good spot to watch and took some pictures, excited to be there. There were tons of people there including some very proud Norwegians drinking Heineken and--to our excitement--Americans! Okay, so it was more that we saw an American flag in a window of a building where people were watching from, but still! After 2 1/2 weeks away from the USA, it was a nice sight! We walked around the racecourse some more and were very lucky to find a small area--enough for two of us--that was open! My mom and I stood with an unblocked view while my dad and sister stood in back of us.

My sister had her FlipCam out and was able to record the entire group of cyclists as well as all of their crew. Meanwhile, my mom and I took lots of pictures. Let me say that after six years or so of seeing the race on TV, it was a pretty amazing experience to see it in person! We screamed loudly as they all rode by and, somewhere in the crowd, saw Lance Armstrong, our American cycling hero!

After they all rode by, we were about to make our way to the stage they had set up for the closing ceremony when Jen told us she had to use the bathroom. Let me tell you, it is near impossible to find a place to use the bathroom in downtown Paris! My dad finally asked a police officer and he said (I kid you not), "Just go in the street!" My dad said it was for his daughter and the guy told us to find a bar. We finally found one (with a long line, I might add) and watched the closing ceremony on TV while it was happening just down the street. It was pretty disappointing that we didn't get to see it in person, but it was still nice to see it on TV.

After that, I bought an official Tour de France t-shirt. We then made our way to the RER (underground) station. My sister's friend Alan, who lives in Italy, happened to be in Paris that weekend, so we split up from my parents to meet up with them. We got some sodas and then wandered around town. After a couple hours, we said goodbye. We stopped by a Subway and I got dinner before we headed back to the apartment. We had another exciting day planned the next day!

First album of photos.
Second album of photos.