Arrival in Paris!

Whew!  We are back from a whirlwind vacation to Paris and Brussels.  The jet lag is killing me--I've been up at 2:00 a.m. since we got back on Friday.  

I'm not going to lie, this was an exhausting, but spectacular and once in a lifetime trip!  Over the 13 days we were gone I walked 121,008 steps which is about 68.34 miles.  No wonder my legs and feet were in a constant state of ache.

We got up early, kissed the horses and cats goodbye, dropped the dog off at the kennel and made our way to Denver for our flight to Minneapolis.

Delta is the official airline of the U.S. Olympic Team and since we were flying on Delta we were treated to some pre-Olympic souvenirs and a photo booth.  Very cool idea, Delta!

The flight was about eight hours in length.  We arrived right on time, made it through Customs and the private car I had hired to take us to our hotel was waiting for us.  I had arranged for an early check in time at our hotel and our room was ready when we got there.  We took a couple hour nap while waiting for J and B to arrive by train from Munich.

Everyone was hungry when they arrived so we found a nice little cafe very close to our hotel.  First Aperol Spritz of the trip--my favorite European drink!

We had wanted to watch the Formula 1 race that was going on and the cafe staff kindly switched the channel on the TV so we could do that.  But then you know what happened?  Everyone else wanted to watch the Olympics so we told the guy to turn it back to the Olympic channel.  What the hell is wrong with us entitled Americans to think the French people would want to watch anything except the Olympics they are hosting?  Our bad!

After lunch we thought it would be a good opportunity to go to the Tuileries Garden to see the Olympic Flame.  For commoners like us this was a close as we could get.  The flame was fenced off and we couldn't even see it because of the banners on the fence.  

Luckily we have a very tall son-in-law that was able to reach above the banners to get a couple good shots.  They only flew the cauldron in the air from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

You may notice people on the other side of the fence.  There were free tickets available to get closer, but they were gone very quickly and most people were out of luck.  I didn't think it was very Olympic-spirit like to hide the cauldron from thousands of visitors.  I'm sure they needed to manage the crowd, but surely they could have come up with a better solution.

Our Olympic flame selfie.

Then we continued our walk from the Tuileries in the direction of the Louvre where we heard there were some Olympic rings available for photo opportunities.

We stopped at a viewpoint along the Seine.  You can see some of the bleachers used for the opening ceremony.  The Grande Palais is in the distance on the right side.  You can also see the very tip of the Eiffel Tower in the far distance on the left.

We kept walking and eventually found the courtyard of the Louvre with the famous glass pyramid.  I'm not sure who these people are with the yellow, red and blue fabric.  Maybe some Romanian fans?  Everyone had lots of pride in their countries.

This is the Arc de Triomphe du Carousel just outside the Louvre.  You may have seen the flame run through here during the opening ceremonies.  This is a much smaller arch than the Arc de Triomphe along the Champs-Elysees Avenue that Napoleon had built.

There's the beautiful glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre that was designed by I.M. Pei and built in 1989.

We found the Olympic rings that we had been in search of.  What this picture doesn't show is the long queue to get to the front for a photo.  I decided to forgo the line and just hold my camera up to get a shot of the rings.  However, if you look through the blue ring you'll see that Irv managed to get in the shot.  I hadn't even noticed at the time.

We'd had a full day by this time so we found a nearby metro station that took us right back to our hotel where we had dinner and turned in early.

Our hotel was in the village of Bercy right next to the Gare (train station) de Lyon and it was so convenient.  Trains, busses and the metro were easily accessible.  The public transportation company sold passes that were valid only during the Olympics that included all forms of public transport.  I ordered them months in advance and they mailed them to our house.  I couldn't understand why they didn't have a phone app to avoid all that processing, but it worked just fine.  We took the train and metro all over the city--it was easy, clean, and very reliable.  

It will be interesting to see how LA handles public transport since they say all the venues will be car-free.

Tomorrow is our first Olympic event!