Paris

Ooookay. So we don't just sit around and eat sushi. We do other stuff too! Jesse's sister Tara came to visit, and we had a supercool time. We took her around Canterbury, then on a little trip to Paris. Paris is an interesting, beautiful, dirty, cool place.

On arriving, we were completely lost and very obviously tourists with our backpacks and dazed expressions. We wandered through a sort of dodgy part of town in what we hoped was the direction of the Seine. Thank goodness, Tara spotted some missionaries (one of whom was from Spokane!) who were nice enough to show us around the Metro and point us in the right direction. In the next half hour we saw 10 missionaries (about a third of the missionaries in Paris), and then we didn't see another one the rest of the trip.

We saw all the important stuff--the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc De Triomphe, etc. We climbed the stairs up the Eiffel tower at night, which was pretty cool, and Tara only whined a little. She actually was very pleasant and good company the whole trip. We found some great chocolate creations and a food market. I think my favorite part of the trip was the night we took the train out of Paris to this little bistro on an island in the river. There was an accordion band playing and lots of dancing. It was really casual with dads dancing with their daughters and dogs under the outside tables. We sat outside under the lights and wisteria and ate chocolate mousse. It was lovely, and I wish wish wish we had an equivalent to that type of place in the states. If all my dreams came true, I'd open a pie house and serve pie and hire bands to play and have the whole neighborhood in for dancing. Sigh. Maybe I'll transform Rexburg someday...

All in all, it was a good trip. We shopped (we did, after all, have a 16-year-old in tow), we ate, we danced, we looked at priceless works of art, we got lost, we walked until our feet died. We visited the Ina-recommended Poilane Bakery and Dehillerin cooking supply store. Disappointingly, the nice man in Dehillerin didn't know what I meant as I tried to ask if they had a pastry blender. And he spoke perfect English. And OH YEAH! We went to EuroDisney! I had reservations about spending one of our Paris days in Disneyland, but I'm so glad we went. There were some great rides, and the people had to be nice to us.