Daily Dialogue - Paris Day #1

Today’s installation will feature a dialogue account of Thurs. May 28

Gayle: This morning began very early especially since Kara awoke at 1am with a migraine – super weird since that’s usually me. Headed down to breakfast and luckily we have VIP seating for our entire stay at Disney ;) so we don’t have to wait to be seated. HA!

Kara: We’ve read in all the books that we can get the Museum Pass at any train station. ALL THE BOOKS ARE WRONG! However, we did succumb to buying the 2-day Paris Visite pass which allowed us to get on and off the trains/metro all day without having to figure out when we needed to buy more tickets or how many we needed – something I’m not sure we would have ever figured out. By the end of the day, Gayle was navigating the train stations like a pro – and I was happily following her :-)

Gayle: Actually I believe it definitely took both of us, as we had to read all of the signs, trains, etc. First stop today was Tour de Eiffel – or for you Americans the Eiffel Tower. Wow. It is A LOT taller than I even could imagine. We were off of THE PLAN, which I am now simply referring to as an OUTLINE, and were there later than opening. The line for the elevator was crazzzzzy long, so we decided to take the stairs….

Kara: That’s all 382 stairs (I would capitalize those numbers if there was a way to do that). We made it, although I think I found some muscles in my legs that I didn’t have before. We’ve also discovered that weather.com can’t tell temperature in Celsius – or can’t tell French weather as it was forecasted to be warm and only partly cloudy. As you can see in pictures we had on jackets all day and it was extremely cloudy. We took several pictures though of both the city and the tower. One of our favorites was of one of the workers “just hangin’ out” on the lower side of the first level of the tower.

Gayle: Oh and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Colleen when I saw a figure of the Eiffel Tower painted in cow spots! Next, we walked along the Seine on our way to the Musee D’Orsay. It was much further between metro stops than we expected. Again, we arrived later than we wanted to, but the line moved very quickly.

Kara: We finally got our 2 day Museum Passes and then headed in to take care of some basic things like free bathrooms and finding lunch! Actually, we packed lunch from the hotel this morning and just needed a couple of bottles of water and some fruit and chips. After a nice lunch we headed to find the galleries and enjoyed looking at the works of Monet, Manet, Renoir, and others. We can both pick out a Monet from about 20 paces so I think we agree we liked those best. Got photos of many of those, but didn’t load those yet.

Gayle: Actually, my favorite here were the works by Degas, definitely the ballerina in me! The building itself is an impressive architectural piece that I could have enjoyed much longer. But as you will see, a strange passer-by got in one of our shots. Hmm…

Kara: I actually took the shot of the polar bear for Ashley Ann! I also have a Panda Bear shot for Amanda that I haven’t loaded yet, but will. It’s from “small world” at Disney. The other piece that I took several photos of was the Prince with his dog Nero. Very cute sculpture. We left Musee d’Orsay and headed to one of the smaller museums – but definitely one I had been looking forward to – Musee Rodin.

Gayle: Surprisingly, this was both of our favorite stop of the day. It includes a wonderful traditional museum in Rodin’s former home, as well as many works in a stunning garden. Kara shot continuous photos, while I narrated the history of some pieces from the brochure.

Kara: If you ever get to Paris you MUST see Musee Rodin. I could have probably stayed there just looking at the pieces and the flowers for several more hours, but we managed to see everything we wanted – except Orpheus – which was not installed when we visited. We left Musee Rodin after grabbing a quick drink in the café and headed to the Arc de Triomphe.

Gayle: In case you are wondering why we liked Musee Rodin so much, it contains “The Thinker”, “The Gates of Hell”, and “The Kiss”. Look these up and learn something today! And remarkably, there is a photo (not contained here) of me literally stopping to “smell the roses” in the garden.

Kara: When we arrived at the Arc we exited right out of the metro and right in front of it. The structure is HUGE. We met a lot of other tourists there who were all taking photos much like ours. A couple of younger American girls returned the favor of me taking their picture in front of the Arc by taking a few pictures of us as well. As in most places, I could have stayed there all day just taking photos of others for them – a favorite activity of mine when I travel.

Gayle: By this time we were more than ready to head “home”. Upon arrival we had supper in Disneyland and then to our room. The “OUTLINE” seems to still be in flux. However, tomorrow will include at least: The Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, and St. Chappelle.

Kara: We both enjoyed our first day in Paris very much and hope you enjoy a few of the more than 150 photos we took between the two of us today. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll take many, many more. All in all we walked more than 7.5 miles today and we are tired so it’s off to bed for us.