First Visitors

Sandy's brother, Jim, and his girlfriend arrived on Thursday.  We told the kids we were waiting for Uncle Jim and Aunt Jennifer to get here before we really started the touristy stuff.  They arrived, so everyone hold on.

On Thursday while I was at work, they all (including the kids) walked all over Paris for about 3 hours.  Jim and Jennifer spent Friday on their own and on Friday night, Jim's son Kyle, arrived.  He's working in Amsterdam for a few months and flew down for the weekend. We were all up late talking, but we knew we had a busy few days ahead of us.

We bought tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower on Saturday night at 9:30pm, so we had the rest of the day to explore.  We took the Metro to the "Latin District" and enjoyed some wandering through the shops and restaurants before making our way to the Seine and our first views of Notre Dame.  It is spectacular.

We walked along the Seine and looked at the people selling their wares before making our way across the river to the back side of Notre Dame.  On the bridge, there is a railing with fencing along it.  Couples place a lock on the fencing to secure their forever love.  Some of them were engraved with names and dates.  They came prepared.

They have a small playground area right behind Notre Dame.  I think the kids enjoyed it, especially this tilted disk that would spin.

The line for the free entrance to Notre Dame wasn't long at all.  Inside, it was amazing.  Larger and more spectacular than I could've imagined. 

After that, we grabbed some food from some walk up vendors (gyros!) and then parted ways until the Eiffel Tower.

Unfortunately, it started drizzling later in the day and the wind was blowing.  Regardless of that, the Eiffel Tower was great. 

We stopped at the 2nd floor and looked around for a while.  Then we went up, up up!   Boy, you're really up there.  Realistically, the views are better from the 2nd floor because the top is so high up.  Thankfully, there are 2 levels at the top.  The bottom of those levels is inside.  When you look out the windows, it shows you cities in that direction and the distance away.  HELLO AMERICA!

On Sunday, we decided to skip church and go with Jim, Jennifer, and Kyle to visit the Louvre.  I may ave used these terms before, but it was bigger and more spectacular than I could've imagined.  We spent hours there and barely made a dent in the total museum.  We saw many of the well known pieces, including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Liberty, and others.  We went back to the apartment and crashed. 

We all have different things that we would consider our favorite parts of the weekend, but I think Nick would definitely say it was meeting his cousin Kyle.  They'd met before, but Nick was way too young to remember.  I think Nick found perhaps the coolest person in the world.  See this? 

This was 2 full days of walking around Paris together.  Aren't they cute?

Actually, Nick acts a lot like Kyle did when he was younger.  Kyle enjoyed having Nick there.  They walked together, talked together, and even made up little games with swords and freezing each other.  How many guys in their mid-20s would spend 2 days walking around Paris doing stuff like that with a 6 year old?  I think Nick may be right.  He could be the coolest person in the world.

Jim, Jennifer, and Kyle left for Amsterdam on Sunday night.  Jim and Jennifer come back next Sunday for a few days before flying back to Ohio. 

Up next... the medical exam for the work visa.