The MUCH nicer end of Paris...

Our transition to the Hilton was painless. The taxi took us right to the front door and a bell man immediately helped us in with our luggage. There were no reservation snafus, no complaints and no arguments. The staff were kind and courteous to a fault. Our room was beautiful and it had air conditioning. It was in the 90's that day so the blast of cold air as we opened the door to our room was a welcomed perque.

Our view of the Eiffel Tower was 100% better in this hotel 5 miles away than it was in the other hotel that was basically on the same piece of property.


And here is Bek standing on the coffee table in our room trying to get a picture of her with the Eiffel Tower in the back ground. (I don't know why but this picture cracks me up. If it was my table it wouldn't be so funny. And my mom took great exception to seeing Rebek standing on a table right next to a plate glass window...)



We decided to get cleaned up before we hit the town. The shower felt wonderful since it was so hot out side...I was a whole new woman when I got out. But imagine my surprise when I attempted to dry my hair and this was as far as the cord would go:
I had pulled it out as far as it would go. Actually we were lucky that there was a blow dryer INSIDE the bathroom. Europe has some law against having any plugs in the bathroom and thus you generally have to dry your hair in the living room or the hallway.

Before we left the hotel we stopped off at the Concierge Lounge and had some snacks. We started out on the veranda because there were seats galore out there. We had a beautiful view and couldn't imagine why no one wanted to sit out there...and then we found out why. There were bee's up there. We thought we could hang with the bees but then once they brought out their whole retinue we decided to join everyone else inside.
Even though my right foot was screaming at me we decided to take a walk along the most famous street in Paris...The Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We had been walking for about 10 minutes before I had to sit down. This beautiful flower garden was right on the corner of the Champs Elysees and the Rue de somethingorother.



We walked another 500 yards and then I needed a diet coke so we went in to a Mc Donalds. This McDonalds was HUGE. It was two stories and there were about 1 million people in there. Here is a picture of their price menu. The price you see is in Euros...so to convert that in to the American dollar you double it.

A little further down the road I spotted a beautiful french kitty sitting at a restaurant. I thought he was calling my name and asking me to pet him.

But apparently he was saying, "Leeef me ahlohne you ugly American! Ah deed nhot seh that yu could touch meh!"
(his tag said his name was "Totem".)

This is one of my very favorite pictures ever. I hate to have to admit that I'm not the one who took it, nor was the pose my idea. As we were crossing the street we saw some other tourist taking their picture in the middle of the street. I was too busy hobbling through the intersection to even notice that Tori and Rebek were out there risking life and limb for this picture.

We shopped in many, many stores. Every store had beautiful clothes and shoes and I would have loved to have shopped like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" however there was nothing I found that I could justify the price. I was in awe as we shopped around and watched people spending money like it was water. I know IMOM would have told me to get anything I wanted but this was just insane. I can't remember how much these shoes were but I took a picture of them because there were outrageously expensive. (And beautiful.)

We made it all the way down the Avenue to the Arc de Triomphe. By this time the sun was starting to set and the wind was picking up. I was so glad that it was cooling off but it went from too hot to too cold. I wanted to go up to the top but there was no way I was going to climb hundreds of stairs and pay 5 Euro for the privilege. (I found out, after I got home, that there is an elevator. Good timing.)


There's more where this came from so stay tuned!