Fighting jet lag, enjoying the sights….

 

The trip to Paris was uneventful (my favorite type of trip), and we landed right on time at 7:15am - which is 1:15am in NY, which means that very little sleep was had.  Still - luggage arrived very quickly, we were met promptly by the cruise representatives (Viking), and taken by cab to the ship.  Rush hour traffic in Paris may be worse than in NY!  But since someone else was doing the driving, it was not stressful to us.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, with all this being on time, our rooms were not quite ready when we got there, and we just got to chill in the nice ship lounge.  But - if I were to do that for more than 10 minutes, there is no doubt that I’d fall asleep.  

Plus, it’s a lovely  October day, plus - this is where our ship is docked! (View from a nearly bridge of the top deck of the ship, and from the topdeck itself.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I did what will surprise no one:  I went for a long walk on the quais, all the way to the Louvre museum, just taking in all of the sites that are so familiar for having been seen so often in movies or on the news, but that I have in fact rarely seen in person (Last time was I believe before Emily was born).

 

 

 

I enjoyed seeing all the different house boats docked right along the Seine, where people were just going on with their lives, oblivious to us tourists.......

After lunch, Joe stopped fighting and took a nap, but I powered on! I went on a short “welcome to Paris” walk around the neighborhood with our guide Bruno.  Bruno is so French as to be almost stereotypical:  You’d expect him to be carrying his baguette while smoking his Gauloise at a sidewalk cafe….  His accent was thick enough, and his speech peppered with enough random French words when he could not come up with the correct English one, that I worried my fellow travelers would not understand him.  But they seem to get most of it, at least his passion for the French culture, the importance of cheese and vine, and why we need a revolution! (We could all imagine him singing “do you hear the people sing” while waving a red flag!. ) He was quite entertaining, and it was nice to see the actual neighborhood where the ship is docked, its sidewalk cafes, and little stores. Could almost be anywhere, except that every time you turn around, there is the Eiffel Tower….. 

 

 

or, depending on which way you turn, you’ll see the Statue of Liberty!  This quarter size replica was installed 3 years after the one in NYC, and was a gift from the American population in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.  It faces west - toward the USA.   I think that’s pretty cool…..

We had a couple of drinks on the deck (the weather just could not be nicer), had the obligatory safety drill,

 

 

 

 

And a very nice diner....and possibly some wine.

Which, combined with the jet lag means that I'm barely coherent...

Still - had to stay up for this remarkably good trio of opera singers-  they were really great!

Tomorrow, the actual tour/cruise starts.  In the mean time, pictures of our ship and a few more of Paris.