La vie en Paris

Bonjour!

We've been here in Paris for a couple days now and, as one can imagine, it's quite a shock after Africa! I had nearly forgotted what being extremely cold felt like - I remember even vaguely looking forward to the sensation of frost-bite while squished in the backseat of an overcrowded Ugandan taxi with sun burns covering my body... but my feet have suffered a painful reminder that being frozen is not good either. We started our visstay in Paris with a chilly visit to Versailles, the Dali Museum, and a tour around the sights of Montmartre, but last night we did the sensible thing and went shopping for coats, hats and gloves, and our experience has been much more comfortable ever since.

We visited the Eiffel tower today and it was; of course, breathtaking but we've resolved to revisit it at night when it's all lit up to get the full effect. We also went to Notre Dame cathedral and climbed the 400 steps up the increasingly narrow spiral staircase of the main bell tower to where Quasimodo and the gargoyles hang... not the most enjoyable hike for one with claustrophobia but decidedly less painful than scaling the Statue of Liberty, and well worth it once you get up there for the view of the city alone. The cathedral bit was very beautiful and impressive - especially all the stainedglass windows.

I think I may want to live in this city at some point, even though it is huge, it's still so charming with all its sloping cobble-stone streets and the metro system is so easy to use that everywhere feels like only a hop skip and a jump away... and, more to the point, there are bakeries everywhere and the pastries are out of this world.

Well I'm off to rest up for another full day (a week in Paris is not much time!). Tomorrow we tackle the Picasso Museum, L'arc du Triomphe; Centre Pompidou of modern arts, and most importantly the LaDuree pastry shop, which according to exhaustive research is supposed to be the best in the world...why do I get the feeling this new year's resolution will involve the gym?