Day 1 Cont. - Après-midi

August 19th, 2008:

After our internet search, we had lunch, went back to the hotel, checked-in, showered, and napped. Around 3 o’clock we decided to go on a walk to check out our new surroundings. Here's what we saw:

First, we passed a pretty park. (seen below)

Me in front of the park.
Some boys playing ping pong in the park.


A view of the parks pretty flowers.
A statue with a bird resting on it's arm - it looks like the bird is supposed to be there lol.

Other things we saw on our walk:
A bike rental area - these are all over the place. I think the way it works is people can rent a bike from one location and then return it at another near their destination. A lot of people use them so I'll have to look into it haha.

The Pompidou Center!! (I have yet to go in it... Luckily, I have 5 months here. I'm sure I'll get around to it)

Thanks to Googl Earth, I have discovered that this beautiful building is called "L'Hotel de Ville." Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it's the administration building for the city of Paris. It's been the hub of Paris's governement since 1357. Pretty cool.











My dad in front of the fountain at L'Hotel de Ville.
Me and my dad in front of the fountain : ]

Me in front of Notre Dame


Paris Beach! My french teacher told me about this (I had no clue what he was talking about at the time). Every summer they lay sand down by the River Seine and make a faux-beach for the people of Paris. They just packed it up the other day though :( I guess summer is over!

So that pretty much covers our long, tiresome walk. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at this restaurant to get Croque Monsieurs...

The name of is "Au Soleil Levant." When i ordered the Croque Monsieur I was under the impression that i was going to get a grilled ham and cheese (that's how my french teachers described it). But in fact, it is a grilled ham sandwhich with cheese melted on top. Although it wasn't what i expected, it was still pretty good.

After dinner we went back to our hotel and figured out how to use the TV. (At naptime we thought our TV was broken.)