Europe Update #1 - Paris

Landed at Charles de Gaulle airport and was disappointed at the airport's age. Had to disembarked onto the tarmac, then a bus transported us to the terminal. Immigration was a breeze - there was no "Entry into France" stamp in the passport and nobody manned the quarantine section.

My aunt picked us up and shock #1 was the tiny parking spaces and parking lots. Cars were parallel-parked within inches within each other, and alot of cars bump into each other when pulling into/out of parallel spaces.

Shock #2 was that in central Paris, many roads don't have lane dividers - which gets even more confusing in multi-lanes, big-ass roundabouts like the ones at Arc de Triomphe (9 lanes).

Wendy and I stayed at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome using my free nights (thank you CADDIS!). Later we found out the rack rate was US$550 per night! This hotel was voted among the top 20 European hotels in Conde Nast. I'll definitely keep this hotel in mind next time I have to burn some free nights. Got upgraded to a deluxe room courtesy of my Diamond status. The bathroom is something to be seen! Gilles the concierge helped us out heaps with reservations for the overnight rail journey to Madrid.

The hotel is centrally located to many tourist attractions. We took a stroll in the Vendome area with its statue of Napoleon and the fancy jewelers. There's a posh jewelry shop called Dinh and Van - perhaps an indication of a future partnership between Dinh and Cong's girlfriend :) The hotel is also within walking distance to the Opera Garnier, Concord Place (where King Louis XVI and some 2000 people were executed during the French Revolution) and the Louvre. We didn't sleep much on the flight from DFW to CDG so after a brief walkaround and shower, we crashed at 6pm (and missed dinner as a result).

Day 2 started at the Louvre. I was really pumped after reading "The Da Vinci Code" and headed straight for the Mona Lisa. Unlike most paintings there, the Mona Lisa was fenced off some 2 meters away and was also protected by a glass. I had forgotten the supposedly encrypted secrets of the Mona Lisa when we visited - its time to get back to the book again! Afterwards we jumped on the double-decker tourist bus and went to a ton of the usual tourist spots:

  • Concord Place
  • Champs Elysees
  • Arc de Triomphe Etoile
  • Eiffel Tower


From Concord Place, it is possible to look down Champs Elysees all the way to the Arc. I'd recommend taking a photo from that spot. There is meant to be a tourist bus every 20 minutes, but it didn't show up at the Eiffel Tower stop for an hour. It was windy, at nighttime and during winter! The positive spin is that we saw the illumination of the tower which only occur every hour on the hour.

Day 3: Went to Notre Dame Cathedral with its famous glass-stained windows and gargoyles perched atop the roof. The wind chill factor was up another notch and it was freakin' COLD! Notre Dame is adjacent to a tiny island that was the original Paris. Met up with my Aunt and Uncle for dinner in the 13th district for Thai food, then went to Sacre Couer church for more photos.

Day 4: went to Chateau de Versailles, about 40 minutes from central Paris. This was the palace of Louis XIV. There's a room called The Hall of Mirrors which is covered with ceiling-to-floor mirrors. The room served no purpose other than to show-off the king's wealth, since large-scale mirrors were $$$ back then. It was also interesting to know that the Treaty of Versailles to end WWI was signed there.

Wendy wanted to shop in the afternoon. I ^%& hate shopping so nothing else needs to be said, except that it was during 1 of the 2 annual sales events so the crowd was overwhelming. For dinner, uncle and aunt treated us to a full-on French dinner at Le Gastroque (a combined word play on gastronomy and pub - meaning a friendly place for eating). The French are really into livers because, according to my uncle, "it's all about the texture". We had snails-baked-into-pastry, duck liver (cooked and tasted like lightly fried chicken), orange duck and goose cheese.

Day 5: Met up with my aunt for some afternoon tea at Ladurre (its been there since the 1880s). It cost 40 euros! Afterwards we headed to Austerlitz station for the overnighter to Madrid.
Paris was fun and I'll read up on French history when I get back to the US.

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