Paris :)

So we just got back from an awesome weekend trip to Paris. :)

And my mom has once again delegated the responsibility of writing the blog to me, Erin. 

We drove from Bern to Paris, which was 6 1/2 hours. And for having all 7 of us in the 6-seat Mazda 5 it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be!

On our drive up on Thursday we stopped at the Château de Fontainebleau, which started out hundreds of years ago as a little hunting lodge for one of the kings of France, and it just started being developed and changed and it was used as another home of the monarchy for years. 

I loved touring the inside and learning the history, it was so interesting!

Here's a picture of walking up to the outside:

 After walking around the Gardens at Fontainebleau we picked up a few French baguettes for a snack :)

Once we were in Paris, this is Nathan and I waiting to check-in to our apartment. We had been eating some kind of gross candy, and Nate taught me how to make lipstick! :)

Our apartment was right by the Place de la Bastille, and it was really cute and lovely and fun to stay in!

On Friday morning we arrived at the Louvre Museum through the basement Metro a 1/2 hour early, and the line we had to wait in was NOTHING compared to what we saw outside. But during that time, I started teaching Ryan a dance that I've learned at the Stake youth Dances here.

This is Erik & Mom by the Winged Victory of Samothrace sculpture at the Louvre.

 Ryan & Mom in the Louvre. This is the room with the Mona Lisa in it, but we found this painting across from it a lot more exciting and interesting than the Mona Lisa itself. Ryan has on his headset from the Louvre Audioguide, which was on a Nintendo 3DS. It gave them an incredible amount of information, and it could locate where you were right then and tell you what you're looking at. You could also search something you want to see and it would tell you how to get there! It was pretty useful for a museum of that size! :)



Eating lunch in the Tuileries Garden after viewing the Louvre in the morning:

Walking to the Place de la Concorde. I'm not entirely sure what Ryan's doing with his arms...

Kento! :) hahaha. He's pretty strong, what can I say.. ;)

Ryan by the Eiffel Tower. There was an INSANE amount of people in an INSANELY long line, even just to walk up to the first levels of the tower. But we were all pretty content to buy crêpes and lay in the grass and stare up at the tower. Or climb the trees if you're Ryan...

The family by the Eiffel Tower, taken by our friend Mohammed.

 

We met our friend Mohammed, "Moho", in Paris. He was in Erik's class in Rabat, Morocco, and now he's going to the American business School of Paris. It was so fun to meet up with him after a few years!









Outside of the Notre Dame cathedral, Nathan was playing with the dirty pigeons! :)

The other boys were also playing with the birds, but I think only Nathan got one on his shoulder.

Down in the Metro,
waiting in some cool chairs :P

                         At the big fountain pool place outside of the Luxembourg Palace.

                                       Around a big pillar of the Pantheon.

At the Sacre Coeur, one of the few churches that we were actually patient enough to see the inside of, because of so many people! But it was beautiful, and we were all relaxed after big ice cream cones :)

In our apartment, which was generally really cute, it had this strange decoration of having 6 plastic hands protruding out of the wall. But we played with them a lot, and this is a picture of "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil".