Paris

The very best thing about living in Brussels is how close it is to other parts of Europe. From Brussels we can get to Paris, London and parts of Germany in less than two hours by train. Its amazing since back home, the only place I can get in about two hours is Rochester(sorry that is not as interesting as London). So, since last Friday was Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) here in Brussels and Steve had Friday off, we took the long weekend as an opportunity to jump on the train to Paris. In about an hour and a half we were walking the streets of Paris enjoying the sites and food. These would be my tips for visiting Paris: be prepared for people to judge you, follow your map at Louvre very closely, very closely, eat as many pastries as you can, but skip the steak.

We saw the typical sites like the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and Champs Elysees. I'm sure I would get a big eye roll from the Parisians for saying this, but my favorite was seeing the Eiffel tower at night. The tower was bigger than I expected it, and at night its all lit up. On the hour, the lights twinkle, it reminds me of a gigantic Christmas tree with the blinking lights. During the day its still very impressive, but it didn't give me the same experience.

Steve at the Arc

 The Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame have such great detail and engraving. When you get to the the top of the Arc you can get a 360 degree veiw of Paris. Notre Dame is a beautiful church with fantastic stained glass windows and candles everywhere.

The Louvre is HUGE. I'm not a big art person, so I'm not sure I appreciated it as much as others, but the amount of artwork is incredible. BTW-the Mona Lisa is much smaller than you would expect and there is some is definitely some artwork I just don't understand. For example, there was marble sculpture of the kid with its arms around a gooses neck, what's that all about? Also, because it is so big we did get a lost for a little while, if you ever go to the Louvre look at your map very closely. Otherwise, before you know it, you start saying to yourself, "didn't we already walk by this painting?"

Steve and the Mona Lisa

I call this, wrestling for dinner

In addition to seeing the sites, we of course had some good food. The pastries are as good as you would think they are, that's all we had for breakfast were pastries. The French bread and the croissants were the best I've had. I would not however recommend eating steak in Paris. Its fine, but I'd rather go to the Capital Grill or Manny's in Minnesota any day. As far as the great Belgium fries vs. French fries debate, I hate to say this, but I think the French fries win.

Even though the French win in the fries arena, I still am so happy that we are in Brussels instead of Paris. The people in Brussels seem much warmer and are much friendlier even though you don't speak any French. In France, they are much less tolerant of English only speakers. They tend to look at you like they are judging you for not speaking French and because you are wearing the wrong outfit. Of course we met some very nice people in France, but overall it just wasn't as comfortable to be there.

Loved the trip, but was ready to go home after three days. The weirdest part of the trip was going home on Sunday. It was weird to say "today we go home" and then end up in our apartment in Brussels instead of going back to our house in Minnesota.