Paris, January 2009

7 years after our first visit to Paris, once again we found ourselves visiting this major city. Here we are at the famous Place d'Etoile as it was once called. Today, it's called Place Charles de Gaulle Etoile. The arch was built by order of Napolean in early 1800s for his troops to march through the arch to celebrate their victories.

Click each photo to enlarge

We stayed at the 4 star hotel Royal Elysées near Place Etoile. The room was small, but we were delighted to see blue sky outside. When we opened the window, however, there was no blue sky, only a narrow court with walls painted blue and with scattered clouds...
"Bah! It's not excatly 4 star to me!" Roger complained.
"Well" Tom pointed out. "As I've always said: Anything out of the bag is 5 star to me!"

Paris, January 2009

Down on the street McBear was studying the trafic.
"This is a city of SmartCars!" McBear delighted told Roger. "They are everywhere! Easy to drive, easy to park, easy to fill up. Easy-peasy!"
"And they are much more environmentally friendly than big cars..."
"Good point, Roger, good point!"

The next morning we went to Versailles to see the world famous castle of Louis the 14th. While the other TA's got a lift in our owner's bag, McBear and Roger decided to try out the effecient Parisian trafic system themselves. Here we are sitting on the train ready with our tickets ready in case of inspection.

Versailles, January 2009

Here we are in front of the famous castle Versailles, well, actually, this part is only a fraction of the entire castle complex.
"Wow, it's huuuuge!" Erasmus said. He was very impressed.
"It must have cost a fortune of money!" Doctor Oxford started to analyse.
"It did! No wonder a lot of poor women stormed the castle after the revolution in 1789." McBear said.
Roger didn't say a word. As the castle was built by Louis the 14th, also known as the Sun King, Roger felt the castle would be an appropriate residence for him...

Returning to Paris, we went to visit the grave of the world famous Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. Since Roger himself had written books and both Oscar and Roger were from Ireland, Roger felt they had much in common and it would be appropriate to have his photo taken here.

Before we left Paris, Roger wanted an updated photo of him and the Eiffel Tower - after all, much had happened since he had had his photo taken here in December 2001. "Je suis Roger, la Parisienne!" Roger proudly said in French.

Paris, January 2009

"Enough!" McBear said. "You and your photos everywhere! It's time to let other TA's have a say as well! We shall ALL have our photo taken, here in the city of revolutionary revolutions!"
"But of course!" Roger said without hesitation. "There is room for everybody!"

We had a lovely hotel in Paris (well, Roger said he was used to higher standards). It was Tom's first travel abroad, and he started partying right away. We managed to calm him down.

The Eiffel Tower

Famous Roger at the famous Eiffel Tower.

It was very cold and windy on top of the Eiffel Tower, and there was a risk of some of us being blown over the fence. Frances, however, had a tight grip on McBear. She mumbled something about her hair being in a mess...

Skating in Paris

On the last day we went to "La Defense" to see the Paris skyscrapers and to - go iceskating! Yopeee! Tom was thrilled! We had a hard time getting him back to the hotel!
Brrr, it was freezing cold!