Saturday October 24, 2009
Paris, France
After eating a hearty lunch of Couscous, we headed out to see some of Paris. We rode the subway to the Seine River near the Eiffel Tower.
The Seine River (pronounced sen - like pen or ten) is 482 miles long. Its mouth is at the English Channel and it winds it's way through France, crossing through Paris.
There were several boats docked along this area that were very interesting to us.
We wondered if people lived in them or rented them out for vacations or excursions? You can see a patio table and chairs on the deck like it's used for entertaining.
About right in here is where I had a slight melt-down. We had run into some snags in London with timing and directions for some of the things we were trying to see and do and we had to re-work our schedule (and might I add that London had a very tight schedule-we only had a day and a half there!). Now that we were in Paris, the first thing on our schedule was to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but as you can tell the weather was very dreary and wasn't the greatest day to go to the top for a good view.
Now, I'm not one that always has to stick to schedules, I can be very flexible and go with the flow. But having short amounts of time in each city (some cities we only visited for 24 hours!), we had to have some sort of plan. So I was starting to see a pattern of things not working out, since we had the few snags in London and it seemed we would in Paris too. We had made the best of it in London and still got to see just about everything we wanted, so it worked out fine.
But since Shannon let me plan the trip and take care of all the details, I felt responsible for the fact that things weren't going right. I was starting to feel like all my hard work was for no reason and then I just started feeling a little stupid because nothing seemed to be going according to plan. And when I feel stupid, I get embarrassed, defensive and stubborn......and I tend to go into shut-down mode. So, after a few tears and realizing I needed to lighten up on myself a bit, we were able to enjoy walking along the Seine River.
This is the Pont de Bir Hakeim (pont means bridge). Paris has 37 bridges over the Seine.
Here's a close-up of the arch feature on the bridge (you can see it in the distance in the picture above)
This runs between the lanes of traffic on the bridge - I love the hanging pendant lights!
Standing on the Pont de Bir Hakeim and looking towards the Eiffel Tower
Lots of buildings line the riverbanks.
How awesome would it be to live right along the Seine in Paris? To have a balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower? To eat pastries for breakfast every morning? *sigh* If only.
You can see here how the Eiffel Tower stands up to some of the High-rises in Paris
"The Seine is very tranquil with lots of bridges and city lights that cast muted colors on the water" - ...this is what I wrote to my mom in an e-mail from Paris.
Have you ever seen the movie Sabrina (the newer version)? Being in Paris makes me feel the same way that movie makes me feel....maybe because parts of it are set in Paris....maybe because it makes me want to cry - but not because I'm sad.....maybe because those days in Paris made me feel like Sabrina, finding parts of myself in the rivers whispers and the soft dancing colors.
As we walked along the Seine, the sun slowly set and the Eiffel Tower was illuminated, showing it's true beauty! A boat passed by carrying passengers having dinner inside. Isn't it almost breath-taking?
I miss Paris.
No comments:
Post a Comment