Day two in Paris was quite an adventure! Woke up late, not because of jet lag but mainly because lately I don't sleep well regardless which time zone I'm
in. Got up in a hurry to catch the Metro to make my 1130 tour of the Eiffel tower, I made it just in time, but i had no idea were to check-in amongst the hundreds of people there.
I have found that people here, although not warm and fuzzy, are very nice and helpful. The security guard helped me out and soon enough I was taking the elevator up to the tower to catch a magnificent view of the city. After a little birthday brunch on the tower, I headed to the Open Tour bus to catch a glimpse of the important sites. Little did I know I was going to be able to do more than that, the Open bus tour gives you the ability to hop on off in different places and capture the city at your on pace. My two day pass was definitely worth the money. I used it all day Sunday and Monday and rode (3) out of their (4) routes visiting the must see places.
Monday's highlight was seeing the Sacred Heart church in the Montmartre district, and the Luxembourg gardens in the Montparnasse district. It was an overcasted, rainy day but somehow that did not hinder the adventure.
In the afternoon I met the group with which I will continue this journey all the way to Rome. Most of the people in the group are either from the West, Southwest or Pacific Northwest, all very nice, some with a few idiosyncrasies but not bad considering there's 25 of us. I wonder what they are writing about the PuertoRican in the group, sure they think I'll bring some spice to the mix. I also met our tour guide, Colleen, a petite blonde from Seattle that immediately laid down the law, we synchronized watches to be on Colleen time, to prevent being late to our departure times.
Later in the evening, we headed to the ile de la cite area for dinner, of course someone was late, and once again Colleen specified, that next time we will leave them behind. I'm sure they will be on time from now on. We ended up the evening with an awesome view of the Eiffel Tower at night from a Sienne boat tour, the weather was perfect.
I can't leave out the most amusing part of my day, when Colleen left us stranded at the Metro station. It wasn't on purpose, we weren't late, it
just happened very quickly as she boarded the train ahead of us and just like that the doors closed and she was gone. The look on her face was worth a million bucks, but we happened to be very resourceful and met her at our destination. We now hold the incident as a trump card against Colleen, as the adventure continues.
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