Back from France!

Bonjour! For once, this is actually Dan who is updated the blog...not Holly updating it with me standing over her shoulder correcting her. :)

So I left for France last Sunday right after the Army Ten Miler (I ran on a completely empty tank and my time certainly showed it). After a 6 hour flight, I landed at Charles de Gaulle in Paris and bought a bus ticket to the Opera section of Paris. Traffic was terrible but nothing I wasn't used to and I wanted to sleep on the bus but was afraid I'd miss something. Turns out that the only thing I would've missed was a couple of near death experiences and lots and lots of French graffiti.

So we got to the bus stop and got kicked off the bus. So here I am in the middle of Paris with no knowledge of where I was or where I had to go...a map would've been helpful. I wandered around the twisted and completely uncoordinated streets of Paris (in the rain...dragging my bags) until I decided to man up and ask for directions. After a spirited game of charades and some high school French, I figured out where I was and where I had to go. Now...how to get there. Lucky for me the French metro is everywhere and is just as easy to use (to include dependable) as the metro here in DC. After about an hour, I arrived at my hotel, freshened up and wandered back out into the rain. Coming from Washington and only having one day, there was no way I was going to let the rain stop me!

Hopped back on the metro (getting really good at it)...first stop: la musee de louvre. Went inside The Louvre but didn't look around because my time was limited and the lines were long. Sat down to rest my tired feet on a bench outside the gift shop and dozed off for what seemed like an eternity...I was asleep for about 45 seconds.

Next stop: Pont Neuf...the bridge was constructed in 1578! Quick math...that's 400 years before the year I was born! Then I was off to Notre Dame Cathedral. While in route, I was taken for 5 euros by some gypsies. Oh well, it's only money. At this point it's still pouring rain and I am soaked. I had every inclination to go back to the hotel and dry off (and ultimately fall asleep) but decided to duck into a cafe across the street from Notre Dame, grabbed some chow, and kept walking.

Some more gypsies tried again but this time I pretended to not speak English...used a combination of French and Arabic that made them look at me funny until they walked away...fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

The rain calmed down a little bit so I decided to head to L'Arc de Triomphe. Climbed the ridiculously long spiral staircase to the top and took a bunch of pictures from one of the best vantage points in Paris. The Eiffel Tower was engulfed in some fog...as you can see but L'Arc still made for some great sites.

Then it was on to La Tour itself and I decided to take some rest on a park bench at the bottom and gave Holly a call while laughing at the ducks. By the time I hung up the phone I was really tired but since the rain had stopped, I decided to swing by the Louvre one more time and crossed Pont Neuf again.

I returned to my hotel and got a good night's sleep and caught a train down to Angers for the NATO Senior Joint Engineer Conference. Angers was a lot of fun because it was just a small little French town with a lots of history. The conference was pretty good if only because I got exposure to military engineering leadership at the highest levels from all around the world...very cool. The conference was held at the French Engineer School and I got a tour of their museum which was AWESOME but probably just because I'm such a geek about that stuff. But just so you know, the first Chief of Engineers for the US Army was a Frenchman who was responsible for the fortifications at Yorktown which is ultimately why we won the war. And did you know that the US Army Corps of Engineers designed all of and built most of Washington DC? Yep...designed by Pierre L'Enfant...a French engineer.

When not at the conference, I got to wander around Angers with it's cozey yet magnificent parks and gardens. I even got to have dinner at a small local restaurant called "Chez Remi" and if you've ever seen "Ratatouille"...no, this Remi was not a rat!

As part of the conference, we got a tour of the chateau in Angers which housed a 700 year old tapestry. Unbelievable. We also visited the cathedral which was amazing. Having not been inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (didn't have time), I was completely blown away. And last but not least, my final night was spent at an Irish Pub...the beer was Irish and the food was French...everybody wins!