France: Do you know where your children are? Cause I sure don't...

Welcome to Paris, France. A city full of cathedrals, PDA, leisure... and apparenlty zero children. The custom in France is to take advantage of the wonderful service known as daycare to essentially raise children. This allows time for them to lay around in parks and do pretty much absolutely nothing for a majority of the day. Don't get me wrong... I'm all for hanging out in the outdoors and having a good time, but I just don't know if, at the same time, I could do that and allow someone else to take of my child pretty much all day. But hey... different country... different people... different culture... what can you do? If you can't beat 'em... join 'em, right? The art of leisure and relaxation in Paris is a surprisingly aquired taste. Sometimes you just don't feel like sitting in a restaurant for more than 2 hours. As lovely as the surroundings may be, there's too much to see to just sit and watch the world go by. I suppose I would feel differently if I actually lived there, but I digress. Commense photographs.

We visited Apple in Paris. It was a largely boring presentation about Final Cut Server, which has little to no relevance to anyone who isn't obsessed with video file organization. Why not an iPhone App presentation for a school that is apparently leading education innovation with this splendid little device? No? Ok? That's fine... I still got to play a guitar for the first time in weeks here, which was pretty much great.

This lovely piece of artwork was hanging in the first hostel we stayed at in Paris. My interpretation goes something like this... on a cold desert night in Antarctica? This Inuit is struggling to stay warm and must find something to remedy this. His shotgun has one round left... and he goes hunting. He comes across a polar bear strolling across the desert. Shoots it in the head. Guts it out. Creates a lovely new jacket for himself. Jumps on his trusty steed fondly known as "Devil Horse" and rides into the night.


The Eiffel Tower made an appearance in Paris. It's odd seeing it walking around the city... it's just sort of there... kind of like a celebrity you see from afar (Nick Lachey...you can run from our bikes... but you can't hide).

I can really only equate seeing Notre Dame and going inside it to jumping into a fairytale popup book. The fact that this place is still standing is amazing.

Our Fat Tire Bike Tour guide really enjoyed using the words "dominate" and "awesome." It became abundantly clear that our bike ride was less a tour and more a fitness routine to her, with the lack of explanations for rather prominent buildings we were passing and the general high rate of speed at which we went through Paris.


This is the building that Jason Bourne was on top of in one of the Bourne movies when he was like, "I told you to come alone..." Then be probably did something awesome... and it was awesome. I like those movies... thanks Universal Studios for sending me a boxset with a DVD that looked like someone took a rake across it... then when I return it... you don't replace it... you just give me my money back. Doesn't the very fact that I bought the boxset imply that I probably wouldn't mind waiting for you to restock the thing? I love getting off topic.

This is a small part of the Louvre in Paris. The sheer amount of artwork/artifacts here is astounding. I don't know if it would be possible to go through and appreciate each piece of art even if you had an entire week to devote to the place. It's crazy.

I couldn't get very close to the Mona Lisa. This was the best shot I could get. So many people want to see this thing. It's really not even that impressive. I was more impressed by several other paintings... some of them are following...

"Liberty Leading the People" by Delacroix is probably my favorite painting that I saw. Mainly because it is on the cover of Coldplay's album... then also because it's just a great work of art. Sort of surreal to actually see it in person... much like many things in the Louvre.


There is a near endless section of the Louvre devoted to Egyptian artifacts and the like. This is an incredibly small portion of that collection.

This is essentially the exact opposite of how me, Preston and Linda felt about the Louvre.


I think this cathedral may have been the inspiration for Aladdin... if it wasn't... it inspired me to be Aladdin. Maybe not, but it was really cool to look at/visit until Lucas deicded to get estranged from the group for multiple hours.


Here is the Arc de Triumph... or something more fancy in French. It's really unfortunate that you have to stand in a long line to buy an overpriced ticket to go into this thing... because that would have been fun. Still neat to see. Everyone from Hitler to Lance Armstrong has been there... what more do you need to know?


Napoleon is in there... or so my $8.50 Euro ticket claims


Jumping infront of Napoleon's tomb for some reason sounded like a great thing do... and thus it was done

So in retrospect... Paris has some good times in it. As long as you don't mind smelly streets, smelly people, and gratuitous amounts of people kissing. Those are really the overwhelmind negatives. The art, history, and culture is really interesting to be immersed in... even for a few days. A really different way of living and seeing the world. Give it a try? Eh... maybe not.