Long lines

Day 2 in Paris, and how can one skip out on the Louvre? Quite easily actually, when it is cold and raining, and one has not planned far enough ahead to purchase tickets beforehand. Because if one does not do so, one is then faced with improbably long lines, as if free doughnuts were being handed out (what else would be worth such a line?)

Saeeda was disappointed, but honestly, I’m not an art expert, and I doubt that my two year old daughter is either. It would only be a matter of time before one of us (most likely me) would have melted down and gotten on Saeeda’s nerves. So instead we made the best of a wet situation and had some coffee and croissants under the shade of a tree, as tourists rushed around us to find some cover from the rain.

With French café au lait coursing through our vein, we set out to walk the neighborhoods of the Seine. It was only an hour or so later that the sun came out, drying things up quickly and generally lifting the mood. So we walked and walked, marveling at the sheer splendor and … age … of everything around us. It got to the point where I silently just started multiplying by 10 any estimate I had of how old something was. This looks about 100 years old to me – nope, sorry, try a 1,000. The 3,300 year old oblelisk in the Place de la Concorde (the largest square in Paris) really blew me away. How many man-made objects have you been around that are over 3 millennia old? I thought so.

The very wet evening was capped by a beautiful boat tour of the Seine, with great views of the Notre Dame cathedral and the Eiffel tower, which we hope to ascend tomorrow.