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We arrived in Paris from Nice yesterday with no major headaches, other than a longer than usual wait for the RER (commuter rail) from Charles de Gaulle airport into Paris. Even that wasn’t really that big a deal. We’re staying at the Hotel Abbatial Saint-German. It’s not really that great of a hotel, but the location is very good, so it’s fine. We are just a few blocks away from Notre Dame and the French Pantheon.

Today, we took an open-air bus tour around the city. For 25 Euros each, we were able to take four routes around the city and get on and off the bus as we saw things that interested us. Even though we’ve been to Paris twice before, and Mindy spent 6 weeks studying here in college, we saw a lot of areas we had not seen on previous trips. We covered a lot of ground today, and without the sore feet.

One of the things that caught us off guard this time around is the visibility of French Army troops at all of the major landmarks and the airport. It’s hard not to notice them as they patrol within the huge crowds with automatic rifles at the ready. At first, it’s a little disconcerting, but in the end, I think it’s easier to come to terms with it when you know that this is the reality of daily life for a large part of the world now, and it’s probably only a matter of time before this is more widespread in the U.S. I guess I’d rather know they were there than wish they had been there after the fact should something awful occur.

The weather today was near perfect. It was a little on the cool side, but we didn’t really pack for warm weather, so it was very comfortable given what we were wearing.

I feel like I took a lot of pictures today, but I’m realizing Paris is a tough city to photograph because one garden, or monument, or building, or statue, or avenue is as beautiful as the next. It’s hard to pick which things to photograph over not taking a picture of something else. We’ve heard from several people that Barcelona is the most beautiful city they’ve been too, but so far, Paris is my favorite city I’ve ever been to. We’ll see how Barcelona stacks up tomorrow.

That should do it for today. Will update again soon.