Bonjour!

We made it!

Disclaimer: The French keyboard is WAY Wacky; All the punctuation is backwards and the a and q keys are switched; So get ready for some wild reading... well not anymore with anal Blake's editing styles...

So the flu couldn't keep us down. We are all hopped up on cold medicine and ready for action! After a pretty uneventful flight, and an almost lost bag; we hopped in our driver, Jacques', car and he drove us to our cute apartment. We are staying very close to the Louvre in a cute two story bungalow. The upstairs loft has a bedroom and a bathroom that you have to hunker down to get in. It is very nice and HUGE for Paris standards, so we are really happy with it!

The weather today was awesome so once we found our apartment and got checked in. We had to head out to the first and only place to go in Paris... The Eiffel Tower! Hooray! Also known as Blake's latest obsession. One day, 500 pictures, done. We'll just give you one or two... you're welcome... We did find Lynn trying to squash the Tower, for shame, it's only the first day!

We are happy to report that you can pee at the very top of the Eiffel Tower. We didn't try it, just wanted you to know. Not quite sure about the whole plumbing and gravity thing there, but oh well, the French have no concept of lines, so the tower experience was a lot of shoving and pushing into elevators. The view was fantastic though.

After we had our Tower time, and Blake took 35 more pictures, we headed over to another landmark... the Hotel de la Invalides, or as I call it... Dead Napoleon! SO everyone knows that he had little man syndrome, but seriously, his tomb was big enough for a giant....there was some definite overcompensation going on!

After dead Napoleon we all hit a wall and were pooping out fairly quickly... lots of cold meds will do that to you... We headed off to find a cafe for a quick bite. Quickly learned that we should've spent a little more time learning meat words in French... 80 euro later we ended up with two chicken skewers and two cheesy breads with ham... Oh well, there's always tomorrow for croissants, and oh yes I WILL eat as much bread as I can put in my mouth (and at least one raspberry tart a day for Ann).

This motley crue is off to bed... tomorrow it's the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame and who knows what else! Love to all, more tomorrow!