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February 3 - 4, 2007 :: First Weekend in Paris

Dscn0192Biennvenue á  Paris!
I arrived in Paris, France on 30-Jan for my four month stay with the Corporate Audit Staff at GE.  While the first few days were dedicated to getting down to business at work, my colleagues and I got to have some personal time on the weekend to explore the City of Love.  Check out this link to see all of the pictures from the weekend.



Sat: Le Tour Eiffel, Le Arc De Triomphe, Le Champ De'Lyse
On Sat we started our site-seeing extravaganza with brunch near the Eiffel Tower.  We ate at Le Grande Corona (no, not the beer :).  After some great food and a coffee or two, we popped over to see the Tower itself.  We wanted to climb to the top, but the line to buy tickets combined with the line just to start ascending were so long it would have been the only thing we could have done that day and that's to say we would have gotten in before they closed!  Instead we decided to take a bunch of pictures and walk over to the Arc de Triomphe.  The Arc is a symbol of the victories in several different wars that France has been in.Dscn0204 Finally, we continued over to Le Champ De'Lyse which is equivalent to New York City's 5th Avenue.  Lots of nice stores are lined up and down this street which has a very metro/cosmopolitan feel to it.  It's always neat walking on it, too, because you see and hear people from all over the world that are there for one reason or another taking time to shop the shops of Paris's 1st district. 



Sun: Sacre Coeur and MontMartre
On Sun two of my partners in crime and I decided to take another rigorous walk over to the famous Sacred Heart church.  Sacre Coeur is located up on an enormous hill in Paris's 18th district.  It over looks the city and hides the neighborhood of MontMartre behind it.  MontMartre will sound familiar to you if you've ever seen the movie "The Moulin Rouge".  Dscn0217 Dscn0229 It's were that story takes place, and where the famed dance club still exists today. 



Just getting started and so much more to do...
Of course I left out some things that tie the weekend story together.  For example, we've been eating at fantastic restaurants and hanging out at super bars/café's as well.  We walked all around Paris last night trying to find a karaoke club or a night club, but settled for a cool little, private bar somewhere in the 1st district.  I've met a group of awesome people to share this experience with from work as well.  I've been spending days and nights with these guys and gals and wouldn't replace even one of them.  It's been a good week.  Now hopefully we'll be able to keep up some of that energy and fun as we get deeper into our actual task, the reason why we're all here.  I'm sure it'll be a bit more of a challenge, but that's all part of the fun.



Look for more fun stories as they come.  I can already tell you there are some things in the hopper.  Trips to other near-by countries, people coming out to visit, and just more great times in Paris are all going to be decorating the "pages" of this blog real soon.  Also don't forget to check the link above often for more cool pictures!



Dscn0198 Au revoir for now! :-)



M@

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