Paris is one of the most dangerous cities and has an extremely high crime rate mainly due to their exuberant population of 2 million people. This was proved this morning for me. It was 9 am in front of our hotel which is in a pretty nice little suburb about twenty minutes from the Eiffel Tower. Everyone was waiting on the bus for the last few people and our tour director placed his bag down inside the bus right on top of the steps then ran inside the lobby to grab something. Well in about two seconds one man asked the driver a question on the left side of the bus but was kind of making a scene, and as soon as everyone was looking over at crazy guy, another guy grabbed Spiro's bag and booked it. Inside that bag was EVERYTHING important to both the trip and Spiros. A binder with everyones personal info, hotel and transportation info, tickets for our museum entrances, all the important and confidential documents, all three of his work phones (one black berry, one iphone, one nokia smart phone) his lap top, wallet with a coule hundred euro, tons of credit cards...the list goes on. In literally just seconds right in front of 50 people, early in the morning, in a nice neighborhood. I'm extra careful with my bags now.
While Spiros stayed behind in hopes that they just took his wallet and dumped the rest of the stuff and his bag, we left on the bus for our tour through Paris and I cannot even begin to start listing what we saw. Just think anything that is any type of monument in Paris from Notre Dame to the huge castle built for hurt veterans which holds Napoleon's ashes...we saw it all. The square where Marie Antionette was executed, the huge glass pyramids that you see in the Davinci Code, the three arches Napoleon had built listing cities conquered, so much history here in Paris and its all so amazing to see.
The lady tour director on the bus pointed out a bakery where she says they have the best macaroons ever and if your ever having a bad to eat one of those and you'll be all better :) ill be stopping by there this afternoon.
Now we are, and yes this very second, walking down Avenue Champs Elysees where ALL the shopping is.
I stopped inside one store to buy a little bracelet and the man asked where I was from, I told him California and his face lit up. In his broken english he rushed back into the store and pulled out a photo album from 1984 when he visited LA. He was a little stud back then wearing his members only jacket standing on the walkway in Venice Beach and Disney Land. He was the cutest old man ever and he was so eager to show me all his California pictures!
The picture above is a smoked salmon panini that I picked up for lunch here on the walk, very very yummy. I miss my lox and bagels in the mornings :(
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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