Paris! The first day.

We're here and I must say that we've not done too badly on our first day considering the fact that we're jet-lagged and it rained for part of the afternoon. We landed at 10:30am, quickly retrieved our luggage and passed through customs, and remembered to buy a 6-day museum pass while still at the airport. The taxi ride to the apartment we're staying at in the Madeliene neighborhood of the 8th arrondissment took over an hour. The closer we got to the center of Paris the crazier the traffic. It doesn't seem to let up either, at 9pm there are still tons of cars, motorcycles, mopeds and bikers, all driving as if they have 9 lives.

So much traffic!

We unpacked, cleaned up a bit, then walked about 10 blocks to a Monoprix to buy a few groceries. On the way there I found a toy store that sells some of my employer's toys (Manhattan Toy!) and had Don take a quick picture:

 On the way back from the store it started to rain so we ducked under the awning of a cafe and decided that it would be a good time to have coffee and a cheese plate. Great people watching, even in the rain.  We were also just across the street from the Madeliene Church:

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Madeleine,_Paris

After putting away the groceries we decided to take a walk down to the Place de la Concorde and the Seine:

 I very much wanted to ride the ferris wheel for the views and Don complied because he's such a nice guy. You know who else rode the ferris wheel? Rachel! (this is for everyone back at Manhattan Toy - Hi everyone!)

 Lovely view!

 Rachel is not as jet-lagged as I am.

 The Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triomph at the end.

We walked up and down the Seine for a short distance, took more pictures, walked home to upload pictures to the laptop, walked some more around our neighborhood, ate dinner and now I'm completely wiped out. I've had 4 hours sleep in the last 24. More pictures (with better explanations) tomorrow. Au revoir!