Paris

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This weekend we headed to Paris, taking the Friday afternoon train from Lausanne after work. The trip served two purposes: a birthday visit for me and an opportunity for Emilie to buy a dress, shoes, etc. for her sister's upcoming wedding.

Saturday morning was Emilie's designated shopping time, so I took the opportunity to sightsee a bit and explore the area around our hotel in the 8th arrondisement. My first stop was the Église de la Madeleine, a 19th century church that has the look of a Roman temple.

From the steps of the church, there was a nice view in the direction of my next stop -- the Place de la Concord .

At the center of the plaza is a 75 foot tall Egyptian obelisk that was once found at the entrance of the Luxor Temple. The obelisk is definitely better than the guillotine that stood in its place during the French Revolution. In fact, many notable figures met there fate in the plaza, including Louis XVI, Mary Antoinette and Robespierre.

Adjacent to the plaza is the Tuileries Garden. Given that it was a bit cool and windy out, I limited my visit to a quick photo.

At this point I still had an hour to spare before Emilie and I were supposed to meet up for lunch, so I decided walk along the Champs-Élysées from the Place de a Concord to the Arc de Triomphe. Here's the view as I started out.

When I arrived at the Arc de Triomphe, I saw some tourists who apparently didn't know that there's a pedestrian tunnel that is used to access the monument at the center of the roundabout. Instead, they were trying to simply jaywalk, which proved utterly unsuccessful given the constant stream of cars. Fortunately, they gave up before someone got hurt.

Emilie and I then met up for what we had decided would be a joint b-day lunch. While her b-day technically isn't until late-May, it happens to be the same weekend that her sister is getting married, so we decided to celebrate it early. The restaurant -- Le Cinq in the George V hotel. Needless to say, no other b-day gifts were exchanged.

I wouldn't describe it so much as a lunch, but rather an experience. For nearly three hours, we at like kings and did our best to ignore the underlying cost (Emilie was far more skilled in this department than I). The following is Emilie's appetizer: spidercrab.

After returning to our hotel for a bit to recover from the marathon b-day lunch, we headed back out as we had tickets to see a show. Here's a view of the Eiffel Tower from outside the theater.

The show was interesting, though a bit hard for me to follow at times given the speed at which some of the actors spoke and the slang that they often used.

Thanks to the massive lunch, dinner wasn't necessary. Thus we headed straight back to the hotel after the show and called it a night.