So I got home from Paris yesterday about an hour later than I was supposed to. There were "technical difficulties" that delayed our departure from Paris by 40 minutes, so I got back to the house at 11:30 instead of 10:30. Not a big deal, though, because the kids were going to be gone either way and there was still plenty of time for me to take Amelie and do everything else I needed to do. But I didn't miss my train this time, so all is well.

Sunday in Paris was a lot of fun. When I first left my hotel in the morning I decided to head to le Sacre Coeur, which wasn't very far from my hotel. I had been to Paris twice already but never had the chance to actually go inside of the church, so I figured why not. You can't take pictures inside the church, so I don't have any, but it was cool to be able to go inside. It's beautiful, of course, and since it was Sunday the organs were playing and the nuns were doing their thing up at the alter. After seeing the inside I decided it would be a good idea to climb the tower and check out the crypt. The crypt wasn't open yet and wasn't going to be until 12:30 but I didn't want to wait that long, so I just went up the tower. It was 300 steps up a narrow spiral staircase. I absolutely love climbing these ancient cathedrals because they're just so old and it makes me think about what it might have been like back in the day. The view from the top was amazing, too. It was a totally new experience to look at the Eiffel Tower from the top of another building as opposed to looking at everything from the top of the Eiffel Tower. And it wasn't raining, so that was new for me, too.

After I was done checking out the cathedral I was going to head to the Champs Elysees, but there was one little problem; my camera battery was dead, again. Not my fault this time, because I actually remembered to charge it the night before. Either it didn't charge properly, or it's just a worthless battery because it's only a cheap camera. I was not happy. Luckily it was still only about 11:30 in the morning, and the Tour wasn't going to be arriving in Paris until at least 3:30, so I went back to the hotel to charge my camera a little bit. While it was charging I walked down the street to buy a phone card, since I had also managed to blow through 30 Euro in my cell phone within 24 hours. Apparently roaming charges are really expensive, and since I was roaming I was also being charged for incoming calls. Who knew.

With phone card in hand a freshly (partially) charged camera battery I headed out again to make my way to the Champs Elysees. I had hoped to be there earlier so that I could get a decent spot to watch the race, but I think that even if I didn't have to charge my battery it wouldn't have made much difference. It was pretty crowded, but not nearly as bad as I had expected. I had time to go into a shop to get some food, eat, walk up and down the avenue, and still find a reasonable spot where I could see pretty well. As time went on and I stood there waiting with everyone else for the riders to come through, my spot gradually improved as well. The family that had been standing in front of me left their post one by one, I think because they didn't like being crowded by everyone else that had gathered around them. As peepholes opened up I offered them to the 2 little boys in the family that was standing behind/next to me. They were so cute. It was a family from Holland (which I figured out because I was listening very closely when they were speaking to each other, and then I had a little conversation with the mom) and they just happened to be in Paris on vacation without even knowing that the tour was going on. The little boys were so sweet and polite, though. Even as space had started to open up they were hesitant to take advantage of it, so I told them to go ahead. It didn't make any difference to me because the oldest one was still a full head shorter than me, so they didn't block my view at all. He said, "Thank you very much," with the cutest little accent. It was adorable. But eventually even they left, and after the riders had made their 5th round on the Champs Elysees I was right up front with a perfect view. It was actually kind of hard to keep track of how many rounds they did, though. I only counted 6 rounds, and then people started walking away and it was over. I actually really wanted to see if I could manage to score an autograph (preferably from Lance Armstrong, Andy Schleck, Mark Cavendish and/or Alberto Contador) but there were so many people and everything was kind of crazy, so I didn't know where to go or what to do or if it was even possible. Maybe next year.

As I was standing and watching the race I met a couple of guys that were from San Francisco and Australia. They were in Paris for 8 days to plug into the music scene. Anyway, they invited me to hang out with them after the race, so we headed to a convention center to see a performance. I call it a performance because I don't really know what else to call it. It was a really artsy, contemporary, interpretive-dance sort of thing that involved about 8 girls dressed up like Snow White hanging around a long table and carrying machine guns. It was really interesting. Anyway, they had met a girl the night before who was part of this performance and told her they'd check it out, so we did. Then we went to get something to eat. In the typical French style, we bought a bottle of wine (which we didn't even drink because they took it back to their hostel, where you're not allowed to have alcohol), a baguette, and some cheese. It was absolutely delicious. Afterward we were on our way to go see a band play somewhere, and then to go dancing, but I got hit by a major food comma and went back to my hotel instead. It was definitely the right idea, especially since I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to make sure I caught my train on time. So I bought some cookies and a bottle of water and hung out in my room for a little bit before I went to sleep.

All in all it was a pretty good trip. It wasn't too bad that I was there by myself because at least I didn't get lost. And when people tried talking to me but I didn't want to talk to them I would just tell them I didn't speak French and pretend that I only spoke German. It worked pretty well, actually. It would definitely have been better to have someone with me, though, especially if that person spoke French. Oh well. Other than that, and the fact that the trip was so short (I was in Paris for less than 36 hours), I have no complaints.

Today was actually my recovery day. After I dropped off the kids and took Amelie for a walk, I came home and slept for 3 hours. I started fasting again yesterday (Esther and Olaf started on the weekend) and I was still worn down from my travels, so I really needed the extra sleep. Tomorrow I think I'm going to try running again. We'll see if I'm able to get up early enough for that.