Visitors and Visiting Versailles

Instead of carrying your stuffed animal around town, you can just stuff it in your dress. Très chic!

So we have company! JJ's brother and sister-in-law arrived on Friday morning. So we dragged their jet-lagged bodies around Paris.

Chad, JJ and Ella didn't make it across the street because they paid attention to the pedestrian traffic lights. 

Eventually we had to eat, so this is what we had. The steak thing is mine and it was terrible. JJ had an egg on top of some kind of sandwich. Chad ate the salad and Nicky had an omelette.

The steak looks way more delicious than it tasted. The other food I guess was good.

Here's a Smart car parked in an open spot.

You-know-who died and Paris held a party in front of Notre Dame to remember his legacy

Returning home from a day out, we got caught up in the swirl of humanity who had gathered in front of the cathedral to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson. It was tense for a few minutes and we had to jump a barrier to escape the crush.

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Today we went over to Versailles to see the palace and gardens. Every one in Paris was there with us today. But Nicky had done this before and advised we hook up with a tour because that way we could skip the lines.

This was good advice, because even people with tickets had to stand in line to get in. The groups go in a secret side door, no line!

We were each given a little radio headset and the tour guide spoke into a microphone. That way we could hear the commentary. Understanding the commentary is a different story, however. The guide had a strong accent, spoke very quickly and sometimes other tour guides blasted there own gibberish over our frequency.

I don't think we missed much. The Palace is very large, ornate and fancy. I can understand why people decided to start chopping heads. The scale of the extravagances must have been insulting.

They call it a museum but today it was more like a zoo because there were so many people there.

Here we all are standing one tiny section of the gardens by the Chateau Versailles

They run the fountains on Saturdays and Sundays. It is supposed to cost more to get into the gardens, but our guides made a mistake and didn't charge us for it!

I think this sculpture just about sums it up!

M. Antoinette with kids

The Hall of Mirrors

You can see from this picture that the palace is a large crib

Okay, just imagine that I'm in this picture

Okay, imagine that these strangers aren't in front of the gilded gates of Versailles. This is the biggest problem with taking pictures at cool places in France. You can't get them without having a zillion other people in the shot. It's just toooooo crowded.

So Versailles is a very neat place. Unfortunately, you don't really get to soak it in because you're too busy holding your nose from the foul odors emanating from the press of people trying to squeeze through the rooms.

It's kind of like filling a sausage casing, except it's being filled with people (some of whom really reek).

The bathrooms situated in the gardens somewhere were free, so that meant the hand dryers didn't work. Pas de problème, just shake them and wipe them on your shirt.

Here's one of the emptier rooms. Whew! I can finally breathe some air that did not come directly out of someone else's lungs.

Sometimes all you need is a tortilla and some imagination!