"Desole je suis Americane!" - I will explain this later.

Then we walked up the street to Cafe Toucan. The waiter there began speaking in french and immediately you could see my face drain of all color and panic sets in. I just looked at Jocelyn and I may have possibly muttered something along the lines of "help"

He quickly figured out I was definetly not of the french speaking variety... and he had absolutely NO PROBLEM WITH IT! I seriously want to smack every person that says the french are rude and will refuse to speak to you when you don't speak french. According to Jocelyn he just thought it was kind of funny and cute in that "aw, that's adorable" kind of way. Hey man, I don't care if you think I'm a loser. It's cool! So we sat down and the other waiter came and it was a collaborative effort on everyone's part, but I was able to order my french bread, orange juice and tea. I don't think anyone's ears bled so we were good. We had a wonderful breakfast and vowed we'd go every morning we could while in Paris. Then it was off to catch a metro to pick up our City Passes.

At the Hard Rock Cafe, we got our passes and then immediately took off to our first attraction. Jocelyn found something in our booklets that she hadn't known was part of the package and knew it would be especially special to me. We went to the National Opera House. This is the very same opera house that was the inspiration for Leroux's "Phantom Of The Opera."

After waiting in a brief line, we came to find that the ticket we had did not work so a little disappointed and very worried as to the validity of everything else we had, we took pictures and then set off to go on our free hop on hop off tour. We decided to use this as a means to get to the Louvre and the Notre Dame Cathedral as quicly as possible.

The Louvre was actually pretty cool.... and packed. We were both hungry but we weren't really concerned with spending too much time there so it wasn't too much of a worry. We briskly walked through the hallways, got directions to the hall containing Rembrandt (my favorite artist) and headed off in his direction. We spent a little time in his hall before heading downstairs to find the small iron statue of "Gnome on a Snail" This was for Maureen. We then dipped over to the hall containing the Mona Lisa. Neither of us were particularly dying to see it, but knowing everyone asks, we figured it would be best to pop in real quick.

For the record, anyone that tells you the Mona Lisa is the size of a postage stamp is LYING. It may feel that way considering they have it in the "Large Scale Paintings" hall, but it is hardly that small. It is also not square, another myth that I have heard. The Mona Lisa is probably about 16*20. Don't argue with me. I was standing 20 yards away, could see it clearly and have the pictures to prove it.

Now it was time for lunch. So we hopped back on to our bus and rode two stops over to the Notre Dame Cathedral and it's thousand or so souvenier shops and restaurants. We were also able to locate a quaint little patisserie and ordered some delicious sandwiches. Then it was finally time to enter Notre Dame.

Inside, haunting music plays on a grand organ as visitors walk throughout its main floor. We have many picutes so you'll have to ask to see them when we get back. We spent about 45 minutes inside before leaving to go and climb its Bell Tower. Unfortunately, they had put a stop on the line so we decided to go back tomorrow. With nothing else to do, we decided to head over in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower and take our small riverboat cruise down the River Seine (all free w/our city passes).

The Eiffel Tower... not as pretty as everyone claims it is. That was our general consensus but we recommend you come to Paris to decide for yourself. We then hopped our little cruise and spent an hour on the boat looking at all of the sites along the Seine... which I wouldn't recommend. You can only get the tops of buildings in your picture and if you're sitting on the right side of the boat you're not going to see all of the things that the tour guide points out to you. He does, however, have a knack for the languages. He spoke seven different languages fluently.

We ended the night with European ice cream and a miniature french lesson from Jocelyn to me. And this is what I learned:

1) Desole, je suis Americaine - Sorry, I'm American

2) Elle parle Francais - She speaks French

3) Je ne comprende pas - I don't understand

4) Le Fromage est vieux et moulie - The cheese is old and moldy (Sweet movie reference most of you probably won't know... but bonus if you do!)

5) Mes cheveaux sont crepu - My hair is fuzzy

6) Le fromage est crepu - The cheese is fuzzy

7) Parle a la main - Talk to the hand!

Then there were a couple I already knew but I won't bore you with those. So that ended our first full day in Paris. What do you think?