The Good, the Bad and the Wonderful....

The boys danced the night away last night....


...while Fabi and I had dinner on the balcony.
And this morning (well, midday really) the boys and I set off for another day of sightseeing.

This one began with a disaster.  H was carrying the bag with the camera in it and he tripped up the stairs from the Metro.  At first it seemed as though the lens was so bent that the lens cap wouldn't even come off.  It was jammed tight (the visor was broken) and I thought that I would have to find a repair shop before we began our tourist adventures.  Luckily, with much perseverance, it came off, and the lens seems to work perfectly.  Lucky break number one.

We walked over the top of the Louvre....



which is filled with ominous looking soldiers carrying automatic machine guns.  They're everywhere here in Paris.  Not a comforting sight at all.

These trucks are also everywhere.  They're amazing.  They are used to deliver large items and furniture up to apartments above the ground floor.  The lifts and stairwells in these buildings are tiny, and this is the only way to get things in.  Made me think about our strict scaffolding laws in Australia!  Har!

So then we caught the Batobus (literally Boat Bus) along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower.

Where we queued for over TWO HOURS to get our tickets.









And from the 2nd level, it was another hour in a queue to get to the very top.





Which is where disaster number two happened.  I lost my boys.  Both of them.  In an insanely crowded place.  I turned around and they were simply gone.  I kept my calm, called their names, ran down to the level below, couldn't find them, ran back up to where I'd last seen them and waited.  After 10 minutes (literally) I began to hyperventilate.  My brain was saying "keep calm" but my body refused to listen.  I thought I was going to pass out from panic when a woman asked me if I was okay.  I said "I've lost my children" in a half-cry and then turned around to see them walking up the stairs towards me.  The little buggers had simply walked away from me.  They said that they thought that I was following them.....

Not an experience that I wish to repeat.  We now have a rule that we will always agree on a meeting place in case we are separated again. (I'm so lucky that this wasn't a worse disaster).

After that fiasco, and only half an hour on the actual Tower, we descended.  And queued for 40 minutes to get back on the Batobus.

Here are my feet on the edge of the Seine (this one's for you, M).





There was a fantastic fly-by as we were waiting.  A rehearsal for next Monday's Bastille Day.

The boys practised blowing bubbles.  A lot.

We got off at Notre Dame and made our way to the Latin Quarter...















before catching the Metro back to Fabi's flat.  Notice the loo on the pavement?  F commented that the dog owners should be depositing stuff in one of those!