McCains in Prague: November 2008

Click HERE to go to the album - there are a lot more pictures in there!!

Day One:

To be dramatic, we almost didn’t make it to Paris. Sean and Aubrey were scheduled to fly in to Prague a few hours before our flight to Paris (that is another story, a bit of a scheduling error,) but their flight got delayed by an hour and a half, so it cut it close, but we made it!

Being a tourist!

We took a taxi to our hotel, found a restaurant nearby, and then went to sleep.

Day Two:

We woke up relatively early and headed out into the city.

Sacre Coeur

This church was up on a hill and overlooked the whole city. It was pretty, but we are certainly spoiled by Prague’s skyline. From there we walked down a hill giving us a nice view of the church then braved the metro. Again, we are spoiled by Prague’s super-simple metro, but we figured it out.

Eiffel Tower

Next we went to the Eiffel Tower, as both of us girls were eager to see it. As we were walking towards it, we got to see a police chase. Throughout the city there are guys selling trinkets, and apparently they aren’t allowed to do this because next thing we saw was a lot of running and chasing. One got away, and another was handcuffed and escorted away. Clearly this doesn’t deter them because as soon as the cops were out of view, the trinkets came out again.

Seeing the Eiffel Tower was definitely exciting. But we didn’t climb up it at this time because of the long lines for the elevators. Instead we walked through the neighboring park to get a better view of the Tower for some pictures.

Arc de Triumph

We jumped back on the metro and went to the AdT. The artistic details of this monument were impressive, and you could climb to the top to get another view of Paris – which we did.

Champ Elysees

This street is much longer than it looks!! We thought it would be a pleasant walk from the Arc to the Louvre, but in reality it was a little too long and tiring. However, we got lunch from a little sandwich place and walked through some gardens near the Louvre and also saw some Christmas shops being set up. (Unfortunately they did not open when we were there, but this was probably a good thing as I could have probably spent all day at these shops)

Louvre (briefly)

We saw the pyramids of the Louvre before making a sharp right to continue our walk to the Notre Dame

Notre Dame

We finally arrived to the famous cathedral and got to go inside, and as is true for most cathedrals, this one was ornate and beautiful inside. My focus at this point, however, was climbing the towers of the church, so we made our way to the line only to find out that the line was already closed as the church was also closing soon. I was bummed, but we got to climb it the next day, so all is well that ends well!

Pantheon

Leaving the Notre Dame, we were near the Pantheon, and since our museum passes let us in for free, we figured we would go and see it. Our information guide said that the Pantheon closed at 6, so we got there shortly after 5, but for some reason they had already closed it for tourists. Rejected again!

This is in front of the Pantheon, some strange statues:

Our walk back to the Metro was amusing as the boys found a self-cleaning porta-pottie (and it was free!). Then Sean lost his 3-day metro ticket, and was scouring the ground for tickets that might let him through the turnstile. After putting a few into the machine, one was finally a success! After this, he bought himself a 2-day pass, and let his wife hold onto it.

Boat ride

We made our way to some boats on the river. Our concierge at the hotel sold us some tickets for a boat tour, and it was really cool to see Paris at night from the river. My favorite thing was getting to see the Notre Dame in its entirety. Because it was night, and we were on a moving boat, the pictures did not turn out so well.

Afterwards, we went back to our hotel to thaw out and charge our dead cameras.

For dinner, we found another restaurant near our hotel.

Moulin Rouge

After dinner we went to see the Moulin Rouge (but only the outside!!!) Mainly this appealed only to us girls and pretty much just because of the movie of the same name. It was cool to see, but we took pictures then went back to the hotel where we promptly passed out.

Day Three:

Louvre

We got up earlier on this day to go to the Louvre. We had been told to get there before it opened because of the long lines to get inside. Well we got a late start, but walked right in, and because we had our museum passes, bypassed the ticket line and went straight inside.

Naturally, the Mona Lisa was our first stop, but on our way there, we passed the statue of the winged victory. This ended up being my favorite part of the museum! I remembered the statue from art history, and I always thought it to be beautiful, and I didn’t know that it was housed in the Louvre, so when I saw it I was equally shocked and excited! THEN we made our way to the most heavily guarded and viewed piece of art in the whole of Paris. To be honest, it is a good painting and all, but I don’t understand its level of fame. Regardless, I was glad to see it in person.

The Louvre itself is a gorgeous building and at times I found the ceilings to be more impressive than some of the artwork. After seeing the M.L. we just wandered around for a while, and I could easily spend a week in that place. We only had a couple hours though because two days in Paris is simply not enough!

The best thing about the Louvre was that they totally allowed photography!!

Notre Dame (for real this time)

We waited in line for about 45 minutes, and then climbed the 400 steps to reach the top of the Notre Dame. This I loved, and I really want to read Victor Hugo’s novel now. We will see if I can find an English copy here in Prague.

Archeology Crypt at Notre Dame

Below the cathedral is a bit of a hidden treasure. At some point when construction was being done in Paris, they uncovered remains of the Old Paris and preserved them. This was a cool thing to find, and we probably wouldn’t have bothered going into the museum if it weren’t for our passes.

Then we stopped briefly for lunch (gyros) then did some souvenir shopping along the river. We got a nice oil painting for 30 Euro!

Back to our hotel for a change of clothes and some relaxing before dinner.

For dinner we found a cute little restaurant with candles on the table, and had a pleasant meal.

Eiffel Tower Part II

We headed back to the Eiffel Tower, this time to go to the top. We figured the lines wouldn’t be so long at night, and this assumption was correct. Paris at night from the air was beautiful, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it as I was a bit freezing. After getting back to the ground level, we walked a short distance to a bridge where we enjoyed a great view of the Tower, and of course took more pictures.

After this we were all a little dead, so we headed back to our hotel. We detoured to the Champ Elysees because we had hoped that all the lights in the trees would be illuminated, but unfortunately they were not.

Day Four:

We took a taxi to the airport, but not before wasting a good 45 minutes at the train/metro station. We had heard there was a train to the airport for about 8 Euro, but it took us a couple of lines before figuring out the correct ticket booth. While waiting in this line the boys found an automated ticket machine where we could get our tickets. Therefore, Jace got us OUT of the line, only to find out the machine took only coins. We did not have 32 Euro in coins, and we heard the train took an hour, and we had lost a lot of time. So we sucked it up and took a taxi. The taxi cost 32 Euro, so all is well that ends well.

Of course this day was long from being over. Thanks to the pilot strike of Air France, we got to enjoy 7 hours in the airport. Fortunately, the flight did not get cancelled, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to Prague until pretty late.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been pretty routine here, not in a bad way, just mostly things that would be boring for you at home to read about.

The work week usually flies by. I work everyday from 8-3 and Jace works 3 mornings and 2 afternoons. Monday afternoons I have a 90 min. English lesson with the Ambassador. Those are going well so far, he is a really nice guy and mostly we just have conversations. The conversations are pretty slow with lots of explaining and repeating, but it is nice, and laid back - all things considered. I've also started taking Czech lessons with a group of teachers from my work. We have only had one so far, but already I like being a student again if only for 90 min a week.

This past weekend was spent mostly with friends from church, on Saturday we babysat for a couple from church, and after church on Sun we went to Ikea with a different couple and their child, and they invited us over for enchiladas afterwards. Oh man, Mexican food was so wonderful. It was like a little taste of home.

On Friday, Sean and Aubrey are coming!!!! We are going to Paris Friday - Monday (we have a holiday this Mon.) We are so excited to see friends and also to go to France.

sorry for no pictures, but I can guarantee that soon there will be more than you can handle!