Bob Paris - Part 1 (written by Bob)

Finally made it to Paris from Denver after a 13 hour layover in Berlin. I know Jason loved it when I showed up in the fashion capital of the world wearing sweat pants, a micro fleece and running shoes.

So I have found that riding a bike in a city is terrible for me because of the fact that I have to wear trifocals and its hard to see anything so of course Jason made me do it all over Paris. I have to take off my glasses so everything is super blurry. 

So last time I was in Paris I thought a fun thing to do would be to walk all of the bridges of the Seine in Paris proper. I never finished it and Jason thought it would be a good idea to do them all this trip. There are 27 bridges and some of them are beautiful and some of them look like this. I was going to originally include pictures of all of the bridges but I will spare you from the more boring ones,

This is a beautiful bridge with a beautiful view, but not all were this spectacular. I love how I can see modern Paris on the rightand classic Paris on the left.

Here is the statue of liberty's little sister and honestly she is not that impressive. I mean she is cute and everything, but she is not going to win any beauty pageants where her big sister is a real looker.

This random statue on the side of this bridge is probably older than most of the U.S., but there she is just a little decoration that very few people get to see up close.

She looks a little more impressive here until you notice the guy in red pants.

We discovered that walking bridges was not that fun. Some of the bridges are magnificent, but some just looks like this. Jason is not impressed.

This is probably the most impressive she gets.

For some reason I loved this little car. I am not sure what it is, but it looks like a cross between a VW bug and some French car. (jason edit: it's called the duck)

I am pretty sure that this is the bridge from Inception. I am pretty sure it is the scene where Leo's character is testing Ellen Page's character. And yes I just call him Leo. We are tight like that.

Either this guy is a professional napper or he is dead. I am going to go with professional napper. 

So here are some obligatory Eiffel Tower pictures. It honestly is not that fun to spend much time around here because there are so many tourists and scammers.

I love water and it looks pretty great here. This is one of the few times that the sun was out during my entire trip and it looks pretty spectacular  For some reason this has been a super crappy spring in Paris and all over Europe. 

We were not sure where this smoke was coming from, but it does create a neato effect.

Here is probably the most impressive bridge in Paris, Pont Alexander III and is the end of the Champs-Elysees.

Even though some of the walk was not that impressive sometimes we had moments like this. It was ok... just ok.

I think that glass roof is the Grand Palais which houses the National Gallery. I have never been in there, but it looks cool.

There is a surprisingly large amount of variety to the bridges. Some of them are more modern foot bridges like this one.

SNACK TIME!!! I love how you can just stumble across boulangerie (bakery) at almost every corner and get fresh bread and baked goods.

So this bridge is famous because you can buy padlocks and lock them to the bridge. Usually it is someone loves so and so. People just sell these locks on these bridges all day and that is how they make their living.

I imagine that someone has to come and cut these off occasionally, but maybe not. Maybe they stay there for years and you can come back later and find them. 

If you visit Jason in Paris you will end up playing petanque at St. Martin Canal. It is basically bocce ball, but there are few things that are more fun than playing petanque by the canal and drinking some wine on a beautiful spring day in Paris.

Slack liners? Even in Paris. They are everywhere.

I am not sure who won more games, but who cares. Good times had by all.

You are supposed to draw a circle before you throw the cochonnet (translate: little piglet), the target, and throw the rest of the balls from the circle.

It would have been great to have a beautiful French girl to sit on the canal with, but I guess I will have to settle with my brother.

In typical Jason fashion he was not satisfied just placing the empty water bottle in the garbage can. He had to get all extreme and slam it in. Unfortunately for him this did not work very well and took him at least 3 attempts of jumping off some steps and throwing the water bottle as hard as he could to get it in.

Hello leg... How are you? I am good? My name is Robert and I would like to be your friend... No... Ok... I understand. I will leave you alone now. Sorry for bothering you.

There were actually moving this boat up the canal and pumping water in and out of this lock. I wonder if the leg's name is Caroline.

We met one of Jason's friends Ahmed near the canal and went to this fancy French Restaurant that needed reservations and only had like 14 seats in the whole place. The name of this place is Le Verre Vole and it was really good, but probably not worth the amount of euros we spent. I got this blood sausage even though Phil Connors would not approve. It was not super delicious, but I am definitely glad I tried it. I was not super excited that it came with mashed potatoes, but these are not your crappy mash potatoes you get in your typical American Restaurant. They were basically just cream and butter. They were delicious.

This was Jason's curry lamb which was not at all what we expected, but still really good. I love how the French use various mixed greens in their cooking to provide some really interesting flavors.

We rode bikes home which is much less stressful than riding during the day and plus you get enjoy sights like the Gare De Lyon lit up at night.