Before we get to China though, we have to connect through Paris. We stayed one more day in Paris. This one was planned though, so it wasn’t as stressful. We planned on going to Versailles, as it is one of the few attractions that we hadn’t seen yet.

We took the train (subway) to get to Versailles. It was bloody expensive, and then the train workers were on strike that day! It was the biggest mess. We didn’t know what train to take because they were running only a few trains and they were on different tracks than their normal routes. We finally got the right train and made it to Versailles.

It was not too bad of a price to get in, except that if you wanted to see all of Versailles: the palace, the grounds, Marie Antoinette’s house, and there might have been one more area — you had to pay 10-20 Euros each place. We just visited the palace. I would have liked to see the grounds, but it was a cold, rainy day, and wouldn’t have been pleasant at all.

This was a very extravagant palace. I haven’t been to very many palaces in my life, but this one would be hard to beat. Everything was gold, or covered in gold, or with gold accents. The walls were covered with beautiful tapestry wallpaper, not paper, but cloth. It was very beautiful.

There was a very nice chapel area, which you could look into but not enter. There were beautiful ceiling frescos, and famous artworks, and statues of famous French nobles. There were a lot of paintings of the royal family.

The grounds through the window looked amazing. A lot of the grounds are still forest, as it was used for hunting.

After seeing Versailles we headed back to the airport. Again, the trains were a pain in the butt. After seeing Versailles, I honestly don’t have anywhere else in Paris I care about going to. I think it’s an outrageously expensive city to visit, and I don’t really want to go back again. Why should it be the tourist capital of the world? I would much rather go back to Italy and explore more of Florence and Rome before ever going back to Paris. In Paris, every place is almost a disappointment. Especially for the money it all costs. I recommend the Louvre, but don’t get your hopes up about the Mona Lisa… you won’t get to see her very well anyway in the crowd of 400 people and she’s very small. If you want to see Europe, skip Paris and visit somewhere nice instead.

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We decided to go explore a little more of France (not stay in Paris, unless we wanted to completely destroy our budget). After coming up with a plan, we walked outside of our hotel and looked for some food, and we also visited the Arc de Triomphe, which happened to be very near to our hotel. One more of Paris’ sights crossed off. It’s a large arch… surprising large… and commemorates one of Rome’s victories.

On Monday we visited the US Embassy. I was excited because I’d never been to an Embassy before. I thought that the Embassy would be very plush and beautiful, like visiting the White House.

We got inside and it looked just like a government office. A large crowd of people sitting on uncomfortable chairs, waiting for their number to be called, so that they can meet with one of the people standing behind the windows.

We were able to skip the really long lines since we were American citizens. We were there for a while, but in the end Josh was able to get an emergency passport and we were able to continue on our way to South Africa that evening! It only took an hour to get a passport in France, when it takes weeks to get one in the USA. Haha.

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Josh and I made our way off of the boat and to the metro station, where we traveled to the Amsterdam airport. It is a very large building, working as an airport, a mall, and a metro station. We had at first thought about going into Amsterdam and seeing a few things, but by the time we had gotten to the airport and situated, I was tired and figured, why not just take a break and catch up some on my blogging. I had seen enough cities and metros and I was done with Europe.

The airport was nice though, Josh and I walked through the mall area for some exercise, and to see what was there. Then we hung out in the lounge for a few hours.

Our flight was fine to Paris, where we were connecting to South Africa on Air France. When we arrived at the Paris Airport, several Air France personnel met us and the other international connections to escort us to the correct terminal. It was very interesting, as we all marched through the hallways of the airport, finally reaching Passport control and security. Josh and I got to our gate and then started boarding the flight. I went through the check-in gate, then Josh started to go through, but on looking at his passport, the woman stopped him and had him step aside.

Josh’s passport is very full. So full, in fact, that there was not one whole free page left. He had looked up the visa requirements to all the countries that we were traveling to, and there hadn’t been a problem with it. Unfortunately, Air France had a problem with someone’s passport flying to South Africa before. South Africa requires a full blank page in a passport, apparently. Otherwise they send back the passengers on the same plane they came on, and Air France gets fined as well.

Josh did have several pages that had only one stamp on them, and Josh was hoping that would be alright. A passport control man, who was very nice, was trying to get a hold of the South African customs office, but they wouldn’t answer, and we never got the go-ahead from them.

The door to the plane closed, and our plane took off without us. All that the Air France personnel and the passport officer could tell us to try was going to the US Embassy to see if there could be additional pages added to Josh’s passport. It was Saturday night though, so there was no way to get anything done until Monday. We were stuck.

The nice passport man ended up walking us back through the airport to the place where they had dumped Josh’s checked bag, and then out to where the airport hotel was. We checked the price though, and it was ridiculous! 289 Euros a night!

We found another hotel just outside the airport for 98 Euros a night and went to bed.

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Our first stop was some battlements that were left from the German army. The fog was rolling in, so as we walked through the fields to get to the bunkers, it was a little eerie. We had to be almost at the bunker before seeing it. The bunkers were each very large, and well built. I was amazed at the permenant appearance of them. Surely these were not built quickly, in the middle of fighting and war. It was amazing.

The bunkers were in various degrees of destruction. In some, you could see the explosion holes, in others the roof had been caved in in areas. The most horrible part was imagining that on this very ground had been soldiers laying dead and dying. Right here, there was a horrific battle.

There were several other buildings as well, closer to the ocean. There was a municians bunker, which was built underground, and another battlefield bunker right by the edge of the cliffs. Yet, even from there you could not see the ocean in the fog. If the Battle on the Normandy Beaches took place on a foggy day, it would have been incredible to be able to see far enough to shoot the enemy soldiers.

We went to the US Memorial and Graveyard next. We were planning on going to some of the museums, too, but the Memorial actaully had a very nice museum as a part of it. It was well worth the visit. I think that it and the Pearl Harbor memorial are the very best historical sites I have ever visited.

The museum gave a lot of information about the Battle of Normandy, and the role that the US troops played in it. It also highlighted certain people who died or survived the attacks.

Outside of the museum, we walked down well kept path through the brambles onto the beach. It was a long and sometimes steep walk, and imaging the soldiers fighting their way, not only through the other soldiers, but through the forest kept running through my thoughts.

The fog continued, and might have been getting thicker as the day wore on. Once we reached the beach, we could turn around and not make out the top of the hill anymore. It was easy to picture soldiers emerging out of the fogs of the past. Again, walking on the beach where so many people died was memorable.

At the top of the hill we walked into the graveyard. There are buried 9,387 US soldiers. There is also Walls of the Missing, with the names of 1,557 more soldiers who were never found or identified.

Some of the memorable quotes that were inscribed on walls at the memorial are as follows:

You can manufacture weapons and you can purchase ammunition but you can’t buy valor and you can’t pull heroes off an assembly line.
- Sergeant John B Ellery

“If ever proof were needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our only conquest, all we asked… was enough… soil in which to bury our gallant dead.”
- General Mark W. Clark

“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.”
- President Harry S. Truman

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We walked down the beach-front street in Cannes before turning into town and getting on a train to Nice, France. I had gotten an activity list together, and there were several cool things to do. Unfortunately, Josh and I hadn’t chosen what we liked best before hand, and ended up getting on the train to a stop past the best things that we liked. Then we explored Nice. We went to a Russian Othodox cathedral, but only looked outside because they wanted to charge 3 Euro each to go in. It looked like it wouldn’t be worth it, so we just walked around the outside and left.

For lunch we bought a pizza bread from a little corner bakery, and a berry tart. They were both good, but the tart was SO delicious.

We walked to Old Nice, and saw some nice fountains and old buildings and streets, and walked for a LONG way. In the end, we decided to only go so far for something more interesting in the future. Cannes was a lot nicer looking than Nice, in the end.

Riding on the train from Cannes to Nice is fun though. The shoreline is beautiful, and the cities’ suburbs look nice – think Southern California, the nice areas. Mountains in the distance, and Spanish tile roofs of mansions. In fact, some of the owners are probably the same people.

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