Day 44 - Paris, France

Oh my gosh, what a day! We kicked it off with a meetup with a our niece, Rachel, for breakfast. Rach works for NBC and has been working for three straight weeks on the Olympics. (21 days, 8-12 hour shifts. But who’s counting? ~RRT) She might be a little tired. Rach showed us the NBC control center but we were not allowed in 😂. Martha was very bummed she didn’t get to see her boyfriend Craig Melvin.

We metro’d back to the Champs Elysees so I could hit the Nike store for USA stuff. Success!!! Finally! I bought a USA tank and a long sleeve shirt. We may have to expand our suitcases after our (my) purchases in Paris.

We met an American lady from Chicago at breakfast at the hotel and she told us about the New Zealand house, which unlike the USA house was free. (USA house was $350 PP) The NZ house was across from the Nike store so off we went. We had some NZ wine, I bought a hat, and we felt pretty cool. And we saved about $700 by not finding the US house.

At the NZ house we met two people who ran track for Arkansas. Stacy and Lily (who is German) were so fun to hang out with.

Then we went to the Eiffel Tower, where I won’t lie, I freaking yelled at our guide, who seemed to have no concept that not everyone walked as fast as he does and he left us and the 80-year olds in the dust. I pretty much berated him, possibly using the f word to slow down, and all he said was, ‘I’ve never heard that comment before.’ We left him as soon as the door opened on the second floor. He was bewildered that we didn’t want to follow him; Martha just said, “No.”

There are 2.5 million rivets in the Eiffel Tower. The tower was built for the 1889 world’s fair and for the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution. The tower is the most visited (per wiki) with an entrance fee in the world. If rainbows are going to show up, we are definitely capturing them.

We sat on the “Celine” level of the ET for a couple hours, drinking wine and watching people. Our event didn’t start until 9:00pm. We’d say 70-30, every kid under 10 hated being dragged here and we’d say 40-60, adults didn’t want to be there either. It was so funny watching the people; those who were excited and those who did not give a sh&$. Maggie was on the edge watching below, Martha was on the bench watching people, and three separate couples came by and split the same as us; one on the edge, the other on the bench. Dammit, thought we were different, but nope!

Then we went to the women’s beach volleyball bronze and gold medal matches and no matter how many pics I share, it won’t capture the cool ass vibe in the stadium, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. We’ve been to the Super Bowl and I’m not sure even it was cooler than this. We had better seats here so I’m picking Paris. Congrats to Brazil, Canada, and Switzerland on Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

We stayed through the medal ceremony, which didn’t start until after midnight. But, it was cool. Then, it took us an hour to get back to the hotel, not so cool. We walked a mile with the masses to the metro station then took two trains. We were literally 5 minutes from our stop…and the train lost all power and shuts down. Emergency lighting comes on and everything. We sit for about 10 minutes, and then it starts going again. We jumped off as soon as the doors opened.

Back at the hotel I brought up the game in Peacock because our seats were behind the end line and I knew we had to be on TV. Here’s a couple of shots of us.