I must admit, though, that Paris is a lovely city. I normally stay in an area called Montrouge. On it's signs it says "Ville de Fleurs" or Village of Flowers. Every light pole along the streets has baskets of flowers -- it's really lovely!
This picture was taken from the bus. I was attending an internal business "fair", so I only took a few pictures. I didn't see many birds while I was there -- probably because there were so many people around the fair and at night we went out to "French Dinners" so there was little time to look. Of course, there were plenty of pigeons!
(These were taken from my trip earlier in the year.)
I also saw at least three Magpies and a flock of LBB's (little brown birds), probably sparrows, but they were too far off to tell.
While attending a meeting during the fair, I had the opportunity to show this blog to a co-worker. At a later dinner, I was taking pictures of some of the people there and he said, "Hey! I'm not a bird!" I had to chuckle -- so no pictures of co-workers here.
The best activity (in my opinion) was a boat-ride/dinner on the Seine. One of our table-mates was from France (his wife was actually from Paris), so he was able to point out some of the major sites and answer the questions we had along the way. I only took two pictures.
I'm sure I don't need to identify this landmark! One interesting thing, for they year 2000, France installed flashing lights on the tower. Just as the tower itself, built for the World's Fair in the 1890's, was only supposed to last for a couple of years, these lights were only meant to be temporary. However they are still working, and are run every hour for about 10 minutes. I'm told they are only supposed to be flashing at night, but I could have sworn I saw them during the daylight when I was in Paris last spring.
Either way, it's a pretty awesome effect. They now sell the little models with rhinestones to simulate the flash -- but there's nothing like seeing it in person! (Oh, I should mention that the tower is not leaning! That's just a combination of the angle -- we were getting pretty close -- and my turning the camera to try to get the whole thing in the shot.)
So it was a fun trip -- I ate too much and didn't walk enough, but overall a good time was had by all.
