Paris

1. Place de Bastille

2. A Paris Hilton but not the Paris Hilton

3. La Defense

4. The Arc

5. View from my hotel window in Interlaken

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I'm actually not in Paris any more I am now in Interlaken, Switzerland. The place is over run with Orange clad, silly hat wearing Dutch. The European Football championship started yesterday and it is being held in Switzerland and Austria. Th Dutch have their first game tomorrow, so I suspect there will be a lot of drunk people out tomorrow night, win or lose. I'm trying to get into the sport because I am living in Europe now, but I'm not sure if I can handle another 1-0 game. I need more scoring. The Swiss lost yesterday 1-0, but most are saying, "oh well, we played well." How you can play a game well and not score is a concept that escapes me.

So when I was in Paris I went to a part of the city I have never seen before. It is not a place in Paris that probably interests many visitors, the business district. I am trying to take advantage of the fact that I am there so often this summer though, and see things I have never seen before.

La Defense area is on the outer edge of Paris and is a very modern (compared with old Paris) area that amazingly is filled with mostly just French people. It's hard to find a place in the city that is not swarmming with foriegn tourists but this is one of them. In 1989 (200 years after the revolution) they built the Grand Arc de La Defense, a much more modern one than the Arc de Triomphe. They are each visable from the other although about 2 km apart.

I also did a bit of the usual, spending some time around the Eiffel Tower and walking along the Siene?

Day after tomorrow and I am off to Munich for a night. Probably will wind up with a hangover the next day after a visit to the beer halls.