Paris day three - Rafa's kingdom

We started the day out with the intentions of spending it at The Louvre. However after about 30 minute of being there, I was entirely ready to leave! It had far too many people and was nearly impossible to navigate through. Besides that, all the artwork had placards in some language other than English. We had gotten an audio tour, but it was as directionally challenged as we were.

The day nearly started out with a riot when Tony tried to stop a group of people from cutting in line in front of us. He told them to go to the back of the line and wait just like the rest of us. It got very confrontational at one point. I could see us sitting in a French prison for eternity.

It turns out that the two women in front of us were "saving a place " for five others. They just kept crowding in. Tony finally gave up and they proceeded to laugh and take pictures and have the time of their life. He continued to brew and glare at them. It was a joyful start and should have been a forewarning of things to come.

Once we got through the security check, we found it was the same super informative place that the rest of Paris is. There was no clear direction to be taken. So we wandered around until we figured out what to do.

My frustration level with this process heats up fairly quickly. After nearly 29 years, Tony understands my meltdown barometer pretty well. He's been great this trip in diffusing my tantrums and getting us through.

Tony and I don't wander at all in the same direction or at the same speed. After our initial agreement of finding each other before leaving a room fell through, we decided to break up and meet in a set location at a set time. I liked that plan and tried to get back to figuring out how my virtual audio tour gadget worked.

The building is situated in a ginormous U. We started in the end that was the bottom of the U. In my mind, I was imagining that we would walk down one pathway and it would have stairs to get to the next floor and continue on. That's obviously too logical as I did more back tracking than I did forward tracking somehow.

If you add that frustration in with the fact that there were a bajillion people wandering around with their gazes looking up and bumping into everyone and everything, and you take into consideration what a crowd prude that I am, you'll understand why I was ready to leave. There were tour groups that were over 50 people in number pushing and shoving to try and stay with their group. They swarmed together like bumble bees around a hive. And get in their way, and they'd sting you for sure!

On my first back tracking venture, I was hating the fact that our rendezvous time wasn't for four hours. I was in a near panic state of just trying to get back to the main entrance without getting trampled. I don't know what I thought I was going to do there, but I just wanted OUT!

Fortunately my path crossed with Tony's. He could see the freak out factor in my eyes immediately. He could tell I needed out. But instead of saying let's go, he just agreed to an earlier leaving time. He wanted to meet in 90 minutes. I begged for 30 minutes, but he said I'd be fine. I reluctantly agreed to the new time and went on my merry way.

I pretty much gave up on my audio guide and tried to navigate via the map. It wasn't much more helpful. I continued to wander and managed to see some part of each side of the U. I didn't see every floor, but saw something of each. I thought that was close enough. I did get to see The Mona Lisa. Surely that counts as successfully navigating The Louvre.

I had discovered that I lost my scarf somewhere along the way. That was the last straw. I managed to find the main entrance which was our rendezvous point. I was an hour early, but I had had enough.

I didn't wait more than 10 minutes and Tony showed up. He must have felt my distress call. He didn't see much of anything but was willing to leave. I had talked about seeing Rolland Garros which is the home of the French Open. I had given up on seeing it, but he offered to go there instead of more Louvre torture. I jumped at the offer!

We checked out the map and headed in what we thought the direction was. We got off and started walking. We found some signs that looked like we were on the right track. As we were walking, we went by a stadium. I was getting excited until I saw pictures of soccer players.

We continued on and yet another stadium appeared. This time it was the tennis courts. As we got closer, we saw the stadium that has the names of the winners of each year. Of course we came up on the side that had Rafa on it. I was beyond excited.

We circled the building until we came to an open gate. A guy met us and said it was closed. He wouldn't let us in the museum or any other place. We continued to walk outside hoping we'd catch a glimpse of something. We walked past court one and court two. Again, I've watched countless matches from this venue. It was killing me to be so close, but so far away.

I got to take pictures of some of the outside courts. The red clay looks just like it does on TV. It was amazing to be there. We continued to circle the place and came upon another open gate. This time the guy was nicer and let us at least walk through the area. I snuck a tiny side view of center court. I kept telling myself that this was Rafa's home and he had walked these same paths.

He is the master of all tennis players on clay, that's for sure. To get to see this grand slam sight was an item on my bucket list. Sure, it would have been more special to see him play a match, but I'm convinced it's better watching at home with replays and the mute button when I don't like what I'm hearing.

I told Tony I marked off 50% of the grand slam sights with this one trip. Surely I can get Flushing Meadows accomplished with it being in my home country. Now he just has to take me to Australia.

Paris held some amazing sights for us. It is a beautiful city that I am glad we saw. But I will not be sad to leave it. Being in a country where I don't know the language is intimidating. Add to that the native people are not friendly and it makes for a pretty bad experience. I learned to overlook it and try to stay positive, but it was challenging at times.

We are currently headed back on the train to London. It's about two and a half hours to get there. We have to pick up our other suitcases and get a car at the airport. Once we get that done, were supposed to find a hotel to stay in. It's going to be a long night!

The next leg of our adventure is a driving tour of the entire island. We've had a few unknowns along our journey thus far. I think we'll probably be adding to that list in the next week. I just hope none of the misadventures include a jail visit or long hours of being stranded along the roadside. But with Tony McCann, you never know.