Another Great Day of Sightseeing!

Seems that after our first long day of excitment a few students and parents chose to wake-up a little late and just make the end of breakfast.  Who needs sleep when you are on tour?  You can always sleep at home!  Ha!  All had a good breakfast and we hit the road in two groups traveling in our bus for our sightseeing activities.  We left at 9:00am to visit the "Real Paris" according to our tour guide before heading to our scheduled first stop.  A very clean and well maintained city, although even the best SoCal driver would have a nervous breakdown with these tight streets, small cars, and suggested pedestrian right-of-ways.  Seems that lane markers are only recommendations and very few pedestrians honor cross-walks.  However, our students are well-trained and very observant always following pedestrian rules.  You can obviously tell we are tourists!

Our first stop was a long walk up the hill through very small and narrow streets to the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart), one of the most beautiful buildings in Paris overlooking the city.  We had some shopping time and then continued to the Eiffel Tower.  Lunch was on our own and we found a nice bakery for our groups baggette and drinks around 1pm.  We waited in line to ride up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower.  It was a gorgeous day in the low 50's and partly cloudy.  Very nice weather for Paris this time of year.  We had a spectacular view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower.

Next stop was the River Siene cruise for about 1 hours riding under some of the greatest old bridges in Paris.  The sun began to set and the lights of the river and Paris sparkled with excitment.  As disembarked our cruise the Eiffel Tower started to glow with spectacular lighting.  (See Video Section for a view).  The Eiffel Tower was aglow with lights.   We had dinner in our chaperone groups and used the Metro to return back to our hotel.  Great transportation system that we all wished we had in SoCal!  It was a long fun-filled and exhausting day!

Tomorrow, New Year's Eve is our first marching parade in the City of Chantilly, La Grade Parade De Chantilly.  It will be good to see our students in uniform.

Please note:  I posted several Videos of our Concert Performance under the Video section of this blog.  Take a look.  We performed two pieces for an audience of approximately 150 students, parents, other band members and invited guests.  It was packed.  Although I shot these videos in HD, this blog has some limitations.  Once I am back home, I can upload better quality videos to YouTube and post links to this blog.

New pictures from today's sightseeing adventure and several Video Postcards from our students and parents for our friends and family back in the U.S.    Don't miss our Group Hello Video!  Enjoy!

Rob Smit