A colleague brought mini Reese's peanut butter cups to work. I was giddy to have one. 

Me: 'These are the best!'

Large chunk of our time was spent right here.

One of our first days, we went on a snorkeling and paddle boarding Island tour. We met our little boat outside the St Regis Hotel.

This is one of two places in the world where Blue Footed Boobies can be found. (If you google the Marieta Islands the search returns it as 'the Mexican Galapagos' click the link for some cool pics of the island. I didn't post them because they are not mine) There were yellow footed Boobies as well. All the white marks are bird droppings. It is such an intense colour (and smell) because their stomach acid is powerful. They swallow the fish out of the ocean whole and the acid is strong enough to digest the bones.
Also, they never leave this island, no migrating necessary in this kind of weather, so there is a TON of white covering everything.

A beach forming that is similar to the Lover's Beach. Thousands of year more of waves crashing against the island and maybe it'll be as famous as Lover's Beach.

These cool caves have that moss growing on the underside because of the rain water that slowly seeps through the ground to the rock. Eventually it will form stalactites. 

First time ever paddle boarding!
I probably fell in immediately after he took this.

It was a good day.

Cool peeps

Playing a little futbol by the pool.

The food was goood. Fresh seafood and handmade tortillas for days. These guys were anxiously awaiting some tacos for lunch.

The decision to play tennis on one of the hottest afternoons was not our best...
I had fun before I was feeling the heat exhaustion.

Golf. It's what these guys live for. Gayle and I rode along and enjoyed the beautiful Pacifico Course.

The world's only natural island green. Hole 3B or Tail of the Whale (but that doesn't fit on the score card) It can only be played at low tide so there's an alternate hole called 3A.

Looking from the island back to the shore.

Some golf lovers

The 8th hole was right by the house where we were staying so when we drove up, all the hooligans who stayed home to swim came over to play for a few minutes.

It was small, which we don't complain about, but the toilet/shower situation was laughable. The mezzanine bed was fine and there is a small, twin bed/couch thing right behind me out of this picture. That's the shower right there. Right in the middle of the room/in the kitchen. Even though there's a toilet there, you can't actually use it as the owner placed that wooden board above it. Communal bathroom down the hall...not ideal but not awful.

When in France....

The baguette was all Taylor wanted in his life. The pepito (left) was AMAZING. This pastry is one favourite at PAUL in London (and PAUL is everywhere in Paris) and it's called a gormandise there. But this one blew the PAUL version out of the water. Without self-restraint, we would have gotten a dozen more.

Everywhere we go, no matter the language, we find familiarity and peace. A kind missionary sat next to us and translated the french for us.

We headed to Versailles because our Paris Pass included entry to this incredible looking place.

A beautifully maintained garden clock. haha

It took just over an hour to get to the gate from church in Paris. We took a look at the line snaking around for at least 1/4 mile, heard people say the wait was over 2 hours to get in and we bailed. I am sure it's lovely in there (and that I would have gotten incensed at the fact that so much luxury existed with such intense poverty and suffering) but it was HOT that day and sitting in the sun for 2 hours was not in our plans. There was still so much to see! Short trip, no time for waiting around.

-Thinking Man-

We went straight to The Rodin Museum. It is under construction/renovation so it was only a fraction of its picturesque glory.

Les Invalides. A large complex for all kinds of military purposes. A museum, a retirement home for military men and a burial ground for war heroes, most notably, Napoleon Bonaparte. His tomb is inside this building under the ornate dome.

Gelato. It was so much hotter than we expected and this delightful cherry gelato brought some relief.

One weird thing I noticed was that the chairs of many cafes are set up to face the street. I would think they would surround the table where the food and drinks would be placed. But here, it becomes an entertainment. People sitting drinking their tiny coffees and eating croissants have a full view of passersby. What? I watched couples and small groups talk about people walking by, pointing out this or that or just unashamedly staring at people until they were out of sight. I don't like it.

We ended up back in this area to get our souvenir. We get art so we headed to the south side of the river where there are loads of booths with all the iconic Parisian sights. Anywhere from 2-40 euros :)

We decided to fly. There is a train that goes through the Chunnel and we may do that someday but only if we have really advance tickets. Flight is about 45 minutes, train takes about 2 hours IF everything is running on schedule.
(*Don't know if you heard about the migrants but the trains were on a crazy and delayed schedule this weekend as 2,500 migrants were trying to enter the Chunnel and come to England from Calais. There were riot police and all sorts of trouble. One man actually made the 31-mile walk in the chunnel...an incredible feat in total darkness and avoiding getting sucked onto the tracks by speeding trains. Poor man!*)

We got to Paris before it woke up. It was a very early flight and we were super tired but excited to get our Paris Pass!
We saved 10% on it, probably only because I dilly-dallied in getting it and they sent me an email to convince me to get it.

He humoured me and posed for a classic tourist picture. It turned out perfectly!

I promise Taylor we would be in and out in 30 minutes. (he's not a big museum guy) But I knew exactly what I wanted to see so we bee-lined it to the Denon gallery where all things Italian and, most importantly, the Mona Lisa are located. This hall is near the Mona Lisa and it is stunning. Picture doesn't do it justice.

I spent loads of time looking up. The ceilings are so ornate and amazing!

See what I mean? More amazing ceiling. And this is just right by a cafe. NBD.

We passed this gorgeous door on our way from the Louvre to the Opera Garnier. Paris Pass includes a guided tour of the Opera house and there are only two times a day that they offer English tours.
I LOVED the Opera soooo much that I will have a whole post dedicated to it :) look for it soon.

Notre Dame.
Made famous by of the novel by Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). It had been in disuse until the novel put it back on the map.

Tourists have adopted just about any bridge from Paris to compensate for the removal of all the locks off of the 'original' love bridge, Pont des Arts in June of this year. The practice is actually illegal now though it is difficult to police. Click HERE to see the BBC article about the nearly ONE MILLION locks weighing 45 TONS that were removed because the bridge was collapsing.

A quote (and link) to a well written article by New Yorker author Adam Gopnik
The practice, which I'm sure you've read about, is simple, and by now repeated in the tens of thousands - you buy a padlock, you and your beloved both inscribe your initials on it with a heavy felt pen, you lock it to the bridge - and then fling the key away into the river, indicating that your love will never be unlocked.

A petite train ride up to Montmarte and the Sacre Coeur.

The train ride starts from right in front of Moulin Rouge.

Sacre Coeur.
One of the heaviest bells in the world, Savoyarde, lives in that dome. Weighing nearly 19 tons, it rings only once a year on Easter Sunday.

The view from Sacre Coeur and Montmarte

Arc de Triomphe!

If you want a view from up high, be prepared for all the stairs.

*caption this*
(example: ugh, did you smell that?)

Champs-Elysees. The Louvre is waaay down there at the end of the street.
10 streets meet at this spot. A tunnel is necessary to get the the Arc. Trying to cross the street (giant roundabout) top-side would be insane.

That's the Montparnasse Tower way out there. (view from the top of that later...) Thanks in part to zoning restrictions, there are amazing views as high buildings are not allowed to be constructed.

Eiffel Tower in real life. Bucket list item: Check!

We took the river cruise that comes with the Paris Pass.
Our cruise started from the Eiffel Tower and went down the River Seine past 22 of the Parisian bridges. Our tour guide was in impressive young guy who did the tour in 5 languages! French, English, Spanish, Portugese and Italian! He started his greeting in Mandarin and half the boat gasped but he was only joking. My kind of humor :)

We learned about the buildings and bridges we passed, the sections of the city and their impact on the culture. This statue of St Genevieve at Pont de la Tournelle was sculpted by Paul Landowski, the same man who sculpted Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janiero, Brasil.

This is the view from Montparnasse Tower. I would do the whole panorama but it all looks just like this anyway :)
That's the Louvre to the right of the ferris wheel that is illuminated.
I also would have posted the Eiffel Tower view but it is a real thing (not highly enforced, as far as I can tell) but the lights on the Eiffel Tower are actually copyrighted. You have to receive permission and pay a fee to legal take and the post pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. The lights have an artistic copyright. Weird but true. So there you go. Keeping my cool, nighttime pictures to myself...if they even exist. ;)