Versailles is ghetto.

This past weekend My Favorite French boy and I took his parents to Paris on the new TGV train as a retirement/birthday gift for the two of them. They were delighted of course. They hadn’t been to Paris since in almost 10 years.

Saturday afternoon we spent shopping every floor at Le Printemps looking for good deals during Les Soldes. We didn’t have much luck and the heat was killing us so we headed over to Pont Neuf which besides being famous for being wrapped by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, also happens to be in a key scene from one of my favorite action movies.

In The Bourne Identity, Bourne he calls into the CIA group monitoring him and sets up a meeting at Pont Neuf which crosses half of the Seine at Île de la Cité.

During the scene Matt Damon is standing atop the Samaritaine Store on the viewing platform peeking out from behind the letters. After seeing the film about a hundred times I just had to go see it for myself.

“5:30 PM. Paris. Today. Pont-Neuf. Come alone.”

I just love that line!

The French In-laws have no idea who Matt Damon is, but they enjoyed seeing the bridge anyway.

From Pont-Neuf we took an insanely hot, 11 euro boat ride down La Seine to the Eiffel Tower and promptly bought ice cream before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

We were just finishing dinner when we heard the entirety of Paris explode into celebration as France defeated Brazil in the World cup.

We skipped dessert and immediately headed over to the Champs Elysees to join the not-so-angry mob that had formed there. There were horns honking, people chanting and screaming, and large groups of total strangers draped in French flags spontaneously bursting into rousing renditions of the French national anthem.

The French In-laws were absolutely delighted. French Mother-in Law actually sang “On est les champions!” all the way back to the hotel. (Translated: “We are the champions”. But not to be confused with “We are the champions” by Queen.)

I forget how beautiful Paris is at night. The entire boulevard was aglow with happy Frenchies from La concorde to the Arch de Triomph. I must admit it was quite thrilling to be there. We walked about half way to the arch before heading home.

But it wasn’t us that got arrested for setting those cars on fire.

Our second day in Paris we visited Versailles. Now I understand why people say never to visit Paris in the summer.

There were swarms of people at Versailles. We headed over early, but it didn’t matter. We sent French Father-in-law to cut in line and buy tickets instead of waiting for 2 hours in line. (We're French after all. Rules are made for other people.) Once we had our tickets and our nifty headsets we headed in.

Now for everyone of the MTV generation that has visited Versailles the tragedy is that the whole time you’re in there you can’t help thinking that the inside of Versailles reminds you a bit of Master P’s house on MTV Cribs. (And don’t ack like you ain’t seen that episode.)

It was just surreal. The whole place suffers from a serious case of what we today would call “O.G.”---Over Gold.

Maybe my brain was boiling from the heat, but Versailles was a bit “ghetto”

The coolest discovery of course being that Louis the XIV has the same clothing stylist as Prince. Don't believe me? Witness the shoes.

All joking aside, the interior of Versailles is really wonderful. We had a great time.

Of course everyone knows that the gardens at Versailles are the real reason to visit. They are absolutely extraordinary!

And while you're exploring the garden paths you can listen to the Opera music that plays on speakers throughout the grounds. It really does add a touch of ambiance to the entire experience. In spite of the heat it was just lovely. You could wander around for hours and hours through all the mazes of shrubbery, but since the bottled water costs 3 euros, I advise against it.

It took us about 6 hours to see the about 50 percent of Versailles. If it weren’t 8 million degrees that day we might have stayed longer. The fountains were just that glorious. It may have been the heat but I swear I heard sirens singing.

The following photos just about summarize our trip to Versaille:

"I'm getting sunburned but I don't know it yet!"

"It's too hot! I'm melting."

"I wonder if I can get my garden to look like this."

"No, Seriously I'm gonna die from the heat & this statue on my head!"

"Putain! My camera batteries are dead!"

"I'm dead. Happy now?"

"I'm still dead. See?"

"Ahhhh. Cold water on feet! Good! Can we go home now?"

And then we went home.

The End.