| This is a small sitting area outside Gare St. Lazare, one of the many Paris train stations. This station is for trains to and from Caen, among other destinations in the northwest of France. |  |
| Among the buildings seen here are the Abbaye aux Hommes (Men's Abbey), and the Caen town hall. |  |
| This is a church across the street from the town hall. Although the design looks old, the construction almost certainly is not. The city was devastated in 1944, and very few buildings remain from before the battle. |  |
| This is also near the town hall; the church in the previous picture is off to the right. The building in the center is the old Palais de Justice (courthouse). |  |
| This is the outer wall of the castle in downtown Caen. Although it looks somewhat unremarkable, and the locals seem as interested in using it for parking as anything else, it has quite a history. It was built by Duke William the Bastard in 1060, who later |  |
| This is yet another church; this one is near the castle. The red triangle in the foreground on the left is part of a monument comemmorating units of the British Army. |  |
| More of the castle. It is surrounded by a dry moat, which now contains a nice path to walk down. |  |
| More castle. |  |
| Guess what? More castle! |  |
| This memorial commemorates Verdun, the site of a long and bloody battle during the First World War. |  |
| This is the river Orne, which runs through Caen. |  |
| Another shot of the river. |  |
| This is the Hippodrome (horse track) in Caen. The Hippodrome is just across the street from my school, which could be seen towards the left if the trees weren't in the way. |  |
| This is the new Palais de Justice. The people I've talked with have varying opinions about it. Personally I think it's ugly, and the designer was clearly not in his right mind when he came up with it. |  |
| This is standing in the same spot, facing the opposite direction. Nothing particularly remarkable about this shot. |  |
| This is a small plaza by the theater, which is off the picture to the right. |  |
| This is the church St. Jean, which is also the name of the street and about half the shops on the street. |  |
| Another fairly unremarkable shot. |  |
| This is Antonio, who lives at the school. He comes from Mexico, and he is a Spanish assistant at a different Lycée. |  |
| Another view of downtown Caen. |  |
| This is some kind of building in Paris, but I didn't see exactly what. |  |
| Again in Paris. The Arc de Triomphe is visible in the distance between the trees. |  |
| Another Paris shot, this one of some kind of museum or something. |  |
| The Arc de Triomphe in all its glory. |  |
| Another (better) shot of the Arc. |  |
| A closeup of the corner of the Arc. Note the people at the top. |  |
| Like the castle, I have too many shots of the Arc. |  |
| Closeup of the side of the Arc. I don't know the significance of the names written on the side. |  |
| A beautiful shot of Paris from the top of the Arc. You should be able to find the most notable thing in the picture on your own. (Hint: it's the really big tower right in the middle.) |  |
| Another shot from the top of the Arc. Surrounding the Arc is what must be the world's largest traffic circle. It would be about ten or twelve lanes wide if it had any lanes; the most amazing thing is that it doesn't. As you can see in the picture, the onl |  |
| Another shot from the top of the Arc. |  |
| Yet another. Again, the notable landmark is obvious. |  |
| This is from ground level at the Arc. |  |
| "Here rests a French soldier, who died for the nation. 1914-1918" |  |
| I'm going to make you guess. |  |
| This is the Eiffel Tower (you knew that) from across the Seine river. No picture, neither the ones I've taken nor others I've seen, properly capture the enormity of the Tower. It's really, really, really big. |  |
| This is from a little closer. |  |
| Underneath the tower. |  |
| You're going to get sick of the Paris-from-the-Eiffel-Tower shots pretty soon. |  |
| There's the Arc de Triomphe again. It looked so big when I saw it before, and now it's a small toy off in the distance. |  |
| A nice shot of... some building. |  |
| Another nice shot of some building. (Please forgive me if I miss obvious landmarks; I don't know Paris very well. I've been there twice now, but I've spent a total of less than one full day there during those two visits.) |  |
| A nice shot of the Seine from the top of the Tower. |  |
| Another shot of the Seine. I'll use this space to talk about the trip up to the top of the Tower some. There's a good-sized line, but it moves along well and isn't too bad altogether. It took about fifteen minutes to get through it when I was there. There |  |
| This, I know, is the Military Academy or something like that. |  |
| Again, don't know what this is. The day I was there, it was very windy, and of course it was stronger higher up. The Eiffel Tower is nearly 1,000ft tall. Everyone could feel it rocking back and forth, and it was quite scary. |  |
| This shot of the Tower is from the opposite side. You can see the three flat places (close to the bottom, then again a little farther up, then finally very close to the top) where the elevators stop. |  |
