Two Down, Two to Go

After spending the weekend outside of Paris, we made our way into the city center to our hotel near the Luxembourg gardens. From here we dropped our luggage off and parted ways. Doug and Jeannie were off to site see and Pat and I to Roland Garros otherwise known as the French Open.

Monday we just had ground court tickets for the day. When I bought the tickets in February I had originally thought we would go for one day just to experience the tournament so just bought the grounds passes. Then I sat at work a little bit and decided I needed to see Philippe Chatrier so I bought two tickets for that court on Tuesday. Looking back I should have just got show courts for both days! Live and learn!

After getting through security we wandered around trying to find a court to watch. We watched a few people who I had no idea who they were and then a set or so of American Jesse Witten's butt whooping by a Cyprisian (if that is what they are called!) All of a sudden it was five and we were warm (really hot) and tired (cranky) and didn't feel like waiting around until the fourth match on court three or even in the line to get onto court three to watch Mardy Fish play, so we called it day and went to enjoy Paris a bit.

We enjoyed a great dinner with marvelous crème brulee for dessert before strolling to the Eiffel Tower at sunset. We braved the long lines to go up the Eiffel Tower since Pat and I didn't last time we were in Paris. Luckily the line moved quick but unfortunately we miss being able to go up to the highest level and had to settle for the second, which was still high enough for me. We strolled around enjoying the night time view before Pat took the 650 stairs and the rest of us took the elevator back down!

Tuesday we had Philippe Chatrier Court tickets. The schedule of play hadn't been announced until the night before and since Roger Federer had played Monday night there was a good chance we would see Rafael Nadal play. That ended up not being the case and even better got to see Justine Henin and Andy Roddick play, my favorites!

We watched Henin clean up on a Bulgarian and Roddick struggle through five sets against a Finn. Of course I think the only two Finnish fans were sitting right behind us and of course yelling the entire time! We did our best to counter their yelling though so there were quite a few 'Go Jarkkos' and 'Go Andys' from out corner of the stadium. Roddick pulled it out though after going down two sets to one and we were excited to have gotten to see such an entertaining match!

We left early again, too hot to stay for another two matches and hungry for something other than overpriced stadium food! Overall we had a great time at the French Open and excited to have been to two of the four majors now! Only two more to go now! We got back to the hotel to get refreshed and ready for dinner. We ate at a place near our hotel with an adorable 1920s art deco interior and excellent food and walked around the St. Germain area before calling it an evening due to our early train back to London.