Paris: Part Deux

On Friday we met up in the lobby around 10:30am and hit the metro heading for the Louvre. We had originally scheduled in about 2 hours for it cause we really only wanted to hit the necessities like Mona Lisa.

Yeah, it took us like 40 minutes just to find the ticket machines. Huge does not even begin to describe this place. It is massive.

Hehehe, thats what she said.

So we wandered for a long time because it took us friggin forever to find the Mona Lisa. They just taunt you with small pictures of it with arrows beneath until you finally get like two rooms away and then they leave you to figure out which one leads to the room its in. I peaked in one, saw a glass wall and knew we had found it.

Everyone has said "Oh, its soooo small when you see it in real life" and such. Guys, have you ever seen a normal sized portrait? Cause thats about the right size. It wasn't tiny, but I guess compared to the cinema screen sized painting across from it, it would seem tiny.

Anyhoo, we took some pictures of it and in front of it (sorry, no little people because it was packed and I felt rude standing there for too long). That done, we left the room and got about twenty feet before Emily realized that while she took a bunch of pictures of the Mona Lisa she didn't actually look at it. So we jammed on back and really looked at it, as a painting.

It's good. Far better than I would ever be able to produce, but...its just a painting. I don't know. I respect the skill and all that it took to create this lovely painting, but it didn't really move me. Although to be fair, paintings don't seem to do that to me anyway. I'm much more of a sculpture and architecture girl. I guess I get that from my grandfather.

The museum does, we discovered quite by accident, have an enormous sculpture collection. This is pretty much where I wasted most of my camera battery and memory. So awesome sauce!

Kellie, you might appreciate this: I was strolling through the room of busts (hehe) and there are all these old school greco-roman looking ones and then BAM! I see this one behind gladd and am like " Why, hello George Washington". Yes, I am proud to say that I can totally recognize the first president of our country. Also it was pretty cool that there was a bust of him with all of that other history. America! ____ ____! I was quite proud of myself ::dusts shoulders off:: when I peaked at the info plate and found myself correct. There was also an intersting sculpture of Voltaire that Emily said reminded her of Gollum. So...yeah.

After we made a quick visit to the Code of Hammurabi, we decided we'd had our fill of the Louvre and explored the outside grounds instead. All in all we spent a little over 3 hours. Its a beautiful building, I'd say a more elaborate Library of Congress, which is a freaking amazing piece of architecture. Go see it!

After that we walked along the park thing to the Obelisk, which was...very phallic. Well, it was!

From there we continued on towards the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped along the way to people watch and rest our feet though cause we'd been doing a lot of walking. Also we consumed two crepes between the Louvre and the Arc. The Arc de Triomphe is ginormous. You don't even realize until you're standing beneath it. Even from across the street it doesn't look as big as it really is.

Huh...just realized that Paris is filled with "that's what she said" pieces of architecture...

We decided to pay the admission (which was only 5.50 euros cause we're under 26 huzzah!) and check out the view.

ATTENTION PEOPLE! NEW WINNER!!

1. Arc de Triomphe
2. Prime Meridian
3. Walk to hostel in Wales
4. Victoria Street in Edinburgh
5. Llangsteffan Castle

I think that's all of them...

284 steps later...
we arrive at the viewing deck. Gorgeous views of the whole city. We tried to take pictures of us with the Eiffel Tower in the background but it was silly how tiny it looked so we just took pictures of us eating it and squishing it between our fingers instead.

After heading back down the Arc, we decided to check out what the dealio was with a possible dinner cruise on the Seine. We ended up doing that and enjoyed pasta and wine and a guided tour of the river's sights.

After the cruise we headed back to the hostel to figure out our evening and get a new camera battery since ours had died somewhere around the Arc. We were going to check out the Moulins and Sacre Coeur but totally ended up picking up some wine, cheese and baguettes for a lovely evening in instead.

It sounds a little lame, but it was actually quite nice to not be running around and just enjoy a glass of wine.

It was a nice night, but who knew the next day would be such a fiasco...