Paris (Day 2)

My day in a nutshell: woke up, said hi to Mo (that is, the Mona Lisa...we're close, personal friends now), visited the home of Quasimodo, stood under a HUGE arc, went on another tour, and got rained on all the while.

My day released from the shell:

Pat and I got up early and went to the Louvre. We heard it would take HOURS to get in, then we would see the big works of art if lucky. Lies... all lies! Very Very luckily, we got in very quickly with no line. We walked right up to the things we wanted to see (with the exception on the Mona Lisa... We walked up as far as we could til it was roped off and surrounded by bullet proof glass). Other works we saw include The Wrath of Medusa, the Venus de Milo, Oath of the horatia, a few Vermeer's, a few Da Vinci's, a few Michelangelo's, and much much more. I really can't believe that I saw all this!!! It amazes me!

Pat and I were done seeing all the things we wanted to see by noon, so we walked to Notre Dame. It was just as I remembered (from the cartoon). It really was absolutely gorgeous though!

We hopped on the subway and met up with Dave and Jen, who had done some sight seeing this morning, at the Arc de Triomph. It was AMAZING here. I just wish it wasn't raining and windy... I would have enjoyed it so much more!! Surrounding the Arc is a 10 land circle where 6 roads converge (so 12 exits off the circle). Apparently an accident happens there every half hour. There is a tunnel underground to get to the Arc so that you don't need to cross the road. The tomb of the unknown soldier was there as well. There were flowers around the tomb and a large flame lit.

Jen and Dave met up with us and we went to linner. The restaurant was called Le Flamme. Everyone had Mussels (except for me). I had the delicious 4 cheese Penne. mmmmm :)

After going back to the room and taking a power nap, we got Crepes on the way to another tour (same tour guide as yesterday!). This tour was by the same company, but we payed €9 for it (€10 for students minus €1 for going on the free tour)! This tour was great, like yesterday's, even though it rained! It was a tour of the Montmartre District. We went to a lot of the places in Paris that aren't the main-stream tourist-y spots, so it was pretty awesome!

Tonight I had to wait for our two other room mates to take showers (and they took a LONG time) before I took one and came downstairs to use the internet. Today I'm actually blogging before journaling so that I make sure you are all updated. You're welcome :-P

On a side note... the French people are much nicer than I had heard they were. A lady tonight 9at the bar after the tour) was talking to us and when we had to leave, she asked us a few times to stay! Others have spoken to us in English and have done other nice things. No horror stories to report!!!

Since it's just about 12:30 now I need to push the pictures off until tomorrow once again. I'm sorry... they take a long time to upload! You know I'll have a million pictures to show you all when I get home, too!