Paris: 3rd & 4th Day

La Conciergerie
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At the moment I am waay too tired to write anything here so I will give you an update. I am almost finished loading the pictures into the Versailles entry; the pictures from the video camera must be bigger than our digital was, so they take 10x more time to load. So it is very slow going, and that is what I am waiting for right this moment. I will *hopefully* write about today tomorrow night and upload the pictures from today which include the arc de triomphe, the opera garnier, and the eiffel by night. That will mean I will probably be behind on tomorrow's entry so hopefully I will be able to catch up in Milan. Ciao!

Me and the inverted pyrimid within the Louve, or the "Holy Grail" according to the book.
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Alright. So yesturday we started off our morning with a trip to the Louve. That museum is GIGANTIC!! Holy man. It used to be an old palace, so of course it is beautiful on the inside as well. I almost think it was nicer then Versailles. There are 3 different wings in the museum, we spent most of our time in the Denon wing. I saw the Mona Lisa, Madonna on the Rocks, Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo. I do have to say though that I'd rather look at sculptures than paintings. The sculptures are so beautiful and it's amazing to think that someone actually made that with their hands. I wonder why no one sculpts anymore? Is it a dead art? Or is there no stone left? All the paintings are the same... Mary and Jesus are everywhere. So it's kind of boring to look at the same painting 100 times over. But we were in the Italian painter section, so that would probably be why because the Vatican would have made them paint religiously. But man! The Japanese tour groups are horrible. They run everywhere and push people out of the way. I was getting so frustrated with them. And they take pictures! You can't take pictures, it recks the paintings. And they touch the art too. Grr. These museums need to abolish tour groups. Just give everyone head sets and it will be fine. Tour groups cause way more problems. We didn't get to see much of the res tof the museum however, because Mom felt too sick so we decided to take her back to the hotel. I had seen what I had wanted to see anyways. After we dropped Mom off, Dad, Kas and I had lunch and then ascended the Arc de Triomphe. It was alot of steps!! I got to take pictures with Mom's good camera, and I love it. There is something so much better about film cameras instead of digital. We then took the Metro (which I love! So much better then the C-train. I like figuring out where we need to go) to the Bastille. Once we got there, I couldn't find it! Turns out it was torn down and now there was only a monument in its place. I was so upset! That is one of the most interesting things about the Revolution and it was gone. We didn't really know what to do, so Kathryn got a crepe and Dad and I got McFlurrys. The McDonald's in Europe have been so chic and modern and non-mcdonalds! It is soo weird. The coolest ones were in Germany. I don't know why we don't have cool mcdonalds in Canada. But I guess it wouldn't really be McDonalds then. We then took the metro to the Opera Garnier. I was so excited! This is the Opera that the Phantom lived at(well, is based out of in the book), and I was quite interested to see the inside. It was outstanding! One of the most beautiful buildings by far. Except it was upsetting because we weren't allowed to go near Box 5, or anything that would have had to do with the Phantom. I don't know why they don't have Phantom tours, I bet they would make tons of money. We then went back and got Mom and ventured out to find Breakfast in America, a resturaunt my dad wanted to go to for dinner. But the number from the guide was misplaced on the map, so we couldn't find it! The map said it would have had to have been on the bridge. But itwas lucky we were lost, because we were able to see the procession of the Feast of Assention. I didn't even knwo it was going on! It was very beautiful. You could smell the insence and they had a choir cd projecting out of the car. Finally, we found the street the resturaunt was on, and were able to have dinner. We then made our way back by the Eiffel Tower so that we could see it lit up. And that was the end of that day!

the Louis Vuitton on the corner of our street was calling our name so we decided to take a peek inside.

Outside the Louve, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
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Today:

Today I got to sleep in! It was soo nice. I slept until 11 and after we were all ready, we set out to the oh-so-cool McDonalds for lunch. It was so hot out today!! It's been cloudy/rainy for the past 3 days so I had thought it would be cold out so I put on jeans. At least I was wearing a halter! But I was boiling. We took the metro to the Jardin des Tuileries, a very large and beautiful garden. I love all of the gardens here. It really makes a good place to go read or hang out with friends. They are just a nice place to walk through. It leads from the Place de la Concorde to the Musee du Louve. We then crossed the Seine and began the walk to the Ile de la Cite, an little island in the middle of the Seine. On the way the street was lined with vendours sellings paintings and old posters from the 30s-50s or so they looked. We bought our France painting, a pretty one of the Tower. (We buy a painting for every place we travel) .I was getting easily tired though from the heat so I was glad when we finally crossed the bridge to the island. We walked by La Conciergie and I wanted to go in, but no one else did. This is where they held Marie-Antoinette until she was beheaded but I had to be happy with just a picture. We then went to Notre-Dame. It is such a gorgeous church, but I think I prefer the Dom in Cologne better. Notre-Dame was way too crowded but that may be because of the Feast as well. We stopped at Haagan-Daaz and got a treat and then hopped on the metro and took it to the very north of the city. Dad was trying to find the biggest flea market in Europe, but alas we were unable. By this time I was soo tired that we just decided to head back to the hotel. I felt like I was going to fall asleep on the metro. However, the Louis Vuitton on the corner of our street was calling our name so we decided to take a peek inside. Some of the things are absurdly priced!! There was a little clip/brooch things that was 250 euro! That is wasteful and someone who buys that cannot be highly thought of, well in my opinion. Now I am sitting here, eating a stroopwafle and some candies from the hotel. I don't think we are doing much, just getting dinner and packing up. We have to catch a train at 8:00 tomorrow. Ciao!