Funday

Like Sunday but more fun.

This morning Olesya (who is also my current roomie) and I got up early (7 am) and started our super awesome day. No really it really was that good. Breakfast in the hotel (which as it turns out is not complementary but we probably couldn't have gotten it any cheaper). Then off to the Sacre Coeur (the Sacred Heart Basilica)! It was Beautiful. Inside and out. Gorgeous views too, but be warned: it's a bit of a hike. We give any and all stairs evil looks now. Totally worth it though. Montmartre is a very pretty area as well. Very typical "oo-la-la" frenchy.

Next stop Le Palais Garnier. This is the Grand Opera House. SOOOOOOOOO opulant. Everything is marble or gold plated and everything absolutely everything glitters. This is also where many parts of the Phantom of the Opera was filmed. And only 4 euros.

Louvre. The whole darn thing is just so amazing to look at it's unbelievable. I'll spare you the gushing over the outside though and just tell you what we looked at: some random french art, some really cool medieval art (we're assuming that that was also french), the napoleonic apartments, more art, the rubens room (boring), some statues, the venus de milo, the medieval louvre (the original foundations of the louvre castle that the current louvre is built on), a sphynx, winged victory, psyche and cupid, hermes, cardinal richelieu (these are all statues by the way), diana, (there were others but I forget), lots and lots of spanish/italian paintings, and of course the mona lisa. the crowd was INSANE. everywhere else the crowd was very manageable and not at all overwhelming, but...let's just say the venus and the mona lisa are different. asian people (no offense just a general thought here) tend to be VERY pushy and arrogant (with no concept of personal space) and they seem to feel that you do not matter. at all. now for those of you who don't know me, I'm rather short. Not like short short, just below average. Well below average does not cut it. I saw the mona lisa for like 1 minute when someone's head moved. Then it was gone. Pooh. Olesya took a picture above the crowd for me so at least there's that. I didn't really see anything astonishing about it anyway.

So our feet hurt really badly and we were starving (it was like 1:30 at this point). we went out and found this cafe/bar/food place and got sandwiches and cokes. Coke is expensive here (like 4 euros) but i needed caffeine. We ate this in the gardens of the tuileries (just outside the louvre). OMG. so cool. And then we went to the place de la concord. Neat obelisk and fountains. nice buildings nearby. *shrugs*. after that we went to the Sorbonne (the best french university period) but it was pretty anticlimatic. we then continued on to the Jardins de Luxembourg (the real destination anyway). These are beautiful gardens and there's a pretty sweet palace right there too.

After that we had done all of our must-sees and so we decided to take the advice of my Forber's Paris Guide (which has the most helpful map and metro map) and do the boat ride on the seine. This is such a good idea. Beautiful way to see the sights from a different angle. After we passed the Eiffle my camera battery died. Poor thing had been on almost nonstop since that morning. We grabbed dinner at a cafe across from our hotel. Amazing food, great waiter. And then we settled down into the hotel for the night. Cuz it was like almost 10.