Day 6: Oui, j'adore Paris.

Day 6: Paris, France

Bonjour! Today we got up early again, had a delicious French breakfast of bread... seriously the French eat SO MUCH bread. I definitely didn't love my breakfasts there the way I loved Italy's. But the croissants were fresh and delicious. After breakfast we layered on our clothes so we wouldn't be cold outside and went to catch our open top bus tour. We booked one of these so we wouldn't have to find our way around in the cold, they would take us to every tourism spot we wanted to go, and we'd just wait for the next one to come when we needed to get back on!

Our bus was waiting by Notre Dame so we walked a couple blocks and found our stop. There were some nice American women waiting for the same bus we were so we chatted with them a bit. In the short time we'd been in Paris already we noticed a lot more Americans than we had seen in Italy.

I just put on all my layers, and I have to pee. Awesome. I swear I have the bladder of a 90 year old woman. Was that too much information?

The view from our balcony. See Notre Dame peeking over the top of the far building?

Our first stop before the bus tour however was the Paris Pantheon, it was right in our neighborhood, and we still had an hour to kill before the bus tours started. So we walked over to it, and took a few pictures. They had a random clustering of trees decorated out front. Also while we were in this plaza, we saw a bunch of little French kindergarteners holding hands and walking in a line. They were so cute in their little coats, boots, mittens, and hats. Some of the little kids were wearing berets. I'm a sucker for little foreign kids, they make my heart melt.

Alia hiding in the trees. It kind of looks like her head is detached. Weird.

Paris' Pantheon.

Sign post for the area.

Man I love Europe and it's fresh food. Nothing like eating meat that was delivered freshly butchered. It's probably sooooo delicious. It was 8 in the morning, we weren't getting ready to have a big steak!

Thumbs up for L'Open Bus Tour in Paris. Sure it was 30 degrees, and humid, but we basically had on all of our clothes from our suitcase. Can't get cold that way!

Later we would find out this was the entrance to the Louvre Museum square. There are archway entrances on the other side too.

Right at the beginning of the Champs Elysees by the Jardin des Tuileries, there was a giant ferris wheel. I guess it used to be located over by the Eiffel Tower, but they moved it here. If it were warmer, we'd have taken a ride on that! I definitely need to come back to Paris in the summer to explore their gardens (there is a park 2 1/2 times the size of NYC's Central Park, and from the pictures it looks AMAZING!) and see the action of the markets that apparently open up along the Seine river. I've also heard there are a lot of nude sunbathers. Can't miss those... ow ow!

Looking down the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe

Arc de Triomphe. The saddest part of this is we had no idea you could climb up it to the top. We found out at the end of our last night in Paris when we met a girl from Ohio who had just done that. Definitely sad I missed that opportunity.

Almost there!

When we got off the bus on the Champs Elysees, we decided to get some hot chocolate before heading to the arch and over to the Eiffel Tower. We were pretty cold from sitting on top of the bus. We decided to check out what a foreign McDonald's looks like. All I have to say is American's are getting screwed on their McDonald's. The food looked better and they even have a patisserie inside (Parisian word for bakery) with tons of fresh goodies like macaroons. They also have a couple other options on their menu that are local foods. Americans get the grossest version of McDonald's... and you wonder why we've got the obesity epidemic. I think we should all boycott McDonald's until they give us their healthy version of their food too.

After we got the hot chocolate, and I got a severe mouth scalding (Alia didn't believe me that mine was that much hotter than hers until Sunday when we were flying home and the skin from the roof of my mouth started coming off. Trust me it was a NASTY burn) we decided to walk to the Arch. After a little walk around the arch, we caught our next bus and headed to the Eiffel Tower! Yay!!!!

Accidental zoom in, but I love this picture. My new digital camera rocks, and takes crystal clear pictures. Thanks Bro for helping me pick it out!

Hey look what I found.

View from underneath the tower. It's pretty amazing they built this, and when it was finished and they took pictures from the top, they finally got around to building an elevator. People used to walk the whole way up! We decided not to wait in the 7 year long line for the elevators to the very top, and took the stairs route instead. It is 700 stairs to the halfway mark where you can walk out on the first and 2nd platforms. From what I can tell, the 2nd floor is halfway up the tower. So that's a pretty decent hike!

Alia and I are troopers and we handled the hike just fine, despite having to stop a couple times so I could breathe. Yep, I'm out of shape, and it was freezing, not a good combo for my lungs to let me hike 700 stairs at a steady pace. But I'm back in my running program again so I could run up that thing by summer!

View across the Parc du Champ de Mars from the 1st floor of the Eiffel Tower.

Sorry guys, some of you may hate this picture, but this was drawn in the snow below the Eiffel Tower, and I find it hilarious. The snow was completely melted by the next morning, but someone put a lot of effort into this snow art. It was half a football field long.

Floor 1 of the Eiffel Tower... about 400 stairs into the hike.

View from 2nd floor of tower. Awesome view huh? Only took 700 stairs to get there!

The elevator shafts had these awesome yellow wheels at the top. We thought they were pretty neat.

From the Parc du Champ de Mars

Fun information about the Eiffel Tower I found online:

Why was the Eiffel Tower Built
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World Fair which also coincided with the centenary of the French Revolution. Out of a number of designs submitted as part of a competition, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel won, and was responsible for erecting the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower Facts
-- Construction of the Eiffel Tower began on January 26, 1887 and was completed on March 31, 1889

-- It took 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days from start to finish
-- Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was the main architect

-- Alexandre Gustave Eiffel is the very person who created the internal frame of the Statue of Liberty in the year 1885

Au revoir Eiffel Tower, we're off to the Louvre!

After leaving the Eiffel Tower we rode on the bus tour some more around town until it got to the Louvre Museum. We tried to pay attention to the audio guide, but it was more fun to talk to each other, so we missed a lot of the explanations. Oops.

It's a bit frigid in Paris. Especially when you're on top of a moving vehicle.

Hotel des Invalides - Built in 1676, supposed to have housed 4,000 war veterans. Napoleon Bonaparte is in a tomb here. This building also has a war museum with weapons and armor and maps and such from all over the world. If I get to go back ever, I'd like to go in this museum. We only had 3 days in Paris, and 4 in Italy. NEVER ENOUGH TIME to see what there is there. There is SO MUCH!!!

No idea why we decided to make a mad face, but I totally lost the contest. Holy moly Alia!

Hotel des Invalides

These trees are planted perfectly. It made for a neat picture. They are in the park directly across from the Hotel des Invalides.

These boots have walked approximately 40 miles + this week so far, and we still have our biggest walking day yet to come!

Musee du Louvre Pyramid in the square. We decided since the Louvre could take us an entire week to navigate through, we'd just do the section with the main attractions -- Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, etc.

One of my favorite statues - The winged victory. It was housed at the top of these stairs in a nice arched room so you could see it in the archway all the way up the stairs. I'm sad none of my pictures of this turned out to be clear. Here is a closeup I found online though.

Description taken from the Louvre's website: The winged goddess of Victory standing on the prow of a ship overlooked the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace. This monument was probably an ex-voto offered by the people of Rhodes in commemoration of a naval victory in the early second century BC. (circa 190 BC.)

Oh Mona Lisa, you are surprisingly disappointing. We'd heard she was disappointing but they weren't kidding. Look how far away we have to be from her, and she is a tiny painting. The Louvre was full of 20 foot tall paintings that had about 100 different people in them all detailed individually. They were unreal! Still it's really cool to be able to say, I've seen the Mona Lisa, and so have about 300 people from Japan that elbowed me in the ribs to get their photos taken with her too.

Below are some of my favorite paintings or items that were in the Louvre. I'll try to remember their names as much as I can.

I think this might be a depiction of Eve, since she has a fruit basket and a snake is biting her (strangely right on the nipple which is one of the bizarre reasons I liked this weird painting). I can't find it online to verify if this is of Eve so if you can find it, please tell me what this painting is of.

Twins.

Painting by Guido Reni of Bologna, circa 1604-1606. It's David with the Head of Goliath. I loved this painting. Everything about it, even though it's a little morbid, still has a very cool feel to it.

Me and Venus de Milo. Wish I hadn't been standing right in front of her in the picture.

Venus de Milo: (description from Louvre website. I found it VERY interesting!) The Venus de Milo was discovered in 1820 on the island of Melos (Milo in modern Greek) in the south-western Cyclades. The Marquis de Rivière presented it to Louis XVIII, who donated it to the Louvre the following year. The statue won instant and lasting fame. Essentially two blocks of marble, it is comprised of several parts which were sculpted separately (bust, legs, left arm and foot) then fixed with vertical pegs, a technique which was fairly common in the Greek world (especially in the Cyclades, where this work was produced around 100 BC). The goddess originally wore metal jewelry — bracelet, earrings, and headband — of which only the fixation holes remain. The marble may have been embellished with (now faded) polychromy. The arms were never found.

Arch in the Louvre square. You can see the ferris wheel lit up through it. Very beautiful.

After the Louvre we walked back to our hotel across the Seine River. We walked through the Latin Quarter, found a small market and bought some fresh fruit. It's definitely different in Paris than in Italy. Perhaps it's because it's so cold there in the winter than in Italy, but Italy felt so much more alive, despite Paris being packed with people.

We had a great day in Paris though and because we walked a lot and wore so many layers, I only remember being cold a few times, but I never was miserable cold. Hiking the Eiffel Tower got our blood pumping and we were warm for most of the afternoon because of that. We got some dinner in Paris that night, and also got crepes from a small street cart that were SO delicious. One more day left in our Eurotrip and we were sad to think it'd be over soon. Exploring foreign countries is so amazing. We felt so fearless, and so independent. I can't wait to explore another country soon when I can save up the money.

Here is my postcard journal for the day:

12/10/10 - Paris

Today we went on the L'Open bus tour to visit the sights of Paris. We drove all over town and stopped and walked down the Champs Elysees, stopped at the Arc de Triomphe, climbed halfway up the Eiffel Tower, visited the Louvre and saw Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa and a lot of awesome paintings and sculptures. Walked ALOT. Ate some delicious crepes, saw more really great sights, too many to name! We have one day left in Paris. It's crazy to think we are here and have done all these things we've both really wanted to do. We're so lucky and so blessed to be given this trip! One more day, we better make the most of it!