Day 2 in Paris!

Sorry I'm quite late with this post! I, unfortunately don't have anything to hammer out blog posts on in my free time so I need to steal someones computer or something but here we go!

Soooo, day 2 in Paris, France was definitely a highlight of the trip for me (even though I'm guessing everyday will have highlights lol). But this is because of several things that happened!

Our day started off trying to get to the Musee du Louvre. Unfortunately, we screwed up trying to find north (shoulda brought a compass!) annnd we also got distracted by some ridiculously cool scenery near the Notre Dame. We ended seeing the Notre Dame (i think) from far away, which told us HEY! WRONG WAY! Haha. But it was a fun detour (aren't all detours awesome?) cuz we got to see some cool palaces from the outside and some cool bridges!

Eventually we got to the Louvre and WOW was it grand from the outside! One sight came after another as we entered and were dazzled with a cool entrance that was remarkably big, actually. Then we got to the courtyard (more like a courtstadium) thing inside, with the ridiculously cool glass pyramid. I, unfortunately, got distracted trying to take a 360 degree shot haha, so I lost the rest of em. Took me like a good 15 minutes of running around to find them too!! Phewwww. And then... Theeeennn... Came the coolest (literally) part of the day. We threw off our socks and dipped our feet in the amazingly cool water! And dannng that was the most awesome thing ever haha. So we just stayed there, flopped our feet around, and enjoyed it.

Finally we hit up the Louvre, went inside and started going around looking at different exhibits of stuff. Luckily we had the help of the lovely Steph who prepared am Art book full of paintings all around the world! So we went around trying to find some of these paintings only to find out that most of them had gone somewhere else! Of course, the one painting remained - the Monna Lisa! So... we got there and it was full of people! So we got there to the front, snapped a couple photos, read the art books description and that was pretty much it. Haha

So then we went around looking for some of the other famous scultures including the Venus de Milo, and Cupid and Psyche! The story of Venus de Milo was pretty cool, buuuut then we got a little bored and headed elsewhere! Haha

In any case, in general, the insides of the Louvre weren't that dazzling. What completely dazzled us was just the sheer grandeur and the beauty of the architecture and everything around it. It was absolutely beautiful!

Finally, we decided to splurge on dinner so we went to a French restaurant, grabbed some GORGEOUS french onion soup (alhough no one wants to comment on whether it beats Kiens! Haha), some pate appetizers, and chicken/sirloin steaks! At the dinner we met a nice lady who has been travelling all over the place! She actually helped us out a lot with finding out about tipping in France and also finding out that people don't ask for doggy bags for their food in France!! (Which Jamie and I already did haha). We also learned that in France, people take their time with their food! 2 hour lunches are common, and they won't give you the bill until you ask!

I guess the thing I learned most about France is that among the quickness and insanity of their traffic, among the opulous amounts of tobacco, among the snobby attitudes of their citizens, France has quite a lot of people that seem to try and enjoy their life, spending lots of time in patio bars at lunch and for dinner, and just being very chill on the streets! It's kind of difficult rushing through Paris in two days, especially with our hostel which was insanely hot and musty, but I think you really need to chill in Paris to enjoy it. Which is what we did that night as we took light paintings and just hung out at the Pyramid inside the Louvre. That, in itself, was relaxing, enjoyable, and definitely awesome with a group of friends that laugh non-stop!