Paris, part 2

Because it was our last day in Paris, we didn't have time to go to Versailles with Mary and Amira. We stuffed our faces with the free breakfast provided at the hostel (2 each of the following: nutella baguettes, bowl of cereal, and apple juice). The metro dropped us off in front of Notre Dame, and we popped inside. I wasn't suuuuper impressed with the inside -- the interior was beautiful, but I had seen bigger and more elaborate. However, it was still cool to go inside. On the way to the Palais Garnier opera house, we passed by some important-looking building, and we soon found out that it was the other side of the Louvre (I'm telling you, that place is HUUUUGE!). We then had a ham sandwich picnic on the steps of the opera house. I was tempted to feed the pigeons our leftover bread, but a gypsy dressed as a giant chicken kept eyeing our food, and told some other gypsy friends that we had leftovers. Needless to say, we made a speedy exit and headed towards Montmarte, where a 2:00 walking tour awaited us.

Montmarte is the old art district of Paris. Artists like Dalí, Picasso, van Gogh, Monet, and Mondrian used to live and/or work in the district, so I loved seeing all the cool hangout spots of such influential artists.  The tour started at the Moulin Rouge in the red light district. Moulin Rouge is French for "red windmill," so the entire community of Montmarte was scattered with windmills. We passed by La Maison Rose, where van Gogh sent his ear after he cut it off (there was a prostitute who worked there that he fell in love with, but his brother refused to let Vincent marry her. Naturally, sending her an ear was the best way of showing his affection for her... this was after he went crazy). Because Montmarte is situated on a big mound the entire tour was uphill, but the views at the top were totally worth it. The Sacré-Cœur Basilica greeted us as we reached the top. This church was much more impressive than Notre Dame in my opinion. We kept passing by a lot of street art that looked Banksy-inspired, and found out the story behind the artist Miss Tic. Long story short, she had a bad breakup with her boyfriend, and he said something along the lines of "I don't ever want to see you again." To spite him, she decided to plaster images of herself outside of his house, his work, and all over the district. Miss Tic is now probably in her 30s or 40s, but new images still pop up around Montmarte -- I think it's brilliant.

After the tour, Katie and I rested our feet at Starbucks, then grabbed dinner at McDonald's across the street (midway through the trip, we decided we'd eat at a McD's in every country we visited -- we're such Americans!). We then did a little souvenir shopping, picking up the necessary mini-Eiffel Tower models and a beret for myself. Making our way back to the Tower, we prepared ourselves to climb up the who-knows-how-many steps to the top. We counted a total of 680-ish steps as we made the ascent up the the second platform, taking tons of breaks in between. An elevator took us from the second platform to the very top. It was easily 10 degrees colder at the top due to all the wind. However, the views were absolutely breathtaking. I was reminded of when I flew into Paris for a layover back in January: the city is just so beautiful at night, and it's really hard to beat those kinds of views. By this time it was well past 10:00, and we knew we had to wake up pretty early the next morning. The stairs were more forgiving on the way down, but that didn't stop us from crashing from exhaustion on a bench at the bottom. The Eiffel Tower sparkles every hour on the hour once the sun goes down, so we stuck around until 11:00 to see it (totally worth it, too! It was magical!). We finally made our way back to the hostel in a mid-zombie state, well aware of the fact that we only had a couple of hours til a flight in the morning. Although all the walking completely drained our energy, Paris was awesome. Plain and simple. Next stop: Pisa!

- Katie can pass as Irish because of her hair, and I can pass as British because of my clothes. Cool.
- Europeans have no reservations when it comes to PDA.
- Parisians love Nutella just as much as I do.