Paris, day 2: Museum Pass, bird poop edition

Our second day in Paris, we decided to get the two-day museum pass. And we decided to take advantage of it. That was the plan, anyways.

Our first stop was the Pantheon, which was actually pretty random – it was just the closest place to the hotel that sold the museum pass. However, if you have the pass, the museum is worth visiting for the cool crypt, which includes the tombs of Marie Curie and Victor Hugo, among others.

Louvre courtyard

At that point, it was time to conquer the Louvre. That was quite a mission! When we first started out, I though to myself, “This isn’t going to be so bad, we can do it!” But it truly was an overwhelming amount of exhibits, and in the end I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to.

If you've read the DaVinci Code, you know what's hidden here in the Louvre

I did get to see a lot of French paintings, which I haven’t had too much exposure to before. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, which was a little bit of a let-down since the relatively small painting is housed behind glass and roped off. Not to mention the relentless crowd swarming the area – more focused on snapping photos than actually looking at art.

We tracked down the Venus de Milo sculpture, but I actually enjoyed the Winged Victory of Samothrace better. The museum also has a pretty extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts – so extensive that I unfortunately didn’t get through them all. There was only a small section of Spanish paintings, which I’m realizing are my favorites.

Me and D in the Louvre. Just trust me, we're in the Louvre.

Funny enough, we ran into our Chicago/Indiana friends from the champagne cruise at the museum, too. Either it’s a small world, or us Chicagoans like our art.

After a few hours trying to make it through the Louvre, we had to call it quits (after a visit to the gift shop, of course).

We go outside to sit on a bench in the shade and relax. I have a nice view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance…and all of a sudden Daniela and I feel something hit us. It’s bird shit! Daniela is freaking out because a piece of it landed in her white jeans. In the meantime, I have crap all over my hair! I know it’s good luck to get shit on, but it was pretty damn gross. After some stern words, I finally convinced Daniela to get over the grossness and help me scoop the poop out of my hair. Needless to say, we hurried back to the hotel where I proceeded to wash my hair a few times.

View of the Seine & Notre Dame at sunset as we crossed Ile St Louis on our way to Le Marais

After recuperating, we walked across Ile St. Louis to the Le Marais neighborhood for dinner. We promptly got rejected from a couple fancy-looking restaurants located on a quiet street right next to a big church as the hosts looked at us in disdain when we tried to get a table without having a reservation. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we truly experienced French food while in Paris. It seems like we just chose a lot of random, mediocre spots to eat.

After dinner, we walked through the Le Marais neighborhood which I liked a lot. It has a bit of a boystown vibe, but it’s the old Jewish quarters of Paris, so this part of town is made up of those old school, narrow streets I love.

This is where our walking mission began. We strolled through Bastille to the (nearly) 12th arrondissement to see our champagne cruise host aka aspiring musician, Brendan, play at some random cafe. The gig was actually in a nice area – Daumesnil Avenue – and there was a charming viaduct/promenade area there with restaurants and shops. However, it was late and maybe wasn’t the best idea for two girls to be walking across Paris at night alone.

Regardless, we made it there just fine in the end. Unfortunately, we missed our buddy Brendan’s set. We did, however, catch this other character – a middle-aged American (or Canadian) blues rocker who clearly had some stories to tell. His repertoire included such classics like, “Nobody ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole” and “Paco Apacolypte.” Our closest taste of any kind of Parisian nightlife!

Bonjour, Paris! Popping bottles and climbing stairs

Our first actual day in Paris, we did our own little walking tour. But first things first – food. We sit down at a cafe, and Daniela orders her usual – a Coke. They have three sizes, so she asks me which one she should get, and I say medium. But of course, she goes for the large size. Next thing we know, the waiter comes out holding a 2-liter mug filled with Coke, complete with fireworks. If that’s not the breakfast of champions, I don’t know what is:

Our first stop on the Agatha and Daniela Walking Tour was Ile de la Cite, the island on which the Notre Dame is located. It was insane to actually stand in front of this immensely historic building.

Then we kept strolling to the other bank and walked all the way to the Louvre. When we walked into the main courtyard of the Louvre and saw the huge pyramid structure, I have to admit that I got a little emotional; I just felt a burst of emotion swell in my chest. Paris seems to have a very emotional effect on me – just being here for the first time and seeing these world-reknown sites. They are truly beautiful and impressive.

At this point, we had taken a little detour to Starbucks and the tourism office to collect a bunch of brochures. We were hot, tired and sweaty, so Daniela and I headed to the Tuileries Gardens right in front of the Louvre to sit and rest. And watch the adorable duckies in the pond – well I watched them, you know how Daniela feels about animals.

Tuileries Gardens

We decided to take a champagne cruise to top off our first day in Paris. The boat cruise was a good call. On our way to the boat, we got our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, since our tour took off from the Seine right at the foot of the tower.

Our group of champagne drinkers had a nice VIP area at the front of the boat, closed off from the rest of the people (thank God!). And our group was pretty small, just about 10-12 people altogether. Funny enough, there was a family there from Chicago, too. Either it’s a really small world, or us Chicagoans really like our champagne cruises!

It was a beautiful cruise up and down the Seine River, right as the sun was beginning to go down. The boat took us from the Eiffel Tower, down to the Notre Dame, around Ile St. Louis and back again. Plus we had fun chatting with the other folks in the group – the family from Chicago, an Australian couple and our champagne tasting host, who ironically was from Indiana.

After the cruise, Daniela and I decided to get some dinner before tackling the Eiffel Tower, especially since we were feeling the effects of the champagne tasting. After dinner, we had a decision to make: pay extra to take the elevator to the very top (yikes!) or climb up God knows how many stairs to the second platform. I’m not sure if it was the champagne talking or us just being cheap – I mean frugal – but we decided to take the stairs.

View of Paris from the Eiffel Tower

It was pretty rough, especially since we were dolled up in dresses and not optimal climbing shoes. It was worth it though, being inside that steel structure and looking out over Paris. And we climbed back down in time to see the tower light up in the dark with thousands of twinkling lights – another emotional experience.

At that point, we were truly exhausted (and a little crabby) so, after a little drama catching a cab, went to the hotel and literally knocked out as soon as our bodies hit the bed. Ok, maybe I woke up a couple hours later to throw a tantrum about Daniela’s purse being on my side of the bed, but after that it was back to sleep.

Mission impossible: London to Paris edition

To get from London to Paris, we took the train (or as my mom called it, a rocket) for a two-hour trip under the English Channel. The actual train ride was fine, although not really too exciting because I couldn’t even tell when we were under water exactly since we were just going through a dark tunnel. A lot of ear-popping though. And very cool that Londoners could be in Paris in two hours (and vice versa).

Even though I try really hard to think things out when planning a trip, my attempts at rational decision-making always seem to fail miserably.

I thought it would be good to stay in London as late as possible and take the last train of the day to Paris so we could get the most out of our time in London. However, we were too exhausted at that point to spend the entire day walking around London, so Daniela and I ended up spending two hours at the hotel lobby, using the internet (and we still didn’t book a Barcelona hotel!).

Too make matters worse, I didn’t realize that Paris was an hour later than London, so by the time we arrived in the city of lights, it was actually almost midnight, not eleven like I had expected. Needless to say, arriving in a country completely foreign to us, where neither of us knew the language at all, at midnight when the train station is empty, was not a great feeling.

First mission, I had to find an ATM since we didn’t have any Euros yet. Second mission, I tried to track down some info about the metro, but by the time I found the stop and grabbed a schedule, the metro was about to stop running for the night. Mission number trois was to catch a cab, so we found the (very long) line at the taxi stand and cabbed it to the hotel.

Even just driving through Paris at night, I already felt like now we had truly arrived in Europe. We made it to the hotel and had just enough time to run into the little convenience store next door to grab some dinner – aka toast and cheese.