- It smells like BO. Paris, please invest in some deoderant. I'm not trying to be rude, but... well I have no excuse. Just do it.
- French people are rude. YES. I am completely generalizing here, but it is justified. Last year sometime, there was even a public service announcement pretty much telling the French people to be nicer to the tourists. So HA! Their own government even backs me up. The second day I was here, I was standing on a metro platform, which was fairly large, with 1 other person, talking. Other than the 2 of us, it was completely empty. From across the platform, a woman is powerwalking with her ipod, and heads straight in front of me, gives me a dirty look, says, "can I pass?!" in her super-rude French, and waited for me to move. LITERALLY an entire empty platform all around me. That's not just rude, that's stupid rude.
- The French wear stripes. Yes they do. More than anywhere else. And it's weird. But I kind of like it.
- They make fabulous croissants and baguettes. YES. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is absolutely true. This morning, I staggered out of bed in a strange sort of haze, put on some shoes, and walked outside until I smelled probably the most amazing smell I've ever smelled in my life. It sweetly beckoned me into the bakery on the corner, with an old woman just opening shop. Check out the trio:
BAM! Weird-shaped lump of croissant! Don't let this little mutant's looks turn you off. He knows how to please a woman.
BAM! Pain de Chocolat, croissant's dirty little cousin
BOOM! That's right. I don't even need to add innuendo to this. Take it!
You know, a lot of drug addicts talk about how they get a high just from thinking about using, or when they are about to use. That's pretty much the state I was in. Pastries clutched in hand, I shimmied back into my hostel with a big stupid grin on my face. Later, one of my hostel-mates told me that he saw me getting off the elevator, but I totally didn't see him. I only had eyes for baked goods.
After my steamy love-fest, I made myself decent and ventured off into the world.
By which I mean I went straight back to that bakery. I had to get my lunch for later! But holy moly, it was even more stocked than before. How do you choose from this?
The Louvre is enormous. Here is the Mona Lisa, I got it out of the way, and then got out of there as quickly as I could to the areas not swarming with a bunch of crazy tourists. Yes, I am a tourist too, but man do they get crazy!
Ding! Yeah, it's tiny, by the way.
I didn't take too many pictures in the Louvre, as taking pictures in museums is always kind of weird. It's never going to be as impressive as in real life, and feels like sort of a cheap copy. There were, however, a few things I couldn't resist, and some shots of just the Louvre itself, because the building is really beautiful. Enjoy.
Bet you didn't know the pyramids went underground as well. Well, unless you've been there. Then you would know. Actually, there's an entire underground shopping center and tunnel system. It cost Paris 1 billion Euros to carve it out (that's not an exaggeration, that was the actual cost), because as they were digging, they found the original foundations of the fortress that had been built here. So pretty much they had a million archeologists brush and scrape away the tunnels one tiny bit at a time.
I'm quite glad they preserved it, it's awesome to see the old foundations.
This is even a sort of moat around a tower!
Inside the pyramid, in case you hadn't guessed...
Did I mention the Louvre is enormous? I don't think I even got through the whole thing. I got lost like 3 times.
FSHWOOOOOM! I like this statue. I forgot what it was called. It's kind of famous or something. You know. One of those.
This dude is super rad. I wanted him to be my new boyfriend. But I was shy. And he was behind glass.
VeNUS! I don't know what to say about Venus. Go Venus! It's Venus. What do you want from me?!
Lunch time! This is a Paris Brest. Brests are delicious. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
GRAHSAMMICH! I put these pictures after the pictures of the Louvre, because I waited to eat lunch, like an adult, and didn't just eat these as soon as I got there...
*sigh* I just wanted to revisit this memory again
After my brain went numb from staring at a gajillion exhibits, I hopped a super crowded smelly metro up to Montmarte. This is where you can find the Saecre-Courexsfkdksjlj (spelling doesn't matter in French. They don't use most of those letters anyway). And it is a beautiful little French town, pretty much. You just kind of have to slip away out of the major touristy bits, and make it past the gypsies.
GAH IT WAS SO GOOOOD!
And I found this tree. I'm sorry to do this to you, but I couldn't resist. It was just too magnificent.
Paris has been a mild disappointment in the street art department. I had actually found one wall that looked like it had a cool mural, but it had been tagged over so badly you couldn't see it anymore. SUCK. Here are 3 things I found. No, 4. Sorry.
Exhibit A: Super creepy gangster conjoined twins. WTF?! And I think the left one is pregnant.
Completely unoriginal, but it's one of my favorite movies, so I accepted it.
This was probably the only actually cool thing I saw. IT is a fake person balled up on the wall. Super weird, and I've never seen anything like it, so props to this guy.
This one just made me chuckle and think of Ty, so I took a pic.
Overall, it was fairly underwhelming. Plus it was all pretty much in one place. Bleh. So I went home, and stared at the view out my window. And maybe ate some more baguette. Maybe...
Oh! I almost forgot. While I was at the Louvre, there was a very happy Rottweiler that ran through the fountains. I wanted to be him.
My cuteness detecting gland nearly exploded.
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