Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Hail Storms

10:38 PM Paris

                This morning we woke up to the alarm set for 7:30 AM because we told Marie (bed and breakfast owner) that we’d have breakfast and coffee at 9.  We got dressed and she didn’t end up even coming down until about 9:15… could have slept longer ;) She heated up croissants and bread, and made a French press and poured OJ.  She asked us if we liked our coffee like “Americans” … as in… weak (I told this to Andrew - you know, my brother - later and he was like, haha they are SO snobby, aren't they!?).  Andy and I were like, what? Absolutely not… make it properly :P It was strong and awesome!  We still don’t think she likes us much; we tried to strike up conversation but she isn’t too responsive.  She also scolded me for not pushing in my chair all the way… we had a proper Parisian breakfast in a very proper household.

                After breakfast, Marie went to the dentist and we watched some youtube videos about how to speak French.  We practiced our Bonjour, ce va? and je ne parle pas francais, parle vous anglais?(I don’t speak French, do you speak English?) all the way to the metro station. We got off the puke green line at Bourse station which is a few blocks from the Louvre.  Today there was a little craft show/festival going on right by the museum that was very exciting.  Parts of it reminded me of Mom again because there was a garden right in the middle growing fresh veggies (eggplant, tomato, peppers, you name it) and there were these awful lawn ornament windmill type thingys that were shaped like different animals.  I started laughing because all I could think about was when Mom and I went to the craft show in Champaign on Mom’s Weekend and the ridiculous, 6 foot tall bird house lawn ornaments were all the rage.  Those moms would have gone ape shit for these animal shaped wind mills.

                People keep thinking I’m Spanish… I think because I’m brown and carry a bag that says BARCELONA now.  The guy at the macaroon stand was beckoning me in Spanish and the lady at the pastry shop last night asked is we were from Espana (by the way… pastry shop was closed tonight when we got back! So mad – we wanted those almond pastries! Not sure why she was open at 8:30 on a Wednesday but closed by 8 on a Thursday L)

                We stepped into the Louvre courtyard and I thought I stepped into another world.  It was very, very cool.  The line wasn’t too bad either! We have the Louvre planned for tomorrow, though.  For those of you who have been to Paris and told me all the things to go do – you must remember we only have two full days and don’t get to do everything we want to do L I likely won’t get to see the Arc de Triomphe, for example, because it’s just so out of the way and tomorrow I want to see both the Louvre and Notre Dame.  Today we went to the Eifel Tower (we didn’t go up!! Long line and short on time!).  The weather was awful!  It would be very sunny, and then it would start raining, then sunny again, then cold rain, then sunny, then HAIL.  At the yard by the Eifel (by the way… thought the park by the tower would be a little prettier than it was… it wasn’t all that great.  It was just some fenced up grass and a few benches) we ate some of the bread from yesterday and got stalked by a hungry pigeon.  Once the pigeon realized it wasn’t getting any bread (it definitely paced our area for a good while!), it retreated.  We were lucky enough that it was sunny while we were sitting there enjoying the view.  We went across the street to search for a guide book for Paris before tackling any museums only to realize that the little vendor only sold miniature Eifel Towers and other useless souvenirs.  No guide books.  The clouds look looming, so we bought an umbrella (we had just about had enough of this Parisian cold rain) and about as soon as we stepped out the vendor’s tent… it started HAILING!  We ran to a different vendor (crepes and ice cream!) and crouched under its little awning and tried to save our new, cheap umbrella from certain death in Paris wind while saving ourselves from getting soaked.  The storm finally died down and it started getting sunny (and we thought DeKalb weather was bad!) and we set out for the Orsay Museum.  This particular museum has art from the 19^th century onward and sparked my interest from art history last semester and just from loving the impressionist movement from learning about it in high school.  It cost us €9.00 each to get in (this included the temporary exhibit as well!).  We got to see so many pieces by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, and so many more! The temporary exhibit was all about Dark Romanticism and the bizarre. Andy really enjoyed it because it had a lot of paintings perceiving Dante’s hell as well as short films, including a clip from Frankenstein. 

                Our feet and legs are REALLY over us killing them for the past 5 days so we left the museum and limped (okay, I limped, Andy’s still fine… I’m the one with crater sized blisters!) to a restaurant across from the Louvre (15 minute walk or so from the Eifel) where the options were drinks, drinks with snacks, or full meal.  Having realized that we’ve had nothing but bread (literally! The whole losing weight in Europe thing? Totally true.) for the past 4 meals, we opted for full meal.  There was a delicious sounding soup + entrée + dessert option for €30 per person… but we decided to still be conservative (not wanting to repeat ourselves after tapas disaster in Barcelona) and just order entrees, 50 mL of rosé wine (enough for 4 glasses) and one dessert.  Beef bourguignon? Fantastic.  Literally only ordered it because of the scene in Julie and Julia where she’s trying to make it and it goes all wrong! Andy got some kind of peppered steak (it was amazing!!) and everything came with a side of fries and some bread.  It was the best meal we’ve had so far and probably the best meal we’ve had out in a long time!  For dessert, we got chocolate mousse, which I barely got a picture of because it was devoured. The whole meal cost €53 which is still €10 less than the really, kind of rough, tourist trap one we got sucked into in Spain.  Worth every cent euro (as Andy would say… HEY they’re different then cent dollars!).

                Thank goodness we got dessert at the restaurant because all the pastry shops near us were closed L Oh, Andy wants me to note a huge different between Paris and say, Chicago.  Everywhere in Paris looks like Paris.  For example, if you ride the puke green line for 15-20 minutes outside the city center, you step out again and everything still looks exactly the same.  It isn’t like Chicago where one main area has sky scrapers and you ride the CTA for 15-20 minutes and you end up in the projects or in boys town or Lincoln Park or China town.  Paris is so easy to get lost in, because of this.  It all looks old, wonderful, rustic, beautiful, and it’s all French to me!

                We grabbed a bottle of cheap wine from the supermarket down the street and finally rested again.  Every day is an adventure and my feet really need to keep up.  I only have so many band-aids.