my little cwahsont (paris, part deux)

as a side note, my body for some reason has been telling me that sleep is unncessary, so the past two nights i've had a combined total of 10 hours of sleep...yet i feel great! i don't know what i'm flying high on, but let's hope it lasts! i woke up a few minutes ago, and felt OCD-ily compelled to update again. so allow to continue recanting our days in paris--

we slept like babies after all the sight-seeing previously described, and the next day awoke with renewed tourist vigor. we began the day by stopping in a little bakery for breakfast munchins. paris is stuffed with boulangeries, and the tantalizing smell of warm baguettes and pain au chocolate floats freely down the streets in the morning. i'd already sampled some of the baguette fare, though, so i opted for the quintessential french breakfast food: a croissant. it was crispy, impossibly flakey (i made a mess of myself and the floor, like a child), buttery and warm. long story short, it was really good. however, at the same time, i wouldn't say it was exponentially better than croissants in the US. dare i say that i've had croissants on par back in the states?

i also tried a small coffee (emphasis on small: it wasn't an espresso, but the french like their coffee petite and fierce. i prefer mine large and fierce, but there you go). after snarfing, we skipped over to the louvre, to spend a few hours there running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to squeeze in all the must-sees. i felt like a bit of a tool for hitting up all of the very famous pieces, but the place is so incredibly gigantic that i had no other means of navigating my journey. i did see some other cool stuff on the way, though!

first, we followed the sizable crowd to the mona lisa. the amount of people was ridiculous, so it wasn't the best way to enjoy and appreciate a painting. i snapped a photo, and after a few minutes of being elbowed by a very aggressive old chinese lady, moved. but here she is, the mona lisa:

look at her, smirkin. she thinks she's soooo great

after mona, our group dispersed and everyone did their own thing. after getting really lost (which happened repeatedly in the museum, btw), i managed to find the venus de milo

and, after her, continued my journey...

the turkish bath! there were lots of artists in the louvre doing mimic paintings, which was cool to see

napoleon's apartment! guy was livin large, louvre style

"cupid and psyche,"probably my favorite "famous" thing. the picture doesn't really convey how beautiful the sculpture really was. i loved cupid's wings

after our drive-thru version of the museum, we were utterly famished. but first, i had to do a little errand for my parents. their friend wanted some really special choc from this place called "debauve et gallais," which happened to be close to the louvre. we found it, and the place was gorgeous and delicious-looking. really high-quality stuff. but the lady working there was a bit austere (unhappy in a chocolate shop?! witch!), and the shop was eerily silent. so i awkwardly bought the goods and we split!

then, we met up with lauren's friend david again, who took us to "marais," the jewish/gay part of town, for amazing falafel. the restaurant was endorsed by lenny kravitz, randomly, so you know it's good. afterwards, we stopped for "macarons," which are NOT macaroons (gross), but rather these sort of half-cookie, half-cake dealies that are a delicacy. i got a chocolate one, and it was pretty good, but not my favorite. i'd rather have a crepe!

macarons

after stuffing ourselves silly with the out of control falafel, we walked to the french pantheon, the side of many famous frenchie graves. the place was impressive and gigantic, as shown below

inside, there was this pendulum designed to show the earth's rotation and orbit. if i was a science nerd, i'd probably appreciate it more.

i headed down to the crypts, and got to see the graves of voltaire, rousseau, hugo, braille, and curie! then, our group rejoined and we hiked to the top of the pantheon. first we got some inside views, then yet another panoramic view of paris. we began to joke that our trip should be dubbed "the epic stair climb," we'd climbed so many things by that point. and there was more up ahead, in nice! but anyways, more pictures...

a very unattractive photo of me. you're welcome?

can you spot the notre dame?

once up there, it started to rain, which perfectly foiled our plans to hang out in the tuilleries gardens. instead, shaking in the cold, we headed home to rest, becuase it had been such a go-go-go 48 hours. then, a few hours later, we went to dinner at a place called "le marathon," where you could get three courses for 10 euro! i dont think the waiters liked us much, becuase they kept making fun of us with sour faces, but the food was good. i had an utterly yummy french onion soup, roast chicken, and chocolate mousse.

but of course, being americans, a three course dinner wasn't enough. afterwards, we got crepes! i tried a simple butter-and-sugar one, and it was really nice, but not quite up to nutella standards. unfortunatley, as we were buying them, it began to pour. naturally, we had no umbrella, so we ran the 10 minutes back to our hotel, getting wonderfully soaked. we burst into the hotel lobby, clutching our soggy crepes and looking like a pack of wild, wet dogs. i couldn't imagine a better ending to the day.

the next day we were training it to nice, early in the morning, so we had to get some good shut-eye. and thus ends paris, for now! she'd be making reappearances later in our journeys, so it's not time for "adieu" just yet. but, i do have to write my essay, so until next time--

wistfully (wheres my cwahsont now??),
lilly