Explorer le Musée du Louvre et D'aller Jusqu'à la Tour Eiffel

K Taralyn, this is the one you've been waiting for! On day 3 of Paris it was time to see the Louvre! I could not believe how incredibly massive it was. The tour guide lady on our cruise down the Seine told us that it would take 3 months to get a good look at every piece in the Louvre. I don't think we even scratched the surface. But what we did see was pretty sweet. I love the glass pyramid. :) It's pretty epic, plus it plays an important role in the Red Pyramid (read it Mom!!!).

The teeny Mona Lisa, with a sea of people in between us.

By far my favorite piece in the Louvre. She is so beautiful!

You get the idea. The Louvre is pretty sweet. The building itself is absolutely beautiful, and all the fine art doesn't hurt, either. I don't have much else to say about the Louvre though... pictures speak 1,000 words, right?

After we left the Louvre, we went to Jardine du Luxembourg, aka Luxembourg Gardens. This is when I realized that English gardens are about a million times better than French gardens. French gardens usually consist of some grass, sandy dirt, and square trees. Sometimes some shaped hedges. Not exactly my thing. We didn't do much there besides pay a Euro to go to the bathroom and get some really poor excuses for crepes (blech! They were awful). We also watched some little French tweens race around the pond. We were rooting for the girl but she lost by a long shot. :( After we left Luxembourg, we decided to go get a closer look at le Tour Eiffel.

It's pretty cool, I guess. :) I also really liked this carousel. I have a thing for carousels. They're so cute and pretty!

We hung around the Eiffel Tower for a little while, but then we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit. Kaity, Mary, and I all had a fairly low tolerance for the unpleasant aroma of eaux usées that wafts through les rues de Paris on a constant basis. We didn't stay there long before it was time to get some dinner and head back to the Eiffel Tower so that we could go up it! Getting back there was quite the adventure. First, we got some pizza from a bar/cafe on the street our hotel was on. There was a big language barrier, but before long we were able to decipher the menu and get something. It took forever for them to get the pizza out to us. By the time it came out we had to take it and go. We were halfway down the block when we figured out that they hadn't sliced the pizza. Our solution was to rip it and eat it as we walked. I felt like a savage. And it was a really awful pizza. We didn't have a very good food day. We wanted something to get the terrible aftertaste out of our mouths, so we stopped by our favorite patisserie, wherein I ordered a Tarte aux fraises et au chocolat Eclair. We took them to go then booked it to the Jares Metro station, huge box of pastries and all. When we got on the train, it w absolutely PACKED. Rush hour in Paris is way crazier than rush hour in London. We were packed in there like sardines. The whole ride there was a big hairy French armpit in my face. It was about a million degrees, and we were trying so hard to protect our box of precious pastries. We were miserable, but for some reason we all thought it was hilarious. We lost it. We were laughing like crazy while everyone else on the train looked at us like we were crazy. It didn't help that it was so hot that Mary's mascara melted and mixed with her sweat until it smeared all over her face. It was pure madness. When we got there, we opened our box of pastries. It was so sad. It was a mess. A melty mess. We ate it anyway. :) And it was gooooood. Do you know what else is good? The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower!!!!

That little tiny building in the distance is Sacre Couer. It doesn't look so big from 1000 feet up.

The skyline of Metropolitan Paris

This is really random, but this happens to be my favorite sign in all of Paris.  It was in the elevator up the tower.

Yeah we were really high up... it was epic.

Do you see the eensy teensy Notre Dame?

The sunset that day was spectacular. It was a pleasant view.

The Eiffel Tower is a lot more crowded up top than it is in the movies. But it was still quite amazing. We came down before the nightly sparkling, which I kind of regret. But it was still really beautiful from the bottom. I like it when it sparkles. Sparkly!

The train ride home was MUCH more enjoyable. The train was nearly empty, and this guy helped to make it especially great:

Sorry that the camera work is pretty bad. As awesome as this song was, the next one was even better. He started singing Numa Numa as soon as I turned my camera off. It was marvelous. There are few things as inspiring as a Frenchman singing Numa Numa. ;)