On our city tour, see the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Nôtre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre, shop on the Champs Elysées and stroll by the Seine. Tonight, why not experience a Parisian cabaret?
Another late morning, didn't have to get up till 7:15! It's a good thing since yesterday I started to get a cold and today I have a cold. At 8:45 the bus left for the Paris Opera House and the optional perfumery demo. I'm not really into perfume and I was congested so I skipped the perfumery. I headed to the Musee Louvre with Nicola, Alberto, Laurie, Garry, Chris, Lisa, and Ali. We quickly got in the Louvre using the back entrance that Hans had showed us the night before and our museum
cards we bought. We even managed to find our way around in spite of the fact that they ran out of English maps. Our first stop was Venus de Milo, pretty girl, too bad she doesn't have any arms. Then we headed through the grand gallery, from the Da Vinci Code, to the Mona Lisa. There was a line to see her, but you could take pictures, but they didn't come out well since she had glass or something covering her. After the Louvre we headed to Notre Dame, which was very nice. After that we all stopped for lunch at a little cafe by Notre Dame.
After lunch Alberto, Nicola and I separated from the rest of the group to go to see The Thinker at the Musee Rodin. We tried to take the Metro but I think we ended up in the wrong station and after examining the map for 20 minutes decided to just walk
to the Musee Rodin. We passed the Musse d'Orsay along the way, but didn't go in. While walking Alberto started to drive me nuts. He was walking with his map completely open and every now and then he would tell me where we were, except he would off by 2 blocks. Nothing like doing stuff that screams "tourist" to everyone around. At the Musse Rodin the gardens were beautiful and The Thinker was cool. We took a minute to sit down and rest our tired feet and figure out the Metro. We managed to take the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe without getting lost.When we got to the Arc de Trimophe it took us a few minutes but we finally found the walkway to the arc. Once in we climbed up a bazillion steps and finally were at the top. At the top we took some pictures and ran into Mike and Mel, we also sat down for a bit to rest our extremely tired feet. The view was really nice, but not as cool as the night view from the Eiffel Tower. On the way down we ran into Michael, Monica, Caitlin and some others. It's amazing how many people we could run into in a day in such a big city, we had run into Maya and some others in the Louvre and Simon and his group at Notre Dame. After the Arc we took a walk down the Champs Elysées for some shopping and delicious Sorbet that I would find. After a couple shops we ran into Maya, Anne, Roshni and Kreena. After that we all headed back to the hotel on the Metro.
After we got back I decided to take a walk to the internet cafe so I could send my "I'm in Paris" emails. When I got back I called mom, hung out with some tour mates in the lobby, and repacked a bit. So much for getting some rest before Moulin Rouge. Kamala, Mikki and I met up with Becca and Zeeni, but not until we were accosted by Frenchmen. We tried walking, but ended up taking the bus to Moulin Rouge, we found a nice little sidewalk cafe to have dinner at before the show. The waiter was very nice, especially considering Becca was the only one who spoke any French, and she didn't speak much. After dinner we finally went to see Moulin Rouge, it was a little weird, but a cool show. But I was so tiredd (should have taken a nap) that I was falling asleep at one point. At the end of the show we lost Becca and Zeeni so the 3 of us left together. Outside Kamala went across the street to take pictures while a bunch of Frenchmen decided they liked Mikki and I. I am not liking these Frenchmen! Anyway, we tried running across the street, yelling at them, but it took a few minutes to shake them, when we got to the bar to meet up with the rest of the group who had gone to the earlier show or had skipped the show all together.
By the time we got to the bar several people had already headed back to the hotel. But the rest of us had fun, I even danced. We left around 2:30 and we all decided it would be a good idea to walk back to the hotel. So Chris, Alberto, Simon, Kamala, Mark, Roshni, Kreena, Mikki, Vicky, Kenny, Michael, and some others walked. But our group got split up half way when someone got hungry and I didn't see the rest of them till morning. But we got to be the loud obnoxious people walking down the street, we didn't get back to the hotel till 3:10, I thought Hans said it was a 20 minute walk? Maybe if we were sober if would have been 20 minutes.
