Day 6
We woke up to another day of rain. And it was a Tuesday, the day almost every museum is closed! That is except the Muse D'orsay! So when we approached there was a big long line..in the rain. There were these guys selling umbrella and they kept Tim and I entertained because they just kept saying "umbrella-umbrella" really fast they sounded like the bad guys in Temple of Doom.
After we got in, the wait was certainly worth it. For those unfamiliar with the museum it is a converted train station and the building itself is just as magnificent as the art work it houses. We were very excited to take tons of pictures and then we were told no photography... boo! We did sneak in some picture taking while museum.
Cool eh? You can just picture a train going right down the center of instead of art work. There was amazing stuff here including Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait. The museum also houses one of the most impressive collections of impressionism.
When we made to the top of the museum it had some of the most amazing views of the city, framed within a clock.
After the museum we took our afternoon break. Afterwards we decided to check out a mall. Yeah Paris mall was a dumb idea, I felt so poor. It was ridiculously lush and we were so out of place. I was afraid to just touch anything! The trip to the mall wasn't a total bust because then we went to a super market and got some dinner. There was a lot of weird stuff there but we got some decent food.
This was our second to last day and we were pretty burnt out so we called it an early night and passed out.
Day 7
This was our last full day in Paris! So we had to make it count! We got up fairly early and we headed toward the Notre Dame. Even though we had seen the outside we haven't gone in so this was our chance. The inside of the Notre Dame is just as amazing and impressive as the outside. It was amazing and so massive. It was quite musty inside but then again this thing is around 800 years old. It certainly was amazing to think of all of the lives to walk in and out of this place the last few centuries, who else has gazed upon the amazing rose windows, who else has lit a candle by Joan of Arc's statue?
Afterwards we went to check out the bell tower situation. You can walk up and take a gander of the city from the same spot at Quasimoto. However it was quite a trek up stairs and we had already decided to do the catacombs that day so the tower was out.
The catacombs had quite a long wait but worth it. After getting in we took steps down and down and down underneath the city. I was starting to get freaked out. When we first entered there was some information about how the catacombs were originally a rock quarry. It had been abandoned for a certain number of years until it was seen as a solution to an overcrowding problem in the cities cemeteries.
We walked through the quarry section first. Even though there were no bones here I was freaked out! The pathways o the old quarry were closed off by gates. On the other side of the gate was just complete darkness and that scared the crap out of me! So when ever we came across one of those gates I made Tim walk in front of me. We saw some other neato things that reminded me of Indiana Jones big time. Feeling like a bad ass Indie ended quickly as soon as we came across some bones. That crap was so damn freaky because at some points it is so cramped and you are surrounded by bones on either side of you. There are signs that say don't touch remains but it was a hard not to graze and skull. At one point Tim touched one intentionally and it freaked me out! One thing that was also really weird about it are the people that work there. Every museum usually has some one sitting around making sure people aren't screwing around with items in the museum. The Catacombs had its own set of people that just sit there and hang out with these piles of bones...weird. I guess you are desensitized to it after a while.
After climbing up from the Catacombs we went over to Monmartre. We decided to meet up with another Discovery Walks tour and our guide ended up being Phillipe again! The tour met in front of the Moulin Rouge then proceeded up to one of the highest points in the city.
This neighborhood was the hangouts of Toulouse Lautrec, Picaso and Van Gogh. I was glad to see that the spirit of art is still alive in that street art is present every where and is embraced.
Momartre is on a hill so through out the tour we were making our way up the hill. At the end of the tour we ended up at the La Basilique du Sacre Coeur. Which I gotta say was pretty meh. Phillipe expressed is ultimate hate for that place also he pointed out that is very touristy. However across the street from the Basilica is some of the most amazing views of the city.
Momartre was also the neighborhood of Amelie! The dinner she worked at, Cafe 2 Moulins is right there! We went there for lunch and I was very giddy. They kept the restaurant really close to how it was in the movie, with the exception of the cigarette counter. The cafe was also cashing in on the fact that the movie took place there because pictures of Amelie are all over the place. Her face even graces the menu!
After getting some food in us we decided we went to see some more death so we headed over to one of Paris' most famous cemeteries, Pere Lachaise. We saw some interesting resting places. One of the cemeteries most famous residents, Jim Morrison was barricaded and a security guard was on standby. A tree nearby was full of graffiti with sayings like 'mojo rising' and 'the lizard king.' I thought that was pretty crazy until we came across Oscar Wilde. A glass barrier surrounds the giant flying angel statue. That barrier is covered in red lip stick kisses. A weird Frenchmen showing some people around gave my forehead a little smack and said "Kiss him!" then walked away. Yeah I didn't feel like catching some kind of gross disease from all of that lipstick built up so I did not kiss his statue.
After a crazy day of sooo much site seeing we headed back to chill out. However before leaving we had to sneak in one last belgium waffle!
Day 8: Travel (almost) nightmare
We woke up the next morning and to our surprise we saw it was 7:00 instead of 6:00 (which is when we needed to wake up) So we real quick scrambled to get ready and pack up. Tim was reassuring me that it was ok we had plenty of time and we had planned to leave early anyway. So we thought we had time. That was until we read the train schedule wrong and we really weren't sure where we were headed. We had to transfer and waited for what seemed like forever until we finally made it to the airport. Our boarding passes said "plane boards at 9:50" that was the exact time we reached the customs window. I was having serious stress and panic attacks! Luckily customs was quick. Immediately afterwards we ran so fast on one of those Jetson's conveyer belt things screaming "exusse" We made it to the gate severely out of breath when we read on the gate "Flight delayed" THANK GOD! So we caught our breathes and made our way home.
