(April 26, Paris): Skip to the Louvre, my Darling

If any of us had put half as much effort into our SATs as we did into jam-packing day 2 of Paris-ism (Paris + tourism) as chock-full of sight-seeing as we could manage then perhaps we would have all gotten 1600s**.  We planned to start at Notre Dame, head to the Louvre, walk through the Louvre gardens, go check out the Arc de Triomphe, have with crepes on the Eiffel Tower lawn and wrap up the day with a trip up the Eiffel Tower.  If you're laughing at us undertaking this ambitious of a plan- you probably did get a 1600.  What is it they say about the best laid plans?  That you wind up getting lost and only doing half of those things instead?  I think it's something like that.

So, we started the day off enjoying Ryan's "comped" breakfast.  I'm pretty sure watching Ryan & Jonathan tear through their croissants and fried eggs made the hotel staff consider increasing the price of said breakfast so as not to end up in the red, but that is neither here nor there.  After acquiring sufficient nutella fuel, we hit the streets en route to Notre Dame.  Although the weather forecast promised us a prettier day than Wednesday, they really didn't go above and beyond.  It was slightly less windy and still pretty cloudy.  Luckily since we stayed a few blocks from the Louvre, the walk to Notre Dame wasn't too bad.  Particularly for the half of the sight seeing tour that discussed the intricacies of their Apple stock the entire way.

A shot of the edge of the Louvre on our walk to Notre Dame.  When your options are joining in on stock talk or taking random photos- I believe the choice is obvious.

 

We couldn't figure out what this building was- even with the assistance of a map.  That won't stop me from posting a picture of it though.  Don't you worry!

Once we arrived at Notre Dame, Jake celebrated by dropping his binky on the ground.  Looking back upon this moment, I believe this is what my highschool English teacher was trying to teach me to call "foreshadowing."  Binky is to 17 month old as "other other shoe" is to the adult world.  Up to this moment (excluding a portion of our time in Musee D'Orsay), Jake had been the picture of a perfect little traveller.  All other travelling mothers probably would have looked at their own 17 month olds and said "why can't you be more like Jake?"   Day 4 of getting toted around in foreign lands was where he drew the line.  Who could blame him?  We were definitely pushing the envelope.  

Notre Dame is such an overwhelmingly impressive cathedral.  The ceilings, architecture, stained glass and history are second to none, in my opinion.  You should certainly swing by if given the opportunity.   My favorite part, of course, we was the stained glass.  I think Jake's was exiting the building.

 

Ryan, sa dame (his lady) & Notre Dame (our lady).

I can only imagine how long it took to carve even 1 of those 28 statues in the gallery of kings.  Longer than an episode of House Hunters which is about the extent of my attention span.

Oh, did you think we'd make it through a cathedral without a shot of the ceiling arches?  Wrong again, my friends- wrong a-gain.

 

Love.

 

Love even more.

After we stepped back into the sunlight Jake-y started to feel a little bit better.  Maybe he just doesn't like French Gothic architecture?  Everyone is entitled to their opinion, after all.  Since he seemed to be in better spirits, and since none of my travel compadres had been there before, we decided to continue on to the Louvre in keeping with our plan.  We stopped by a couple of pet stores on the way that were not included in the plan.  Who doesn't like to look at animals though?!  Thankfully transporting a dog back to the US sounds hard or Ryan & I might have come home with a French Bulldog as a souvenir rather than just wine.

 

Ryan & I looking in-Seine-ly touristy.  (Ohhh I went there).

 

Louvre courtyard.  Did you know the Louvre used to be a palace?  Thats why it's so ginormous.

 

Sadly the pyramid always makes me think of the Da Vinci code.  What?  Pop culture saturates my life?  Nooooooo.

Once we made it inside, we made a beeline for the wing with the Venus de Milo & the Mona Lisa.  If you aren't a super duper art fanatic (ahem, me), just the size of the Louvre is incredibly intimidating.  Making it through 1 of the 4 wings sounds like a serious accomplishment.  So we decided since Venus & Mona were in the same wing that would be the best bang for our buck.

I think Jake found the plethora of naked, marble folk a little offensive.  He started informing us as such through throwing a code red fit.  After seeing the Venus de Milo Melanie decided that she should take Jake back to the hotel to try to calm him down. 

 

Venus striking a pose.  Nevermind Twiggy, I think this was the original supermodel.

 

 Ryan & I insisted that Melanie come check out the Mona Lisa since she was so close that you could almost taste it. So we tried to run (pretty literally) over to the Mona Lisa while Jonathan sat with Jake on a bench.   Melanie turned around before we made it to the Mona Lisa and promised to send Jonathan to Ryan & I after she retrieved Jake from him. So the plan was for Ryan & I to hang out and chat with Mona while waiting for Jonathan to meet us.  Sounds easy  enough, right?  Well, all of us failed to take into account the Jonathan's "feel" factor.  Ryan & I wandered around the room that the Mona Lisa was in for about 35 minutes and never found Jonathan.  

At this point I was feeling a little panicked since we didn't have a phone and thus no way to get a hold of anyone.  (How did people do it before cell phones?!)  So Ryan back tracked to where we left him while I held guard from a bench just outide the room.  Both of us came up empty handed.  We decided that since Ryan had never been to the Louvre and it was the thing he was most excited about that we should go ahead and check it out.  We crossed our fingers that Jonathan's feel would lead him back to the hotel and continued playing art historians.

 

Mona.  I find it so comical that she's in a room surrounded by HUGE paintings that dwarf her, yet she's the biggest star.  Good things come in small packages, I suppose.

 

After we scoured the wing with the Greek statues and Italian paintings, we decided to check out the wing with the Egyptian artifacts.  As you may recall if you read Boarman family Euro-trip 2010, I fell in love with Egypt when we went to Cairo.  I was bummed Ryan wasn't there to share in it at the time, so it was cool to get to see some pieces of Egypt here with him.  Here's a Sphinx (sphink-us to you, Mom & Julie) reproduction.

 

Sarcophogus.  They had a TON of these.

Post Egyptian artifact-ing, Ryan & I decided we should probably head back to the hotel to check on the other half of our travelling circus.  By this time it was around 3 and we were starved, so we committed the cardinal tourist sin for the 2nd time on this vacation and swung by McDonald's.  DOH.  Although, to our credit Ryan really embraced the local culture by ordering something called (I swear I didn't make this up) the McBaguette.

When we made it back to the hotel we found the McClains safe, sound and happy as clams.  We all jointly made the executive decision that a little nap might be in everyone's best interest.  They had arranged a sitter for Jake for the evening.  So we decided free time was in order until 6 of so when the sitter arrived.  Ryan & I napped, iPaded and enjoyed some more BBC.  At 6 we met down in the hotel lobby for a drink and then set out for the Eiffel Tower.

So maybe we didn't get an up close and personal view of the Arc de Triomphe, we did see it on our walk.  Does this count as sticking to the plan?

 

The beginning of my photographic love affair with the Eiffel Tower.  We'll call this Eiffel Tower + Seine.

 

This one = Eiffel Tower + Foliage.

 

Oh look!  I took a little break for a moment in our walk of taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower.  Isn't this wall awesome?  Those are all real plants.  (I touched them to make sure- duh.)

 

Melanie and I obviously belong in a musical.

 

Eiffel Tower + Husband channeling a Chorus Line?

 

Eiffel Tower does Britney.

 

We walked up to the Eiffel Tower to see how long the lines were and determine if we wanted to try to go up to the top.  After taking one look at how long the line was, and how many tour groups from Junior Highs it included, we decided that a cocktail sounded much more appealing.  (Ryan & I have both been to the top before - so this was not as much of a tourism fail as I'm sure you're imagining).

A block or so from the tower, we found a street with a bunch of sidewalk cafes.  We selected 1 with an excellent looking menu and a really nice hostess.  The weather was so nice that it would have been criminal not to eat outside.  Dinner and drinks with a side of Euro people-watching?  Yes, please.

 

Melanie was adventurous and ordered escargot.  She & I both sampled it and decided it was not something we would order again, BUT kudos to her for making us try something new.  The boys were pansies and wouldn't give it a shot.

 

Ryan ordered Croque Madame.  Again.  The boys shoveled moutard into their mouths.  Again.

The better half of the McMartins.

C'est bon.

Once we got our fill of delicious food and euro-mullet, we decided to call it a day and go back to the hotel to relieve the sitter.  Well, Melanie and I did.  The boys went out for a night cap and accidentally wound up at an Ivy League happy hour at an Irish Bar.  A&M is the Yale of the College Station area, right? 

Last one, I promise.

While the day didn't go EXACTLY according to our over-achieving plan, I would still classify it as pretty darn perfect.  Much love to my fellow travellers for making it that way.

NEXT UP:  Our LAST day and thus my LAST post about this trip.  Crazaaaaay!

** for the youth of America who now take SATs with like 50,000 as a possible score - 1600 used to be a perfect score in my day.  That is today's history lesson.