The first thing we did was go to the D’orsay. It was really pretty and they had a lot of good paintings. My favorite (I guess because it’s one of Pari’s favorites) is Olympia. Even the building itself was pretty.
A kitty in the window we saw walking to the D'orsay
Outside the D'orsay
After the D’orsay we crossed the Seine and headed for the gardens (Jardin des Tuileries). It was really nice to just sit down. They had a bunch of sculptures and fountains. The fountains weren’t on though.
By that time the stale bread was no longer cutting it. So we set out for L’as du Fallafel which is in the Jewish Quarter. It took us a good 30 minutes to find the closest metro station. I thought we would never find one. The long journey was definitely worth it. This falafel was amazing! It was so big. It had cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, eggplant, hummus, delicious sauces, and about 5 falafel balls. It was so much better than Maoz’s 3 falafel balls. When we got to L’as we stood in this longish line and a guy came and took our ordered and he handed us a slip. Then we just had to hand that to the men making the sandwiches. It was almost an art how they were making them. In between each delicious ingredient they tapped the metal tongs. It was a show. We stood on the street eating our delicious falafel. (5 euro a sandwich).
L'as du Fallafel and graffiti.
When we were walking around we found this really cool bookstore. It had mostly art books but we were in desperate need of a good map. A good map (and Pari’s use of a good map) is truly a life saver. Before we got the map we would get so lost and none of the side streets are on the little maps. Now we were Paris travelling experts.
The Picasso museum was close so we decided to go since it was covered with the museum pass. Picasso was truly crazy. Pari thought that there were only two famous works. I feel like I would have felt disappointed if we would have had to pay. It was interesting I guess. I really liked the Nanny Goat. I googled it and it is made out of junk that he threw into his courtyard and then one day he decided to make a sculpture of a goat. See…he was crazy.
We went back in the direction of the D’orsay and went to the Louvre. It is huge. We only really went to one wing, Sully. The floors are marble and after about two hours our feet were killing us. We did get to see some really cool things though. Before we left Pari really wanted to see the Iranian Art. And let me tell you, I know why Pari loves kitties; it is in her blood. There were soo many pieces with lions.
Fact I got from good ol’ wikipedia:
In 1974, Egyptologists visiting his tomb noticed that the mummy's condition was rapidly deteriorating. They decided to fly Ramesses II's mummy to Paris for examination. Ramesses II was issued an Egyptian passport that listed his occupation as "King (deceased)". The mummy was received at Le Bourget airport, just outside Paris, with the full military honours befitting a king.
Only 1 little part of the Louvre
The inside part of the pyramid and Ramses II
Venus de Milo and Statue Ain Ghazal
Capital of Apadana
After the Louvre our feet hurt so bad that we just sat in the Tuileries for an hour. I had written down the address for a really good Crepe place and with the help of the new map we set forth. Au P’tit Grec was yet another awkward experience. It seemed as though the man making crepes was taking orders from everywhere and we wondered if we were even in line. But sure enough our time came to order. I got a plain Nutella crepe and Pari got a Nutella and banana crepe. He makes the crepe on a separate crepe maker thing to the side and then makes the actual crepe right in front of you. They really are huge. Three quarters of the way through my stomach started to hurt and I didn’t think I could finish it. I had to push myself to finish the warm, chocolately concoction. :D
Yet again with the map we found the Pantheon which was also covered by the museum pass. We went down the crypt. Voltaire, Alexandre Dumas, and Victor Hugo. Dumas was reburied here 132 years after his death. A lot of people’s hearts are placed in urns here. Kinda creepy.
After we walked straight down the street to the Luxembourg Gardens. We thought that they were better than the Tuileries. There were a lot more flowers and more people to look at. Yeah, it sounds a little stalkerish but you have to admit it is fun watching how dumb people are.
All of that walking was making us hungry again. We walked back to a internet café that we had passed and found the address to Krishna Bhavan, an all vegetarian Indian restaurant. It was really easy to find on the metro. Once we got off we were in Little India. It was a little crazy. At first we didn’t think it was going to be that good because there was hardly anything on the menu. I ordered Biryani (rice) and people got a masala dosa. The dosa came out and it was humungous. The biggest dosa we had ever seen. It was so tasty. This was probably the most authentic Indian food we have had.
We walked around Little India and found a bakery. Pari pointed to this pretty looking desert in the case. I am pretty sure the man was ripping us off a little bit by charging us 1 euro. The little thing was so crazy. It tasted exactly like rice pudding. It was really strange.
Then we went to the Arc de Triumph. It is bigger than I thought it was going to be. You get off the metro and after exiting to the street you walk under the street to get to it. Our pass covered walking up to the top. It wasn’t as bad as the Scott Monument but I felt like I was going to die. The view was amazing. You can see the whole city. I can’t compare it to the top of the Eiffel tower but we didn’t have to “queue” for this view. It was so windy at the top and you could tell a storm was coming.
After we went to Eiffel Tower. All of these people were selling little knick knacks. It is so irritating. They almost are harassing you, following you jingling there things. The Eiffel Tower was so neat. It is gigantic. It started to rain when we got there. And it wasn’t a straight down rain, it was sideways. I’m glad we brought the rain coats. We definitely got our monies worth. It was 10:45 so we only had to wait 15 more minutes for it to light up. Even though it was a downpour we still walked to the bridge that was close and waited. Every two minutes that passed felt like 5. It was so cold and the wind wasn’t helping at all. The crazy thing was that it stopped raining at the same time the tower started to light up. It was awesome, the lights were on for about 3 minutes. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
We were so cold and wet so we decided to call it a day. And a day it was. Once we got back to the hotel all we wanted to do was go to sleep. We were about to fall asleep when we hear a drip, drip, drip. The ceiling was leaking! So we went downstairs and told the man that barely spoke any English. He didn’t really understand us until I said drip, drip, drip. Then he went up to the room and saw that it was leaking and said that he thought there was another room. So we had to go back down the scary creaking elevator that goes down a little bit after you get on it and see if there was another room. Luckily there was another room. So we went back to room 44 and got our things and moved to room 41, which was a 4 person mixed dorm with nobody else in it. The elevator was next to the room so it was pretty noisy. I was so tired that it didn’t really matter.
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