Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Like I said before, Michael woke us up at the ungodly hour of 7am, after a pretty late night. We walked down to the cafe on the corner and had coffee while we made our plans for the day. After that we wandered until we stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall cafe and had breakfast. It was delicious, and we were doubly impressed because it was also relatively inexpensive (so far, everything in Paris has been very pricey, i.e., the average soda in a restaurant is 4 dollars!) The breakfast included orange juice, cappuccino, eggs, ham, and croissants for about 10 dollars. I know, If you go to waffle house you will get twice that for half the price, but you won't get a cute french guy to call you mademoiselle. Just sayin' (You're more likely to encounter a rather large, older woman with a 3 day beard).

I realized after I published Tuesday's blog that I forgot to tell you about the breakdancers we saw in the street. They were pretty awesome and I got a video (or ten).. I will try to post it for you later. For now, here´s a regular picture:

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After breakfast we went shopping again on the Champs Elysees, which I described earlier to you as a main street that begins at the Arc de Triomphe. We eventually decided to visit the Eiffel Tower and made our way in that direction. When we arrived we realized that there were easily over a thousand people there waiting to be herded 6 at a time in an elevator to the top. Ummm... bit of a wait, you think? We're not patient people. We're Americans!! We decided to skip the trek to the top of the tower for the moment and find something cooler to do.

We definitely found it! We passed a sign advertising boat rides on The Seine for 12 euros, so roughly $15 bucks. This was an awesome find because there are over 75 bridges crossing The Seine, and the tour started at the Eiffel Tower and passed Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsy, and a few other major tourist attractions. We got beautiful pictures of everything, the weather was fine, and it was nice to be able to not walk for a while while we enjoyed the cruise.
The gift shop located at the docking station for the cruise had some beautiful scarves, and I looked at them with the intention of purchasing souvenirs. They were SO gorgeous, however, that I ended up purchasing 4 of them (in purple, pink, black/white, and black/pink if you're curious :-P) and keeping them all for my greedy self! I was excited to find that they were only 4 euros a piece, which was amazing, considering that you pay that much for a Coke here (atrocious!!)


Michael got bored while I was looking at the scarves so he mosied on over to the outdoor bar across the street and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, except that apparently the only similarities were large amounts of alcohol and a brown color. I tried to get a strawberry daiquirii but the bartender was very confused so I ordered a Pina Colada off the menu. It was horrible!! It wasn't frozen so the texture was weird and I choked on every sip it was sooo strong. I placed the drink on the small table that is so characteristic of Paris (about a 24" diamater circle is the standard) and joined in the lovely conversation with my traveling partners. 5 minutes later my graceful uncle elbowed my extra large liquid Pina Colada into my lap, successfully covering the entire front of my skirt and bag. Jeez. That really blew, but maybe as a consolation prize the good looking/non-english speaking bartender insisted on helping me clean up. I let him :-P



Luckily for me I'm brilliant and wore a cotton skirt that dried quickly and off we went in search of more cultural experiences! We found our way to Notre Dame, and I won't go into too many boring details except to tell you that it was breath taking, we got shushed by little old catholic ladies for being loud, and I nearly had a panic attack because I got separated from Danielle/Eric/Michael as there were about 400 people in one cathedral.



Outside of Notre Dame we encountered an older couple feeding the pigeons. Danielle has been fascinated by the pigeons since we got here, and I can't really figure out why. They always remind me of the homeless lady from the Home Alone movies where he is in NYC for Christmas. Anyway, Michael starts talking to the guy and next thing you know he is covered in birds. Too bad he wasn't covered in bird poop! It was pretty cool.

After visiting Notre Dame we walked to the Jardin de Tuille, which is basically a rather large park of statues/flowers/fountains/French people. We sat under a tree and Danielle and I dozed off while half-heartedly listening to Michael and Eric have a meaningless conversation about parasites and their effect on the human body. What?! How is that relevant, please clue me in. I'm looking at a fountain and the statue of a naked man with a 12-pack and you are talking about the fact that they just discovered a parasite is responsible for specific diseases?

That was the bulk of our Wednesday as we were still recovering from our jet lag, but we did get dinner that night. On the way to dinner we passed a bridge with lots of locks attached to the fences lining it. I noticed that most of them had a couple's name written on them and I thought it was very romantic. My (unconfirmed) theory is that lovers each take a lock with their names on it and entwine/lock them together on the bridge and then throw the key into the water. Michael pointed out that if they were smart they'd keep the spare key in case they broke up. Hehehe. He's such a cynic but it was kind of funny.

Talk to you soon!!
Ashley