And I will never stop loving you, Paris

We woke up around 9 for our second day out in the lovely city. I showered, which was disappointing since the shower is the same as my shower in my apartment...detached showerhead sans holder in the wall. Grrr. Sucks cuz everytime I travel I look forward to getting a semi-decent shower, and that just didn't happen. Oh, did I mention that in my frenzy to pack on Friday I didn't close my toiletries well? Yeah, so my lotion spilled all over my toiletrie case and my leave-in conditioner lost about half of its contents. I was particularly upset about the conditioner because I can't find any brand of leave-in conditioner anywhere. Now I really need to conserve. Blech. We were out by 10, stopped at a local bakery to get breakfast (another reason why my hostel in Lisbon rocked: it served breakfast). I had my first authentic French croissant, which, honestly, tasted like every other croissant I've eaten. I guess that croissants must be so easy to make that you can't go wrong no matter what part of the world. Actually, CostCo has better croissants than France, haha. I also had a teeny cup of coffee and a bottle of water. We then grabbed the Metro and went to the Louvre. It was a pretty ugly day, cloudy and colder (probably in the low 40's). We got to the Louvre, which is gorgeous. It's honestly the most beautiful exterior to a museum that I've ever seen. We took a lot of pics, especially in front of the big glass pyramid thing...woooo Da Vinci Code reenactment! We entered and waited in a pretty reasonably small line for tickets. Unfortunately there was no student rate, so we had to pay the whole 8.50euros. I had not anticipated spending so much money the previous day, so I was forced to bring my 50euro traveler's check. I had assumed that such a touristy museum would accept traveler's checks, but it didn't. So Jessica had to loan me the 8.50. We all walked around looking at a lot of really awesome religious art. I typically don't like religious art, but this stuff was pretty flippin awesome. I also got to see a lot of 18th century art that I studied in Willette's class last semester, like Jacques Louis David and such. I got to see David's The Oath of the Horatii which was super exciting since I had written my midterm about that painting and studied it excessively. It's always so exciting to see paintings/sculptures that I had seen many times merely on slides in little Ann Arbor, MI. The Louvre is so large, we were there for over an hour and hadn't even seen a good fraction of it. We decided to just head to the famous stuff. I saw the Winged Victory Roman statue which was extremely exciting because of its huge fame and the fact that I had studied it, or at least referenced it in basically all of my art history classes. Then we saw Mona. Hehe, yeah, I saw the Mona Lisa! I knew that I was going to be disappointed since everyone always talks about its disappointing size. I, however, was not disappointed in the least. Yes, it was definitely a lot smaller than I had expected, but it was much more beautiful in person. I mean, that's a really gorgeous painting. I didn't realize before seeing it how colorful it is. Da Vinci actually used many blues and greens in it...it's really colorful! It makes me disappointed in the recreations more than the actual painting itself now. After that we walked down a gorgeous old palace corridor and stumbled upon the Venus de Milo statue which was cool since it's so famous, although I didn't appreciate as fully as the previous two works. Then we lost Jessica, so we sat in the Greek ruins section, texted her, and waited. I got to see pieces of Zeus' Temple which was really cool since we had been studying it in my current art history class at the University (although I couldn't really tell ya much about it, hehe). While waiting for Jessica I decided to go to the museum bookstore to see if they would accept my traveler's check if I bought something small. I asked, and a nice woman behind the counter said yes. So I picked up some postcard and a small print, subtotal 4 euros, and went to pay. The nice woman said that she didn't have the right amount of change and to see her colleague at the register across the room. The woman rung me up, I offered the check and she just rudely shook her head at me and rolled her eyes. Then I said that then I didn't want the things that she rung up, she rolled her eyes and threw them on the table behind her. You know, if you work at one of the most touristy places in the world you have no right to get pissy with the foreigners. Bitch. So I went back to the nice lady thinking that maybe that woman was just being bitchy to the poor American, so she nicely went over and asked her and told me that I need to spend half of the traveler's check to get change. No effin' way I'm spending 25euro at the museum shop! Ugh, so I was in a bit of a money pickle (so what else is new). We then left the Louvre out the back exit into the cold, windy weather. I was not feeling too happy. We walked through this touristy souvenir area and found a store with a money exchange. We went in, and they cashed my traveler's check completely! Who knew? Here's the one time that Paris didn't rob me: the fee to cash the check was only 1euro. When I cashed my checks in Sevilla the fee was 9euro. Thanks, Paris! We then stopped at a crepe stand. I felt like a sweet one so I got a banana and honey crepe which tasted like breakfast. Mmmmm. Yet, not as good as the one from Friday. We then decided to walk to the Arc du Triomph along the Champs Elysee (main shopping mecca). The shopping strip is huge, it reminds me so much of Michigan Ave.: big, expensive stores. There were also a lot of large bohemian cheaper places that were a lot like H&M of sorts. Jessica and I went into a lot of them while Courtney and Melissa separated to look at the more designery places. After a bit Jessica and I emerged from our stores and wondered where the other two could be. Up a block and to our left we saw groups of tourists taking pictures on the street corner. We wondered what they could be taking a picture of when we saw what was behind them, kitty corner to our location: THE Louis Vuitton, multi-level store. Haha. It's gold plated on the outside. We looked across the street and saw Courtney and Melissa entering. Courtney, especially was in heaven while Jessica and I were just, well, kind of making fun of it all. I just don't get spending thousands of dollars on boxes! You would not believe how many different things they can slap the LV on and charge money for, it's ridiculous (think sketch pads, golf bags, and beach towels). The store was packed, mostly with tourists. What's the appeal? Then we took the escalator to the second floor where the walls were lined with the LV clover thing in changing colors. As we entered the second floor we were greeted by a collection of--I kid you not--see-through LV printed boxes and armoirs. What? I don't understand, I just don't. On the second floor was the clothing line which, I'm not gonna lie, was actually not bad. The new LV line is very 80's meets 60's mod inspired so a lot of vibrant colors, avant-garde prints, and ecclectic cuts. Not to mention, the shoes were pretty awesome. No LV's printed on anything. There was a fashion show of the new line playing on a big TV screen, so we all sat down and watched it. Seriously, I did like the clothes, although it would never be worth that much money to me. Urban Outfitters is my designer of choice, haha. But yeah, it's just the purses and boxes and such that I'll never understand. Never ever. We finally left to see a LINE. Yes, a line. A line to get into the freaking Louis Vuitton store. Has the apocalypse come or something? We then walked a couple blocks towards the Arc du Triomph which was pretty cool being that it's a historical landmark and all, just chillin in the middle of the Champs du Elysee. Then we walked back towards where we came, stopped in some more stores. We passed some crepe kiosks soon and decided to get some mid-afternoon eats. We went to one stand that actually makes the crepe itself in front of you (they have batter mixed and they put it on the grill right there). I got a fromage and tomate, Jessica got a nutella banana, and Courtney and Melissa shared a strawberry compote one. Mine was pretty good, the crepe itself was good and fresh and pretty sweet. The inside was nothing special. Still, nothing will compare to the crepe from Friday. Melissa and Courtney wanted to go find some famous designer purse store (I can't remember what it's called) while Jessica and I were pretty done with the shopping thing. So we split up. Jessica and I went to the Musee d'Orsay which was an excellent idea. It's located next to the Louvre, and it's the old train station converted into a museum. There was a substantial line (not as bad as the day before, though), but we got in by 4:30. AND there was a student rate, so we only paid 5.50. Nice. The museum closed at 5:30, so we had to be super fast. Luckily the museum wasn't Louvre-sized. We went all the way to the top floor and checked out some awesome Toulousse Lautrec pastels and paintings, Renoir, Degas (soooo much Degas), Cezanne, Pisarro, Van Gogh, Seurat (there were preliminary sketches for Le Grande Jette), and Monet. I saw some amazing paintings and sculpture. I saw the original Monet bridge painting, the original Van Gogh painting of the bedroom, and 2 of his self-portraits. There were some amazing Degas paintings. I was never a huge Degas fan, but I really fell in love with his work. His original ballerina sculptures were there! Amazing. I fell in love with this huge Monet painting there. It's an aerial view of a pond painted on pure canvas (you can see where his brush strokes end!) in all different shades of deep blues and ceruleans. UNBELIEVABLE. It then got close to 5:30 so they started closing off sections. There was still so much more to see! So we tried to milk the museum for what it was worth and went to whatever open section we could. We went to the symbolism, naturalism, realism, and pre-impressionism sections. In the symbolism area we saw some really amazing paintings. Unfortunately I know nothing about any of them. I fell in love with this one painting of what looks like (from far away) Jesus giving a lesson to a bunch of naked women with garlands, long flowing hair, and standing in the typical renaissance female poses (think depictions of ancient Greece). When I got closer I realized that all of the women were actually men! What an amazing symbolic twist. I could get into that painting and talk about it forever. I took a picture. I wish I remembered the name of it/the artist. Then that section was closing so we ran down a floor luckily catching the photography exhibit that we had been hoping to get to. I swear to God, I saw some of the most amazing photography ever. I saw originals by Lewis Carroll! That was amazingly exciting since I had learned about Carroll's photography career in English. He only photographed little girls, mostly for their families, so there are very few Carroll photographs remaining to this day. Well, I saw two, and they were amazing. I almost started crying. I had chills. I love that about art and how it can have that effect, it just gets me sometimes. I saw some Degas photos, which was cool to see the ballerinas on film, hehe. Then I saw actual naked photos of Georgia O'Keefe. How funny is that? Did you know she had big boobs? Haha. Oh, Georgia, I'm actually not surprised. I saw some cool experimental photography, too. It was all from the late 1800's, early 1900's which was really awesome to see the experimentation and artistry going on. I see photography occurring as more of a visual art like painting back then, way cool. Soon one of the workers saw us and kicked us out. It was kind of far past closing. Aw man! I wanna go back and see more. I loved the Musee d'Orsay, it's honestly one of my favorite museums, it may beat out the Reina Sofia in Madrid, which is strange because I usually choose Modernism over Impressionism. I don't know, I just freaking love Paris! Exhausted, we hobbled to the Metro to get back to the hostel. We finally sat down which felt strange and amazing since we had literally been on our feet continuously since 10am that morning (except for sitting for 10 min in the Louvre). Wow, my legs were not pleased. Surprisingly, though, I hadn't realized how tired my legs were until I sat down. Ha. We got back, stopped at the same bakery where Jessica got a croissant and I picked up a Coca-Cola Light for pregaming that night (2euro!...that describes Paris prices, it don't get much cheaper). We arrived finally at the hostel to find Melissa and Courtney back already. They found that purse store but only ended up buying some shoes (which were extremely cute, actually, I kind of want a pair like their's). We all got ready to go out despite our exhaustion, Courtney made plans to meet up with the boys at their budget hotel so we could all grab dinner then pregame there. At around 8:30 we were on our way. It was about a half hour Metro ride to their hotel. We got there, chilled in their room for a bit (they have Mtv! I haven't seen Mtv in ages!) and headed out to find a reasonably priced place for dinner. The concierge recommended some place that was about 4 blocks away. That initially seemed like nothing until we actually walked it. It was definitely freezing temperatures. It was miserable. I mean, I was wearing my peacoat and gloves and still froze. We got to the restaurant which was a cute, modest place, where we were served by an extremely nice waitress who spoke a good deal of English. She took a lot of time helping us decipher the menu which was so amazing of her. She also watched out for us and always made sure we were content. I ordered another seafood salad similar to the previous night: greens, lots of shrimp, a flat grilled baguette, and lots of smoked salmon. Delicious! A lot of the group ordered some sort of steak which came out extremely rare which is not acceptable to the American taste. However, they all thought that they'd suck it up and just do it, until the waitress came over and asked if they wanted it cooked more. What a doll. So she got the steaks cooked to medium. Dinner was very good. Melissa at one point went up to go to the bathroom. It took her awhile and when she got back she told me that she was in line because this couple who were part of the crazy loud bday party in the backroom was having a quickie. Haha. After dinner James ordered dessert to split with me, Jessica, and Melissa, although he barely ate anything and said that he was treating us. What a gentleman. The dessert was great--Jessica picked it out. It was a light vanilla caramel cream with a huge merengue-like toasted thing swimming in it. I can't really describe it, but it was vanilla-y, caramely, and delicious. My meal was really cheap, considering it was Paris, so that was good (8.50). We then left, and the cold was terrible. I felt like a spoiled Spanish kid. I felt like Allan, from Texas, who always complains during Michigan winters. Ha, I shouldn't complain about Paris weather when I could be freezing my ass off in Michigan (though not anymore, rumor has it it's pretty warm there right now). We got back to the hotel where we used the internet to look up a good discoteque since we felt like dancing and being crazy that night. It was a pretty unsuccessful search: every website was outdated to the days when they were still using the franc. In the meantime, I went to the ATM since I anticipated a ridiculous cover charge. I just needed to pregame a good amount so as to not spend money on drinks. James walked with me since it's never a good idea to do the ATM thing alone at night. Took out 20euro. Why am I spending so much money? Oh Paris. We then went up to the boys' room. Melissa supposedly found us a club so we started the pregame. It was such a fun pregame! We had such a great time just chillin in their surprisingly nice hotel room and drinking. I got really drunk actually, and at one point I felt kind of too drunk. So I washed out my Coke can and filled it with water. I drank 2 cans of water and felt fine and dandy. We headed out around 1, meaning we missed the Metro. It took us forever to get a taxi to serve us once again. I got in the first cab with Nick, Jessica, and Melissa, thankfully Nick has some French and he could kind of direct the driver. It was such a confusing ride since we didn't really do a good job researching an address or exact location. 15ish euro later we arrived at a club called Le Bains Douche (the shower room) which sounded weird, and it was on a sketchy street. There was a list to get in, so we were out of luck. It was freezing and the others hadn't arrived yet experiencing the same confusion as us. We decided to walk a block to a bar closeby to keep warm and chill out and plan our next move. We got there, we ordered some Heinekens (5.50!) and I went downstairs to use the bathroom. When I got down there I became very aware of the weird house music playing (and this was more of a lounge bar), I looked to my left and saw a urinal completely exposed, no door next to the actual bathrooms. Something told me that I was really in a gay bar this time. When I got back upstairs I looked across the street and spotted a club with about 12 rainbow flags hanging above it. Yep, we had inadvertently found the gay district. What a coincidence, we really got a taste of the gay scene in Paris more than anything. Ha, it really is, as they say, 'Gay Paris'. Now, as much as I love my gay bars and clubs, I was looking to meet some straight french men...perhaps experience a real french kiss?? Haha. Finally the others showed up. We sat around for awhile chilling on our beers. It was actually really nice and chill. After about an hour we decided that we really needed to find a discoteque. So we walked keeping the faith. We ran into some Americans and we asked them about the discoteque scene, and they told us that there was a good one by the Arc du Triomphe. That was on the other side of the city, basically, and the Metro was closed. However, it was our last night in Paris and we were not giving up. So Jessica, Melissa and I took the first cab which took forever to hail. The driver didn't speak English, but we didn't even take time to ask this time. We didn't want to miss this cab so we just got in and said Arc du Triomphe. The ride was about 15euro, and he dropped us off right at the Arc. The Arc du Triomphe is kind of on its own little cement island, so it's very difficult to spot any discoteques by there. It was also very quiet and desolate out, not to mention freezing cold. The others hadn't shown so we decided to screw it all and hailed a cab back home after standing under the Arc for 5 minutes. What a waste of money. We cabbed back, and right by our hostel we passed the gay bar we were in before! Can you believe that??? We were right there in our neighborhood, we could have walked home. But instead, we paid another huge cab fair for nothing. We spent an unnecessary amount of money on cabs that night. I just can't believe the whole Arc du Triomph fiasco. It makes me mad since money is a huge issue for me and I basically just shit most of it away on unnecessary cabs that night. It's disappointing, also, because I know that Paris has a good nightlife, we just couldn't find it. Oh man. So we got back to the hostel around nearly 4am and passed out right away. We hoped Courtney would get back OK and sent her a text to knock when she got back. So, although our nights blew, we had a great time. It was a crazy, awesome, eventful day and I was sad to leave the next morning. When I booked my flight the returning flight that everyone else was taking at 7:15pm was closed so I was forced to take a 12:25. I was sad to lose a good 5 more hours in Paris, and therefore a good day's worth of activity. However, when we were on the cab ride home, lamenting about how expensive, cold, and confusing Paris is at night we began talking about how whenever we go away we miss Sevilla even more. And how Sevilla is the perfect place to study abroad because it's cheaper, smaller, and calmer. So I was excited to go home. But, I mean, ya only get so many opportunities to go to Paris! Oh man, maybe one day I'll strike it rich and spend an entire month there or something. For awhile that weekend I was throwing around the idea of being an au per in France. Hehe. So, all in all, I LOVE PARIS!!!