I'm hanging out in Paris right now, watching darkness fall in the little courtyard outside my hotel room. My hotel is only a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, it's a beautiful walk there especially since it's springtime in PARIS and everything's blooming. Amazing.
I actually found an American food store, and went in and just stared for a while before I realized that I was being asked a question by the girl behind the counter in French. I had been practicing my "I don't understand French," and "Do you understand English?" but the first time it was actually necessary to use either one I froze up and gave her a deer-in-headlights look. Fortunately the girl was actually American, so she immediately switched not only into a language I understood, but an accent as well. I got Reese's miniature cups and DR PEPPER.
I also went to a little pastry shop on the corner of Rue de Champ de Mars and Avenue de la Bourdonnais (I'm actually putting the street names down because they just look so cool), and I found actual French pain au chocolat, which I fell in love with whilst I was in Spain. The French stuff is even better...There's a thing I've begun to notice, in the few hours I've been here, about French bread: they like it really hard, or they like it amazingly buttery and soft and almost-melt-in-your-mouth-but-not-quite-because-it-is-after-all-just-bread (guess which one I prefer...).
Tomorrow? Totally going to try and find my way to Notre Dame. Shouldn't be too hard; as long as I can find my way to the river, I should be fine, although if I could figure out a way to do it that didn't involve going by the Tower that would be a little bit ideal. Maybe I'll go down to the front desk tomorrow and ask where the nearest city bus tour stop is, because I have this vague idea that it would save me a lot of walking even though, as I said. It's gorgeous here. My allergies are all kicked in because while Ireland's change to spring seems to involve daffodils by the side of the road and carpets of daisies on much greener grass, Paris' change seems to be in the arrival of gardeners on the Champ de Mars and the flowering of a million bushes. I was thinking on the shuttle ride to the hotel that I could spend a spring in Paris and be completely okay with it, just because it's so...beautiful. And I found Dr Pepper. How awesome is that?
I think I could spend a week letting myself happily get lost in the Louvre, especially if it meant I had some more personal time with the Mona Lisa. It's...almost irritating, the way they have it set up, because there's no way to get a decent picture when you're being pushed and shoved and you're not allowed to use the flash. However, I'm glad I got to see her, as well as a bunch of other stuff...I was there most of today, and I saw One. Wing. of the Whole. Museum.
After the Louvre I went to Notre Dame, which is a very nice walk away and completely surrounded by tourist shops. There was a living statue in front, which I thought was an actual statue until someone put money in its cup and it bowed, of an Egyptian mummy with a Horus head. I was very confused when I thought it was an actual statue, because it didn't make sense to have it in front of a cathedral. It was really neat though. And I discovered that the souvenir shops next to Notre Dame have the best prices, because they're all there together and competing with each other. I was able to buy cheap-ish pretty things.
