Paris Day 3 and 4

Monday March 30

We got up, borrowed some tape from the hostel, borrowed some scissors from the Metro information desk, and voila! I am an art history student named Emily. We went to the modern art museum, the Centre Pompidou, where my new identity worked like a charm. Pretty cool stuff in here too, Picassos and Braques and more. Then we picked up some lunch (panini and a drink and dessert) and at it in the gardens/park behind Notre Dame. I hesitate to say it, but that chocolate banana tart I had may have been the best thing I ate while in Paris. After that we walked in Notre Dame. It was of course crowded, but still amazing! We discussed how neither of us really liked the animated “Hunchback of Notre Dame” movie. And I just realized I should have tried to climb up to the bell tower and shout “Sanctuary!” Heh.

Then we went to Saint-Chapelle, a (I believe) Gothic chapel with these crazy stained glass windows. They are literally like fifteen or twenty feet high, and there are fifteen of them, not counting the rose window. The pictures I have are just like, walls of stained glass.

Then we Metro’ed it to the Montmartre area, to go into the Sacre Coeur and see the view of the city from the hill. We also wandered over to take a picture of the Moulin Rouge, then headed back to the hostel area for a drink and talking at The Smile. We decided to go to dinner at Breakfast in America, wherein I had some delicious pancakes and bacon. Mmm. My diet has been sorely lacking in bacon since I came to Europe. We went back to the Rue Mouffetard and had another drink at a place called Studentbar (they put glowsticks in our drinks!), then I went back to the hostel and Heather headed home, as she was booked just for the weekend in case the place was uber-creepy or something.

Tuesday March 31

I traversed the bus alone with detailed instructions from Heather, and met her a student cafeteria for lunch where we got a freshly made personal pizza and a dessert for under 3 euros. Technically you need an ID for this place, but they weren’t checking that day, so. Yay cheap! And good. Oh and also I discovered that a bird had apparently, at some point while I was waiting for Heather, shat on my purse.

Then we headed over to the Musee d’Orsay. There was kind of a long line through security, but once again, no waiting to buy tickets. Heather left me here to go to class, which was fine. There were so many artworks I recognized in there I was astounded. Mostly from that one art history class I took. And the building was really beautiful too, as it was a converted train station that Heather tells me they at one point were planning to tear down. The weather was so beautiful that when I finished in there I decided to walk outside along the Seine and down to have a look at the Pont Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris, but it’s called the new bridge, isn’t that hysterical). Had to do some texting with Heather when it wasn’t clear where I had ended up, but we met back up and sat for like an hour soaking up the sun along the Seine.

Eventually we walked to the Ile de St. Louis to try to get some ice cream that Heather says is the best in Paris, Berthillon. The main store was closed, but there are several vendors in the area. We ended up getting cones of raspberry sorbet and going back to the park behind Notre Dame to sit in the sun some more after we were done eating. Here, a random Spanish tourist must have though we were French, and wanted to take a picture with us. We totally didn’t get what was happening at first, and then when we finally did we were like, “uhhhh.” So that happened. Then we moved to a bench further away because it was more in the sun, even though we knew it looked like we were running away from the creeper. Whatevs.

Heather and I had crepes for dinner again at another creperie, then met up with her friend Emily in Bastille for a bit.