Summer 2015: Day 24: The Louvre, Unexpected Local Hangouts, and Boat Tour

Hello lovely people, I hope you woke up without an alarm going off this morning. (And I don't say that to just anyone.)

Today, we saw almost all the stuff you're supposed to see in Paris and I find that impressive. Yay us. We woke up around eight and had some breakfast before heading out on the train to the oh-so-famous Louvre Art Museum. First thing's first, this thing (the Louvre building) is HUGE. When people say they could spend a week in it, they aren't joking, like you would have to if you were to see the entire thing. We walked in and switched lines about four times before finding the right one. We had prepaid tickets, you see, so we skipped all the lines. HURAY! Once we entered the building, we headed to the wing that featured the Ancient Greek and Roman artwork. It was really incredible how much time these people spent taking so much care to do such tiny details in vases, earns, and who knows what else. It was really amazing. After spending a few hours there, we declared that it was time to see.....DUN DUN DUNNNN...... The Mona Lisa. Of course I had to see her. We fought our way to somewhat the front of the crowd to take a picture or two, I did get shoved/shoulder checked by MULTIPLE little old women. How dare they. But, it was really great to see. It was so neat how people from all over the world came to see one great painting. We left the Louvre museum and Tony and I headed over the the connected mall "The Louvre Carrosel." We looked around a bit while my parents went to pick up our canal boat tickets for later that night.

We came back to the apartment after that and we all relaxed a bit. After that, we walked back to the Eiffel Tower park (the one that just happens to pretty much be our backyard!) and found the Hop-on Hop-off tour bus stop. We jumped on the open air topside and plugged in our headphones for a historic view of the city of lights. It was a really great tour. We missed the stop we'd planned on getting off at, but got off at the next one. It was a paved trail along the Sein (sane) River (JOKE TIME: people who jump off the bridge there are in-Sein. Applause is welcome.). We walked along the river and found that there are multiple little restaurants along the way. Along the path, there is also little cabanas made out of storage lockers that you could sign up for online and use for free! Very nice. There also was a little island just off the path that is filled with foliage and overlooks the river, it also has nice little hammock like things that you can lie in and and read or sleep! (Hello where is all this in Elk Grove, I'm wondering) People also sat along the river and had a picnic or hung out with friends to watch the sun go down on the Sein River. It was a side of Paris you'd really never expect.

After that, we were all starving, so we found our way back to the streets by the Eiffel Tower park and sat down in a nice little cafe. FOOD OVERVIEW: I got a mushroom and potato omelet (etchampignons et pommes de terre omelte), Tony got a ham and cheese omelet (jambon et fromage omelte), My dad got boef bourguignonne, and my mom got French onion soup (soupe a l'oignon francaise). After dinner, we headed over to the canal boat tour, we'd timed it so we could get on the canal boat right as it started to get dark so we'd get to see the city of lights actually lit up. It was beautiful! We were pretty exhausted after the tour ended though so we headed home through the lit up streets and got to see the sparkling Eiffel Tower. We did, however, get hopelessly lost and had to ask for directions. We made it home though and soon all fell asleep. It was a full, very nice day.

Thank you for reading!

-Sophia :)