On July 31st, 2017 Megan and I woke up in our hotel room in Hotel Dauphine Saint Germain in Paris. We got ready for the day and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (coffee, fruit, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, and of course croissants). Our hotel was within walking distance of the Louvre so after breakfast we made our way there. We had already bought our tickets online and our cousin told us about a "secret entrance" where you could skip one of the long lines to get in. The main entrance is through the big glass pyramid but there's some stairs a little west of the pyramid that lead to the entrance as well. After a short security line we were in! The Louvre is almost 800,000 square feet and has approximately 38,000 artifacts from prehistoric times to present day. We saw so many beautiful artifacts and works of art! The Mona Lisa was cool of course but smaller than I expected and the room where it was in was so crowded. Megan waited patiently to get to the front of the line and see it. I saw enough from the back of the room. I loved the Venus de Milo statue and all the Egyptian artifacts.
After about 2 hours of walking around we found a cute cafe inside the Louvre to have lunch. I had a Starbucks drink (you can take the girl out of Washington, but you can't take Washington out of the girl) and some soup, and Megan had a bagel sandwich and a coke. We sat outside within view of the giant pyramid and enjoyed the fresh air. The weather in Paris was absolutely perfect those few days. It was about 75 degrees and sunny. London had been a little cold and rainy and we would soon find out that Rome was super hot, so we really tried to soak up those beautiful days in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. After lunch we explored more of the Louvre. Just like the museums in London, there were many works of art that showed women breastfeeding. I liked that they came from all different regions of the world and from many different time periods. Breastfeeding is such a beautiful thing and I love that so many cultures depicted the act through their stunning artwork. Megan and I also liked the rooms full of artifacts from Louis the 16th and made the joke "you gotta hand it to the guy... he had a lot of chairs". We walked through over half the rooms at the Louvre but after awhile we had seen so much that we were just walking through like zombies. In mid-afternoon we left to explore more of Paris.
We didn't have anything else scheduled for our day so we took a leisurely walk to explore more of Paris. We stopped at a cafe for a little snack. Then we found a shopping mall that was mostly underground. We walked through a cool store that reminded us of Target. We walked by a huge building that looked like it was under construction but it was actually designed to look that. It was called Centre Georges Pompidou and it was a museum and the building itself was one of the main attractions. Our feet were getting pretty tired so we found a couple free lounge chairs on a Paris Plage and cracked open a bottle of wine. The Paris Plages are little grassy areas set up along the river for people to relax. I think that was the most relaxed I have ever been, laying in a lounge chair in Paris drinking french wine with my sissy. After a little while some French guys started talking to us. The spoke little English so we weren't really sure if they were trying to flirt with us or see if we were almost done with our chairs. We were ready to go anyway so we got up and headed back to our hotel. Megan wanted to rest for a little while before dinner. I changed into my comfortable shoes and went for a walk by myself. I walked over 23,000 steps that day (over 10 miles!) On my little solo evening walk I walked by churches, shops, bakeries, art displays, and so many restaurants. I was surrounded by the busyness of the city but felt so at peace and happy. I didn't bring anything with me so I didn't take any pictures but it's a walk forever etched in my mind.
I was starving so I grabbed Megan from the hotel and we walked around to find some dinner. We found an Indian restaurant that looked delicious. We had a different ethnic meal for dinner every night in Paris and never had a traditional french dinner. It was probably the best Indian food I've ever had. After dinner it was about 10pm and we were exhausted. We went back to our hotel and watched a little TV (I think we found Jimmy Fallon somehow) and fell asleep.
