day 4

Today was amazing. Although we slept in later than we planned, we did so much and saw a ton. We woke up and immediately ate breakfast at the hotel, my first American breakfast consisting of eggs, pancakes, and toast. I added a twist of french breakfast tho, with a fresh baked croissant, a fresh squeezed OJ. It was thick and pulpy though, which was actually very good. (all of the OJ here is fresh squeezed. In fact, The OJ i had this morning, i saw chuncks of orange begin ground into juice as I poured it.

After breakfast, we grabbed a taxi and headed to the Musee D'Orsay. Here, we got our museum passes, and I guess that I am free, since I am under 18. We spent 2 hours here, admiring the highly impressive paintings and sculptures. We had an audio guide to tour us around the most popular paintings and skip the ones that arent worth seeing (since the museum is so large). But Nanna and I had to share hedphones, and it just was not working. So, we eventually just looked around and read the captions uder each painting.

Once we finished here, we looked for the "hop-on hop-off bus" that would be our transportation to and from the 9 most popular Paris sights. On our way to the bus stop, nanna was pick-pocketted. Nanna, and her quick eyes, caught the girl in the act, grabbed her wrist, and quite loud, said, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" and she put on her,'in case i get caught act'and said, "mommy, are you okay?" and nanna said, "yeah, I'm fine" and threw her hand down. So the girl didn't get away with anything. Luckily, she bought a new tote bag that had a zippered wallet attatched to the inside, a safe place to leep her money, along with a button to keep it relatively shut. Her previous bag stayed wide open at all times, with an open pocket on the side, where she normally kept her money... not any more! But we got on the bus, and got a 2-day pass, then grabbed a seat on the upper deck (it was a double decker bus) and sat down. They handed us headhones when we got on, and we plugged them into the side of the bus, where we heard classical music. It was nice to tune out the other cars, and just looked at paris, with the sun beating down on you. Then, we heard a lady's voice, when we realized that we were being given a tour of paris on our way to the next sight. She gave us the history of important buildings, and with all the big ones, she identified them and gave us a ton of info about them.

Eventually, we arrived at our next destination, the Arc de Triomphe, which was absolutely gorgeous. Although, nanna isn't thrilled by heights, I cannot come to paris and not go to the top of this. So, I did. I climbed every stair, all 250 of them or so. I personally thought that it was a piece of cake, coming down however, I got dizzy.

We then grabbed the bus again, and it took us down the Champs Elysees. While we drove down it, we were given history of the buildings, and the things that were occuring in future days, such as the thousands of chairs that were being set up. Without this bus, we would have no idea that there was a bastille day parade, and these seats were for spectators. But after this ride (and a few showers) I decided that I needed a sweatshirt. So we went got off at the next stop, The Eiffel Tower. We wandered around, and found a stand that sold I Love Paris things, and I got a sweatshirt and a tee shirt, both with are very cute, and fit perfectly, but after i got warm, i needed to get food. We wanted to go get food on the eiffel tower, but there was a huge line, and the food was 65$ a person. So we wandered around, and found a cute restaurant on the River Seine. We had subs and fries, with sodas, and we just felt the breeze and relaxed a little. We had a great view of the Eiffel tower in the back, and then a great veiw of the River in the front, and it was much cheaper, and it came a lot quicker.

Once we were done, we went back to the bus stop, where we decided to go to Notre Dame. This was a beautiful cathedral. It was also the most popular. There was a long, but quickly moving line, to get in, and everything about it was breathtaking. I wanted to go to the top of the towers, but i was completely lost, and had no idea where to go. Once i found it (after wandering around for 15 minutes) I got in line and a man with a sign intruded a few yards in front of me that read, This is the end of the line for today. I just barely missed it. But this line was outside, and my nanna was inside... so i had to wait in an even bigger line to get back inside to get her, because neither of us have a phone.

After Notre Dame, we walked around looking for little souvenirs, and everything seemed to be junk. I got a soccer T-Shirt that just happened to be #10, my Lacrosse number and the year I graduate, so I got it. After about a half hour of walking around and after a quick stop for ice cream, we decided to head back to the hotel. Here, we came back, and saw a sign that said "happy hour" so we stopped by the bar, and my Nanna got me a cosmopolitan, my very first "drink" here, other than wine. Then we came back up to the room, and tried to get a movie, but our TV happened to be broken, so we just ended up watching TV and I went to catch everyone up on my day... but we run out of Internet, so I am on the notepad on my computer, typing this so i don't foeget anything. And now, im g0ing to take a shower and go to bed. Hopefully my day tomorrow is just as good or better than today!