Day 2

My feet are angry at me. My rest of my body is a little upset as well. We did quite a bit of walking today and at the end of the day it shows. I haven't longed for a bed like this in quite some time. We had a pretty busy day. This update isn’t nearly as funny as the prior ones – I’m just too tired to add much.

We started off the morning with a small breakfast at the hotel - nothing too much - just some croissants and bread. Then we headed off to the Musee D'Orsay. We have more or less conquered the train system now – not a single problem today. Even though we aren't "art people" we enjoyed this museum quite a bit and took some time to check out just about everything. We saw Degas, Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Delacroix, and Whistler at this museum. The real downside to the museums here is that all of the interesting stuff you want to read is in French – the only thing they print in English is a map. I think the most famous painting we saw was Whistler's mom (I'm fairly certain the only place we'd seen it before though was a Mr. Bean movie). One of the special exhibits they had was different masks from around the world – most were very old. The most memorable ones were of Medusa and Beethoven. We left there a little after noon and headed towards the Eiffel tower.

Once we got to the Eiffel tower we snapped a few pictures and immediately headed towards a river cruise we wanted to do that lasted about an hour. We bought our tickets and boarded the boat – we were hungry for lunch but the boat was leaving. Being the intelligent people that we are we headed for the uncovered top because there’s nothing better than a nice strong wind when it’s 30 degrees outside. We bundled up the best we could and took loads of pictures. We went up and down the Siene and there were announcements about the sights we were going by – in English no less. About 3/4 way through the cruise our camera battery decided to indicate that it was going to die shortly – let’s note here that I mentioned we should charge it the night before but Lora said to not worry about it. Luckily I had decided to bring some portable batteries that had a standard plug adapter so that we could charge the camera battery on the go – unfortunately though the battery charger and the portable batteries were back in the hotel room. It was a short train ride back so we went back after the cruise to grab the charger and a portable battery.

It was way beyond lunch time at this point and we had previously decided on this pizza place up the street from us – we’re closer to Italy so it must be good right? We go in and wouldn’t you know – the menu lists all of the ingredients in French and English – score for the visiting team. They only sell 1 size - individual pizzas. We both ordered a ham and cheese pizza (Lora got mushrooms on hers) because wouldn’t you know that the only options out of the 20 or so selections included cheese / mushrooms / ham / eggplant / garlic / egg / a few other uninteresting options – none of them being pepperoni or sausage. We also decided this would be the one time we would order a Coke in Paris – 4 Euros. Basically we paid $5 USD for a 20oz coke in a bottle and no the bottle wasn’t a souvenir – they did give us a clean glass and a whole 2 ice cubes each – I didn’t want to ask for more ice because 1 our waitress spoke no English and 2 I bet that would have increased the price. We leave the restaurant (after deciding on a small tip – unsure if it’s too little or too much).

Our next destination is the Pantheon and only a short walk away from the pizza place – this place has a few famous people in its crypt – François-Marie Arouet (we know him as Voltaire) and Louis Braille (yeah…he’s the guy who invented the dots). Another interesting fact is that this is the location that the world was discovered to be rotating using a pendulum – they explained it somewhat and I like to think I’m fairly intelligent and still can’t quite figure out how it works – I’ll Wikipedia it later. This place was pretty impressive and quite large – when we got there we looked for the coat check room because it seemed pretty standard at the Musee D’Orsay. We quickly found out why they don’t have one – the place isn’t heated. We might as well have been standing outside in the cold but at least there wasn’t any wind. At this point we attempted to Geocache but it didn’t work out in our favor – we couldn’t get a great signal and the destination was jumping around very sporadically (we still plan to find some caches though). We gave up in favor of going to the hotel for an hour power nap.

After our way too short nap we decided it was time to conquer the Louvre. We didn’t give this place the attention it deserves and perhaps if we have time we’ll go back. It was open until 10pm tonight so we decided it might be best to go tonight. We had read prior to the trip that there is 18 kilometers of exhibits in the Louvre and at this point our feet had already cried mercy a few times. We decided this was a feat best suited for someone else and quickly turned to our Paris: Top 10 book. We marked the top 10 spots on our map and quickly headed out. By the time we hit the fourth one we realized that to hit even only 10 spots was a ridiculous undertaking. We saw some famous sculptures and a few famous paintings – most notably the Mona Lisa and a whole room of Pablo Picasso (I never realized that he died just 30-40 years ago – I was quite shocked by that). At the very end once our feet were telling us that if we didn’t give them a rest they were going to make us crawl out I convinced Lora that we should go check out the Crown Jewels and I must say that I’m sure those crowns were nice in their day but in today’s standards I wasn’t really impressed – woops. We left and we’ve never had so much trouble trying to leave a place – we were following the exit signs and referring to our map and then all of a sudden the exit signs stopped and we’re just looking around for a few minutes until we finally figure out what’s going on. We eventually made it out of there – I suggested we stop at the gift shop but that got vetoed pretty quickly.

Our next stop was dinner – it was about 9pm or so at this point. We had read about this really good Japanese restaurant on TripAdvisor and wanted to give it a shot since it was very close to the Louvre. We get there and quickly get seated (there were maybe 20 seats in the whole place and it was packed). We had heard the Udon noodles were amazing. We spent the next 5 minutes translating the 15 or so selections they had under the Udon heading. We decide on an Asahi, a Kirin, and 2 Udon dishes – the waitress comes over and sees us looking at the Udon and after a bit of confusion we figure out she is telling us they are out of the noodle that we wanted. At this point we just laugh because it’s going to take us a lot longer to translate the rest of the menu – we eventually get to an English word she understands – wait. Once we decide on 2 dishes – duck with rice and shrimp tempura we called the waitress back over – she speaks to her coworker and he heads over to us – this guy knows a little English – woohoo. We tell him our order and he lets us know that Lora’s dish doesn’t come with rice and maybe we should order the same thing but with rice (it was on the menu but we didn’t really know the difference). After about 10 minutes the most amazing Japanese food I’ve tasted in a long time arrived. The duck was spectacular and the sauce/rice/egg/onion combo was delicious – really the only downfall to the meal was near the end when the sticky rice was much more conducive to a spoon or a fork than some chopsticks. We finish eating and our feet are still crying. We convince them though that they only have a short distance to go and then they are done for the day. We make our trek back to the train station and head to the hotel. Once we get off at our stop I decide that I’d like a beer or two so we stop at a convenience store on the way back and I pick up some beers.

I’ve only finished 2 at this point so the third will have to wait until tomorrow. Lora’s already sleeping and it’s time for me to go as well. We’re off to Versailles in the morning.