Day 2

We started out the day by sleeping in, according to Jolee. For me, not so much. But I don't have 3 kids to deal with, so I get that that was a treat for her. First stop, the Eiffel Tower. Only, the sun was in the worst possible location. We took a couple of pictures, and I marveled at it; then we decided to revisit it at a later time when the sun would be more cooperating for pics. We headed toward the Champs Elysees to eat lunch at Laduree, which had been recommended to us. Along the way we passed right by the tunnel where Princess Di crashed. We took pictures. Notice how I'm not smiling in mine. I thought I shouldn't smile, but the non-smiling just looks weird. Anyway, it was interesting to see.

Now on to lunch. Laduree was fabulous! I had a sandwich complete with five whole fries and Jolee had breakfast. She got hot chocolate and it was the best, most rich hot chocolate I've ever tasted. Seriously, it was like they melted a chocolate bar and put it in a cup. Yummy! Throughout the meal, I was getting tickled/annoyed at the people sitting next to us. It was an American couple and their daughter, who we decided probably lived in Paris. They didn't talk much for the longest time, then started discussing politics. Let's just say I'm pretty certain they're uptight, rich, waspy liberals from the northeast and their comments were just silly. Once, the mom said if Palin wins, it'll be like having a hillbilly in the White House. I laughed and really wanted to lean over and say you're actually sitting next to a couple of hillbillies and ask what they thought about Bill. We debated about taking pictures inside because everything was so fancy and no one else was doing it. But as we were finishing up, a group of women came in and started taking pictures, so we decided we could do it, too!

After lunch, we were off to the Louvre. Ah, the Louvre!! It was everything I thought it would be and more. It was humongous. We kept turning down halls and going up and down stairs to find exhibit after exhibit. I told Jolee to give me 2 hours, and I would soak it in as best I could. We headed straight to the Mona Lisa because that's all she wanted to see. It was pretty neat to see and bigger than what people had led me to believe. Unfortunately, I never really got a decent picture of it. Afterwards, I made a mad dash trying to see all I could in the time allotted. Jolee was a good sport, following me around and not complaining. Luckily for her, none of the descriptions were in English, so I couldn't dwell on anything too long. Though I did try to read a few and use my Spanish skills to decipher the French. It didn't work so well. I could only pick out a few words here and there. As we were winding up our visit, Jolee managed to be her clumsy self and trip violently over a raised vent. I found it hysterical and we both cracked up laughing along with a few other people around us. Good times!

We were both pretty tired after the Louvre, and debated heading to the hotel for a break. But the Notre Dame is so close to the Louvre that we decided it was stupid to not finish up our touring in that area. We were both super thirsty, and I talked Jolee out of buying a coke for 3 euro right outside the museum thinking we'd surely pass something cheaper on the way to Notre Dame. Well, let me just tell you, we did not pass a single dadgum place!! Oops, sorry Jolee! We found Notre Dame and toured the inside. It was very pretty, but I'm going to admit that I enjoyed the churches in Cologne and Trier better. If that had been the first one I'd seen, I would have been in awe. But it was the third, and I still stand by my statement that Cologne's was the prettiest outside and Trier's was the prettiest inside. After resting inside for a few minutes, we crossed the street and bought a coke at Subway. Jolee bought a little fountain drink for 2 euro, and I opted for the bigger bottled drink for, you guessed it, 3 euro! After we got some caffeine in us, we perked up quite a bit. And this is when we (ok, really me) concocted the Hard Rock Cafe scheme.

Let me just state for the record that I do, in fact, have a guitar pin collection. I have to go to Hard Rock wherever I am and get a pin. It's a rule. I have to physically keep myself away from the Hard Rock in LA so as not to go broke. We knew Hard Rock was close to where we were, but we didn't know exactly where. So we headed out in the general direction of it. Well, those of you who've been to Paris know that their streets don't really run parallel and perpendicular. So we were just winding around. Along the way we managed to find a local shopping area with lots of restaurants and such. I could tell people were giving us the "what the crap are you tourists doing here" look. But we didn't care! We found a pizza place to eat some dinner in order to refuel. Then we were off to meandering again! Luckily, Jolee put her GPS in the backpack, so we pulled it out and let it lead the way. That thing took us so off the beaten path it was crazy. We saw lots and lots of Japanese and Chinese eateries with lines out the door. Finally, after a good hour plus, a busy street appeared in front of us and as we approached, the tiny Paris Hard Rock Cafe emerged from hiding. And yes, I got my pin!

When we were meandering around looking for the Hard Rock, we saw a pretty building in the distance. Jolee wanted to look, I said lets find Hard Rock first, then as soon as we turned off the street I decided Jolee was right. We should've gone back to see it right then because we absolutely could not find it after we left Hard Rock! We finally gave up and were trying to make our way to the metro. Wouldn't you know that right after that, we got to an intersection, I looked right, and there it was...the Paris Opera House in all it's glory!! Of course we'd stumble on it right when we stopped looking. We should've stopped looking a half hour earlier! Oh well, now we have a fun story to tell!!

At this point, we were exhausted. We hopped on the metro and headed back to the hotel to rest up for day 3.