Day 7: "We're going to the Louv-ray!"

Thursday morning in Paris was painful. I was SO sore. My feet still hurt and my legs were aching. We got up early and got ready for the day. Had another good Holiday Inn breakfast then headed out for a full day of museums! We first caught the Metro to the Louvre (or as we liked to joke, as Americans we call it the Louv-ray). I was so excited about the Louvre, I've never been before and I had always heard it was amazing. We got into the museum and immediatly headed to the Mona Lisa. Of course we got cut off by running Japanese tourists hurrying to the front of the swarm in front of the Mona Lisa. I got a few good pictures of the painting. Taylor, Kristin and I got one with it behind us. I saw a lot of paintings I recognized from Art History last fall which was cool. The Louvre was so big it was exhausting. You could literally spend 3 days in there and still probably not see everything. We ate lunch there and then I decided I would go to the D'orsay instead of the Military Museum. I really wanted to see some Van Goghs. So A few of us went with Dr. Brantz to the museum. There was a Manet exhibit we got to go in that was awesome! I saw the Van Gogh's, Monets', etc. I love them. The D'orsay is definitely my favorite art museum in the world (other than maybe the National Gallery in London).

After the museum we went to meet up with the rest of the group at Napoleon's tomb. It was a nice memorial for him, but by that point we were all so tired we just wanted to sit down. BUT, Dr. Brantz and Brawder took us to the Rodin gardens here we saw THE THINKER statue!! I was so excited because of the SNL skit Will Ferrell did on the Thinker and the Stinker haha. We got pictures in front of it and then walked around the gardens.

After that we headed to the Champs Elysees where all the shopping is in Paris. We wanted to sit down so bad so we found a place to eat and sit for a while. It wasn't a very good restaurant and the prices were jacked up but we definitely needed to sit time. After that Taylor, Ben, Katie, Derek and I walked around. We didn't really find anything in the shops and circled on the other side of the street. We were going to go into the Nike store but noticed a huge crowd outside of it. People had cameras out and the were security at the door. We finally asked someone and found out Rafael Nadal was inside!! When he came out we all moved toward him and I managed to get a pretty good picture. It was so cool though to see a celebrity like that.

We all decided to head to the hotel and drop off stuff the go to the Supermarche and pick up some wine/beer and head to the Eiffel Tower for sunset. So we got to the Supermarche and got our wine/beer and were in line. There was a homeless lady in front of Derek that was talking about us "americans" and laughing. It was bizarre. Then we saw one of our trip mates on a balcony just chilling. Then on the Metro there was a man doing a puppet show. It basically just got weirder and weirder. But we got to the tower and started taking pictures. It suddenly started sparkling! We were so excited. We found a nice place in the grass and just hung out for a long time, talking about stuff and watching people. It was a great night. We eventually went back to the hotel and hung out a little longer but finally went to bed. It was a great ending to a long, tiring day.