Paris, je n'aime pas.

Took a stroll through the City of Lights this weekend. We left on Friday morning, and aside from an amazing lunch (cinnamon glazed lamb, creamed asparagus soup, and Peach Melba, sooooo delicious) on a boat as we slowly cruised down the River Seine, and a nice tour through Montmartre, the day was a nightmare. I'm choosing only to remember that it was bad, and blocking out the details. It involved a guide that had no idea what she was doing, much frustration, and getting lost and being late.

In any case, when I woke up on Saturday, remembering that I don't like Paris at all and wondering why I was even there for the second time in my life, my roommate decided that I needed to see Paris in a new light and focus on some pretty things. My buddies and I sprung for a two day pass on the Hop-on-Hop-off tour busses around the city which would give us not only a history lesson, but take us to each of the museums and monuments we might want to visit. We started at the Eiffel Tower (gorgeous and right around the corner from our hotel), then went past several fancy looking buildings (Fun Fact: every building in Paris is fancy looking). We hopped off near the Place de Concorde because I noticed Maxim's. And then I saw this:

"The Art Nouveau Museum is closed in July."Yeah. Of course. I got lucky, though. When we made our way to the Musee d'Orsay, not only was the entire fifth floor Impressionist works (so many Monet paintings ^_^), but three floors leading up to it had rooms dedicated to Art Nouveau. Those were blissful two hours. I ended up splurging on an art book of Mucha Affiches to pull out from time to time and enjoy. So many lovely curving lines....

My Sunday in Paris was meant to be relaxing, but as I found with Paris, nothing goes as planned there for me. I got a pretty bad allergy attack. Because I would be allergic to that city. And, OF COURSE all of the pharmacies would be closed. We did eventually find one that happened to be open. I walked in, said "Bonjour... uh.. allergy?" and the guy nodded, handed me a box and said "One tablet per day. You runny a lot?" and pantomimed at my nose. We shared a pitiful smile as I nodded and then paid and left. My buddies and I wandered around Montmartre again just for shopping and lunch, before we were to get back on the Eurostar. We ended up having lunch at a cute little pastry place called Paul's. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't feeling so knocked out. I managed to catch a nap on the train and woke up feeling so much better. The walk back to the flat in the rain was even wonderful after Paris. 

Here are some other notable things I saw in Paris:

Photo of the Day (create your name out of architecture! - this one was fun):



I gathered these different "letters" from around London, Oxford, and Paris, and then compiled them via PhotoJoiner.

Joke of the Day:

Did you hear about the Frenchman that jumped into the river in Paris?
He was declared in Seine.