Paris! 11/14

Today was our last day in Paris, but we still fit in a lot. We started out early by going to the Louvre. I was really excited about going there but Laura doesn't really like museums but felt like it was a place she had to go when she was in Paris.

We started out together heading first to the Mona Lisa. It is interesting how some pieces of art get so famous and if someone didn't know what it was they might not look twice at it. I remember hearing at one point too that the man who it was painted for refused to pay for it because he didn't like it and now it is one of the most famous paintings of all times. There was a false wall in front of it and barriers keeping the many people away from it at a distance but it was still really cool to get to see.

After that we wandered around and saw a bunch of French paintings. One of the really big differences for me between the Louvre and the Prado is that almost all of the paintings I saw here were of a very large size and with more similarities, and the Prado has a lot more paintings of different sizes and varieties. It could also be that I didn't get to see as much of the Louvre so didn't see those parts.

Then we split up because I am more interested in paintings but Laura wanted to see more of the sculptures. I saw some Italian paintings and a few Spanish paintings and then headed over to the area of Napoleon's Apartments. That was very impressive and very grandiose and lavishy decorated with a lot of details and gold covering absolutely all of it.

There are four floors and three large wings in the museum. After being there for just 2 hours, going through getting a general view without stopping to look closely at many paintings I only saw a third of it. I would have been happy to stay for a lot longer but we didn't have that much time today. After that we headed out and walked across the river to find the Luxembourg Gardens. It is the largest public park in Paris with a palace next to it and was very pretty. It is a place that would be absolutely amazing in the spring or when more flowers are blooming and the trees have leaves. I'm still a fan of the Parque de Retiro in Madrid though and it is a lot larger and better for running.

Then we headed back toward the hostel. It was very disappointing that almost all the shops were closed on Sunday too like Madrid but then when we were on a street behind our hostel where we hadn't been before we suddenly found all the people. We had stumbled upon streets filled with all the little boutiques Paris is famous for. I don't really understand stores like that because they have just one of each thing. If you like something do you have to hope that the one thing they have is in your size or do they have more in the back? All of the clothes were very stylish and I really enjoyed going through all the stores, but the 400 euro price tags for a t-shirt just made me laugh. I'm sure as soon as I walked in they knew that I wasn't the type of person who would be buying stuff there.

We took the metro back to the airport, and it is a lot less clear here and not as easy to use like the one in Madrid. It was difficult to figure out how to get to where we wanted to go, and we actually ended up on a metro and got almost all the way to the airport at the north end of Paris when we were trying to go to the airport at the south end. That was a little bit scary being that far away and having a plane to catch, but some people on the metro helped us and we got headed in the right direction. Their signage is really bad. We got to the airport and got our boarding passes, went through security and got to the gate just as they were starting to board. We left the hostel with lots of extra time and I'm really glad that we did.

Overall it was a great time in Paris for my 21st birthday and I'm so glad that I went!