Day 8- 1/16

Today I woke up and showered, and their water pressure wasn’t so awesome but oh well. We ate breakfast of baguette with butter, jam, and nutella, cereal and orange juice. We left at about 11:30 for the Champs Elysées. We took the metro and when we came up from the underground the L’arc de Triomphe was right there. That was pretty cool since that was the first time I’d ever been right up to it.

We took some pictures there then walked up the street. We went into the Disney store just for fun and to get out of the cold, because today it was cold, rainy, and windy. Then we went into this other store where I bought a fabulous pair of studded ankle boots for 30 euros when they were normally 90 euros. Dad said to slow down on the money, but honestly this is the first thing I’ve bought here that wasn’t food or a living expense necessity. Then we walked down a side street to a café where I spent 4.5 euros on hot chocolate made from powder and half of which was whip cream. I got the “Chocolate Viennois” which is hot chocolate with whip cream of course. Lauren got just regular hot chocolate and actually about half more hot chocolate than me. That was really a rip off, but it’s Paris and a café and it’s undoubtedly going to be pricy. Everything’s expensive here. France is one of, if not the most, costly countries in Europe. Then we walked up the street and went to Louis Vuitton. Here’s the bag I got from Louis Vuitton… and it was free! Actually, no. I’m trying to be funny. They gave this to us immediately after we walked into the door for our umbrellas. I would have taken pictures inside, but I was scared to since I figured I’d get yelled at for doing so. I wanted to cry looking at all those bags. I couldn’t even afford a dinky little keychain (which was 250 euros… pocket change I guess for anyone who can afford to shop there). We walked back down to the L’arc de Triomphe and took the underground passageway to go underneath it. It’s so much bigger in real life than I had imagined. They had some sort of Paris museum underneath it, but we didn’t go in because the others assumed it would cost something although a lot of museums will let you in for free if you’re a student. We took the metro again to a place that was actually quite a walk to the Musée d’Orsay.
We had to walk across this really large courtyard and then across the Seine where there were a lot of padlocks on the side of the bridge. We waited a really long time in the rain because there was so many people. I was expecting to get in for free but it cost me 7 euros to get in. In order to get in for free you have to be a student for a least a year. Well crap. The museum itself is really cool because it is an old train station. I was excited because I got to see some of Monet’s and Cezanne’s original paintings which I’ve seen a lot in school and elsewhere. One of Monet’s paintings I swear is shown in Titanic. After the museum we were all really tired and came back to the hostel for showers and naps. I went downstairs to work on my pictures and blog. Courtney and Emily came down to have dinner and I ate with them. I had a Croque Madame which is basically and toasted ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top. I’ve been sitting downstairs waiting for pictures to upload to facebook and this guy from Tunisia starts talking to me so I talked to him in French for awhile. Then I said that at 10 my friends and I were going to go out (this gave me an excuse to leave). I came back to the room and the girls were just drinking wine and talking. We went back downstairs to the bar because no one felt like going out since it was a really cold day and we were tired. We eventually started chatting with Australians and I hung out until about 3. They were so funny to talk to.

more pictures here