Paris

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After spending the night in Milan, we took a train to Paris. Once arriving in the city, we checked into our hotel and then went out for dinner. Oscar Wilde actually resided in our hotel in 1899...so I guess that was sort of exciting.

The next day my mom, grandma and I had breakfast at a small cafe beside out hotel and then went to some art museums. The hotel we were staying at was very close to the Louvre, so walking to the museum we passed the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden. The first museum that we went to was the Musée de l'Orangerie. One of the main exhibits was Les Nymphéas (waterlilies) by Claude Monet that hung in two oval rooms. The second museum that we went to was the Musée D'Orsay, which was situated in an old railway station. We spent most of the afternoon looking around this museum. That evening we met my uncle (who lives just outside of Paris) for dinner at Bouillon Racine and had a great time catching up with him.

My mom and I awoke early the next morning and headed out because we needed to be back by 3:00pm to catch our train to Brussels. In the morning we went to the Eiffel Tower because my mom had never been there before. We took the elevator all the way to the top and had a great panoramic view of the entire city. While waiting in line to go to the highest level of the tower, a drop of paint fell on my mom's sweater. Nobody had informed us that they were in the process of painting the upper portions of the tower. Once we had come back down, my mom went over to the Eiffel Tower personel and told them what had happened because she wanted to get some reimbursement for the paint that had dripped on her, since there was no signs to warn us of falling paint. It was hilarious...when we went over to see them they said, "Oh, not to worry. Over there is a cleaning house where they will take care of you" and he pointed over to a small trailor that said "CLEANING" - so, they don't warn you about the paint, but they clearly know that it happens because they have a whole cleaning trailor set up to get the paint out...where's the logic in that? Anyways...the paint didn't end up coming out, so we got our money back from our visit to the Eiffel Tower 😞 In the afternoon we walked over to Notre Dame Cathedral and went inside and took some pictures. It's a gothic cathedral so it's not as beautifully decorated as some of the cathedrals that we had been in, but it was still really nice to visit. Aftr Notre Dame, we got back to our hotel, checked out, and then went to the train station and made our way to Brussels: my final destination!

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