Holiday Inn Paris-Gare de L'Est

... pretended our tickets were not valid. Well PFFFT to you too Frenchy. We decided to walk down the famous Champs d'Elysee, pretty darn impressive as it was, found another ticket collection store and the man gladly handed over our tickets. So if you're reading this lady, have it known that we entered the Louvre museum that afternoon, had photos taken with the giant glass pyramid, saw the Mona Lisa, and enjoyed the day.<br ...

... by frites to keep us going, whilst enjoying the buzz of French's famous cafe culture. Feeling refreshed, we wandered our way down the hill and into the city's streets, vaguely heading towards the Seine to admire the glass pyramids at the Louvre. The walk took at least an hour, so by the time we got the famous art gallery, we decided (or maybe my mum did) it was time for another beer. Either way, another one was consumed and we began to feel a little tiddly ...

... Got lucky in the lift, ran into a (really cute) guy who just happened to be heading to the Louvre the same time as me. We were both meeting mates but in the end our mates weren't there and we'd gotten ourselves seriously lost!! Ended up spending 2 and a half wikd funny hours in the Louvre together taking pictures of the most random stuff. Every time he got the camera he took AT LEAST one picture of himself haha After that we tried to make it to the ...

... and do one major attraction per day and hopefully see the unbeaten path also since I'll be sick of museums after day 1, I'm sure. I'm currently looking up free things to do while in Paris to get some ideas...it's coming to the end of the trip so my $$ is running low, gotta be conservative! Hope everyone is well. I'm happy and feeling like my bronchitis is getting better. Some sleep will help me now I think. love, Josee xoxo

... and bars of Cote D'or chocolate .... I don't know about the Cote D'or chocolate bars, but I definitely have a jar of Nutella, and it's 1/4 gone, and I had a chocolate bar when I got here, which is 1/2 gone, and I don't know how many crepes au confiture I've eaten ... long story short, I definitely have not denied myself any desserts! I have a new favorite drink, which is Kir, a mixture of Creme de Cassis and white or rose wine, and ...

... I attempted to jump over a wall and a bush down into the garden and hesitated at the last minute and tried to stand on the bush which didn't work so now I'm scraped up and my leg hurts! :) But, we got a picture of it so it was all worth it. We stayed the night in Chartres and saw the cathedral all lit up. They had a light show on the cathedral ...

... RER train that we were going to catch to Noisiel, where our hotel was, was not easy to access, so they led us underground past all kinds of pipes and dirt and concrete, to emerge in the middle of Paris at a bus stop where we were to wait to go to the Gare de Lyon. The image of tiny French porter carrying Neil's 20kg back-pack will stay with me forever! They stayed with us until the bus arrived (in this we ...

... artist's progession throughout his career was very cool. You can see in stuff before his cubist days showing hints of what he would do later, and then seeing the whacked out ones that are a mess of lines and shapes and hues and titled like 'Man with a guitar' is cool, because you can sort of see it if you glance a the painting and away again and it doesn't make much sense although somehow it does. That was his trick I guess. I was amazed at the amount of art he ...

... front desk, etc., they finally let him continue to find me by carrying the bag at his side. Next we went to the Pompidou Centre to see the modern art (which we finally found on one level of the giant building). Of course they made Curtis check his bag, which gave him a break from carrying it. I saw some of the works discussed in my courses at Emily Carr Institute, and I bought a Christo & Jeanne ...

... was really 5:00 in England, and forced ourselves to wake up under the shower. Joanne had warned us that the ferry operators wake passengers up by blasting eerie falsetto music out of the ceiling-mounted speakers when they want to get rid of you (a warning that had kept me in a state of semi-alert for most of the night). In the event we heard only a thin-voiced Frenchman tell us that self-service restaurant was about to open and that if we wanted any breakfast at all we'd better get ...