Mercure Montmartre Paris

... simply with parsley butter.

On the way to Le Louvre, we came across not just one street musician, but an orchestra, playing Mozart. Le Louvre was majestic on the outside, endless on the inside, and we spent half a day, taking in as much as we could. It was hard to get a clear picture of the Mona Lisa because of all the camera flashes, people ignoring the "no flash" sign.

No tour of ...

This may seem very "touristy", but it is a great way to get a good overview of the city, and to see many of the places we'd be going to visit anyway... plus you get neat audio commentary via the headsets.

We'll stop by ...

... masterpieces; we are sure they are as marvelous as everyone says, but this is not our area of expertise. Frankly, the architectural wonder of the big glass pyramid, with the optical illusion water features around it, being sunk into the middle of this age-old complex, was enough for us. It really is spectacular. We then picked up the Metro and headed to Musée Rodin, the one place I really wanted to see in Paris... and, found that it is closed on ...

... We had to go really deep underground. The passageway to get to the bones was scary and it was just Jeff and I for a little bit. But the array of bones and skulls that soon followed was incredible and surreal. It was just a creepy experience but at the same time kind of peaceful. After getting out of there we were in an unknown neighborhood. But pretty soon we got to the Latin quarters and found Sorbonne. Didn't go in though. We ...

... break. Viens on va au Starbucks juste à côté. Y'ont même pas de biscuits à l'avoine et aux raisins. C'est toujours du chocolat. C'est quoi les Français et le chocolat. Y'en mettent partout. On prend notre café, moka, et on repart. On s'aperçoit que tu peux prendre ton ticket dans une machine. Pas besoin d'attendre en ligne. Esti, ils pourraient le dire dans le livre, au lieu de dire de niaiseries comme 60 ans. J'ai chaud. J'ai mes combines en polar. Y'a pas de ...

... application, we truned our attention to the shower room. We were initially chuffed that we'd scored a room with a shower until we discovered that the compost smell was due to the unconceivable amounts of unseen flood damage hidden clumsily by bubbling and warped linoleum. The recess itself was yeiding the breed of mould that I am sure could cure Cancer if cultivated properly. We backed away slowly, silently wondering if we would actually be cleaner for having showered ...

... within days of each other in just two weeks. And despite having been here for two months my French has not improved so well that writing a French paper is anywhere near comparable in effort to writing the same paper in English. Alas, this week I scaled down a bit and therefore have a little less to share. On Wednesday a rather good sized group of Stanford students (I think about 6 of us) ended up going to Ash Wednesday services at St. Etienne du Mont. The church was right next to ...

... We started to feel it after 5 and the last hour wasnt too bad because it was Matts favorite as we took in a special exhibition of East Indian royal tresures, diamonds, rubies and emeralds everywhere!!! check out the Louvre website for a visual because we couldnt take pictures! Met and socialized with more Aussies that night and made some phones calls...but then the first rain and thunderstorm! Scary but no problems in ...

... This thing was HUGE, and pointless, but beautiful. I finally made it to the middle. Cedrick, Aldo and I were the ONLY three under the thing. WOW doesn't begin to cover the feeling. I am sure that's what it must feel like to be the only one in the Sistine Chapel (Vatican City). After the magical moment we waved goodbye to the cops and headed back to the house. Geez, if these are the same guys protecting the rest of the country, it's a damn shame! These poor people are in trouble ...