Tourism, etc.

In the past five days, I have seen: ten museums, six sights, four shops, and three expositions. I've visited three new pâtisseries (and you thought I had exhausted my supply!), one chocolaterie, and been to four new restaurants. I haven't slept more than seven hours in a night, I even spent one night awake until 8am (more on that later...), I had words with an idiot Fnac employee (even more on that later as well...), I was a witness to a pickpocketing in Gare Saint-Lazare, I am tanner than I've ever been in my life (but only in awkwardly arranged spots on my body, pale fingerprint marks and all - I mean, this is me we're talking about here), my feet are always aching, and my bank account is slowly but surely depleting itself.

But who's complaining?

Is this too much? Am I normal? Well, most likely definitely not, but when in Paris...

Alright, photos:

Love me some Seine strollin

Sainte Chapelle

Marie Antoinette's cell featuring creepy shrouded representation of Marie Antoinette

La Conciergerie

Pont des Arts / I LOVE LOVE

Musée de l'Armée's church

LOOOOOOL NAPOLEON'S TOMB COMPENSATING MUCH?

Just your average gravestone.

Un vollon, une religieuse au caramal, un fraisier (don't worry only one was mine)

Baba au rhum (note: don't get this. It tasted like a soggy shot of rhum. First [and, well, probably the last] pastry I couldn't continue eating) & the cutest deconstructed tarte au citron ever.

In the continuing saga of things I ate, Brigitte and I also went to Rose Bakery for lunch (verdict: British bobo lunch place, but tons of veggie salads and yummy veggie tarts and individually sized carrot cakes that I did not eat because...), then we went to Jacques Genin (note: GO HERE) for dessert. We had Paris-Brests (not Breasts, thanks little sister), which I have seen before but never tried but ohmygoodness could you please just do me all a big favor and CLICK HERE and revel in the glory of this insanely huge dessert (in other places it's more than half the size!) that was so good I ate the whole thing YEAH I SAID IT BITE ME BIKINI SEASON because it was just so delicious and not at all over-sugared like basically every American pastry (sorry, true, haters gonna hate) and whew, I am getting a little too over-excited here. Gotta calm down. (Oh, and they also gave us four chocolates fo' free!)

So, uh, I stayed up until eight in the morning so me and the MiddKidz could walk over to Sacré Coeur and watch the sun rise. Naturally. Only downside was that, well, we didn't actually get to see the sun rise since it was too cloudy. But the 5am view was worth it nonetheless.

The sleepiest sleepies climbing the steps

oh

 Oh and so allow me to recount my encounter with a Fnac employee. (Fnac is like a Barnes and Noble [sidenote: RIP Borders]. But with electronics and a place where you can buy tickets for museums and concerts.) Basically, they were having a promotion where if you bought two books from the same publishing house, you could get a third for free, but only if you chose from the specified box in front of the cash register. So I went and got two books that looked interesting because what's the point of spending five months studying nothing but French literature if you're going to drop it as soon as vacation starts? Am I right? Am I a nerd? (Shush.) I then went downstairs and while I was waiting in line to pay, I picked a book from the box marked: "Choose from this selection for your free third book." Only when I get up to the counter, the cashier tells me I can't get this book for free because it's not marked with a "free" sticker and that I have to choose a book from the free box. Thinking maybe I got one that was dropped there by mistake, I reach to my left (literally three steps from the cashier), and take the second book in the giant pile of this one green book. But again, nope, it's not free because it doesn't have a sticker. When I ask why all of these books are in this box if not one of them has a sticker, I am told, "Dunno. I'm not a salesperson." This conversation goes in a circle repeatedly, with a man behind me even trying to help me by telling me I have to take a book from this very box, and when I keep telling the cashier that none of the books in the box have this sticker and that I took the book from the free box that she can see from her desk, she won't budge. So I decide to just buy the two other books. The kicker: after she tells me the price, the cashier informs me that since I've just bought two books from the same publishing house, I can get a third book for free from the free box. -_- Trololololol. France.

Strange experience aside, here's some more museum and expo evidence.

Musée Moreau

I also went to Musée Marmottan, which is not at all related to the Musée Moreau but they both start with M so it reminded me. Marmottan has the largest collection of Monet's works and guys it was so cool. I saw versions of his Waterlilies and the Japanese Bridge that looked completely different from all the standard versions. We weren't allowed to take photos in the museum, and without getting into too many details of the insane lengths I just went to on the Internet to find what I'm failing to describe, here's two screenshots:

Water Lillies

Japanese Bridge

See? Different! Whoo art...

Expo Monumenta at the Grand Palais

Chic Brigitte

Hi

Jardin Jardins expo in the Tulieries (sign says "Silence! We're growing!")

The expo above, which featured mostly new 'trends' in urban garden design, inexplicably had a stand for a fancy skincare brand where we treated ourselves to free hand massages. Hehehe.

Musée du Quai Branly + crazy garden

Nkisis! Symphony Space 2011 flashback!

Friends

Spotted...

This wasn't really very well explained.

Welp, how's that for an update. It's 3am and thundering like mad here, so this naturally means bedtime for me! There's definitely more that I've done in the past couple of days that I forgot to mention here, but I'm too sleepy to figure out what I'm missing. Don't worry, I'm continuing to go non-stop until I cross the Atlantic.

x R.