Everyone has at least 3 blisters on their feet

Our first full day in Paris together!!!! Our day started by taking the metro to the Louvre, where we just visited the outside of the giant pyramid. Then after a quick walk through the Tuileries Garden, we went into the Musée d'Orsay where we saw Degas's, Monet's, Manet's, and Van Gogh (even though "Starry Night Over the Rhone" wasn't there???). After a quick coffee and a walk back to the opposite side of the Louvre, we went to "l'As du Fallafel" and ate the best falafel ever. It was in this super cool Jewish neighborhood, which we got to walk around a little bit after and then, hopefully, we'll continue to walk around today There was a line out the door for the place we went to where as for the poor falafel place across the street, it was absolute desolate. No one was there which seemed very sad, but also everyone seemed used to it. At 2 pm, the restaurant was packed and we were whisked from waiting to moving to a different place to wait and then again to a table that was pointed out to us. The service was super fast, the menu was in at least five languages, and the falafel was fantastic! Highly recommend it if anyone's in the mood for falafel in Paris.

After exploring the neighborhood a little more, we walked back toward Notre Dame and passed the outside of the Centre Pompidou (I had no idea that all these museums were so close!). We waited in the super long line for about 15 minutes before he got into the cathedral and got a look inside. Ellie picked to visit the Musée de l'Orangerie, even though we knew nothing about it, so after walking back through the Tuilleries and passing a guy who loved playing with/feeding pigeons, we made it to the museum. Little did we know that "Nymphaes" means "Waterlilies" and that the main exhibit in the tiny museum was Monet's waterlilies! The museum was tiny, but the two, cavernous rooms on the main floor were covered on all four sides by his ginormous canvases of waterlilies. It was a spectacular surprise so Ellie is now picking everywhere else we go.

As we started to walk to dinner, we passed Place de la Concorde where the center of it is closed off because they've set up grand stands for the Tour de France which will end in Paris in about a month. We also got to pass the heavily guarded US Consolate, located right next to Place de la Concorde. Then we found the most expensive street in Paris with all the designers you love to look at but from whom you couldn't even afford a t-shirt. We stopped at an upscale chocolate atelier and window shopped everywhere else, until we got to Spring, back on the other side of the Louvre (with a point of reference of the Louvre, we walked passed it four times). The restaurant, Spring, was phenomenal. The chef is from Chicago and what he makes, is what is served. So we had mushrooms as an apertif, lobster and tomato salad and a white fish with potatoes in a broth as our two starters, quail for dinner, and then a trio of peach cobbler, rosemary sorbet, and lemon curd for dinner and as a final bite, a chocolate-filled raspberry in a little brownie coating. It was absolutely fabulous and one of the nicest restaurants I have ever been too.

But before the night was over, we took a cab over to Trocadéro to take pictures with the Eiffel Tower and we got to watch it sparkle at 10 pm! While walking under the Eiffel Tower, we realized how short the lines were so I had the brilliant idea that we should go up! After waiting in the first line for 30 minutes, we bought our tickets and went up to the second floor to wait there to go to the very top. And the top is cool when the city's dark and everything's lit up, but there's glare on the glass and if you go up further, there's no glass so there's no glare but it was so cold!! Ellie and I ran up, did a lap, and then ran straight back down to wait in another line to get to the second floor and then in another line to get back to the ground. All-in-all, it took about two hours and the majority of that time was spent in line. But it was still cool to see Paris all lit up and we were on the Eiffel Tower when it was sparkling! However it feels less like magic and more like lightning when you're actually on the tower instead of looking at it from a distance.

We got home and were absolutely exhausted so planning for today/blogging had to wait for this morning. But just from yesterday, I've realized how much better Paris is when you're not hitting every tourist shop and you have money to buy delicious food. And while we did hit a lot our touristy things, we also saw a lot of new things and super cool neighborhoods!