Locks of Love

We're back in the land of wifi. :) So, time for tales from Paris. 11 June: After an unrestful night in the hostel, we were up an at 'em at 9am to get in line at the Louvre. It was HUMONGOUS!!! It is floor after floor, after room after room, hallways of art. It is non-stop art for miles! We tried to see everything. We started at 10am and didn't leave until after 2:30pm. :) This is when we finally surrendered to the fact that it isn't humanly possible to see everything in the Louvre in one day...or perhaps at all! After hours of walking the Louvre, we thought it would be fun to walk to the Eiffel Tower by just walking in the general direction. Mind you, Brandon told us we couldn't walk there, but we showed him. We walked there even after our hours of walking the Louvre. It was quite an awesome sight! Well worth the long walk. :) The line to go up was ridiculously long! We asked about making a reservation for another day since that line was significantly shorter, but thy said it was reserved until mid -July. Missed the boat on that one. It had been raining earlier, so we were lucky that it was clear for some pictures while we were there. We were so hungry after that we got some chicken pasta at a tavern near home. It was just okay. 12 June: We walked a lot again today! First to the Notre Dame...an amazing display of architecture. We saw the inside but decided not to climb to the top outside. It was €8, cloudy/rainy and the line was really long. We also walked to the Pantheon an les Catacombes. Took some cool pics o the Pantheon and the line was so long at the Catacombs that we wouldn't have made it in that day. So, we took a different route for the way home. We saw this really cool pedestrian bridge crossing te river near the Louvre so Leanne got out the camera. When she got to the bridge for her photo opp, she realized the gold decoration was thousands of locks placed on the fencing of the bridge. According to our friend Adam, who saw a similar bridge in Slovenia, couples/lovers place the lock there as a symbol of their love and commitment to each other. (Sorry Adam if I butchered your story). It was pretty cool to see soapy locks of different colors,all shapes and sizes...even some bike chains (they must REALLY live each other). A nice end to the day. :) 13 June: after the disappointment of not getting into the Catacombs, we arrived there before it opened to secure our spot inside. It was so tough to get up for it, but that's been the case everyday. The most interesting thing about this €8 excursion was the amount of bones stacke so nearly across the vast tunnels. Apparently over 6 million people are laid to rest there. It was quite a somber experience, but one we will clearly not soon forget. Despite the nature of what we had just seen, we were quite hungry afterward. We went to a market to buy sandwiches and chips for lunch. We sat in a bench by the street to people watch while we had our impromptu picnic. :) A recent trend on our journey has been the strangers drawn to Karen for questions/directions. We haven't quite figured out what draws them to her. Just Karen, not Leanne. After lunch we stopped by a streetside toilet an found it quite interesting. Once you come out of it it cleans itself for the next occupant. We got a big kick out of that! Later we traveled to an art district called Montemarte. We saw so many awesome paintings and portraits being painted right before our eyes...but all we bought were art carrying tubes. :) yep, that's right there's nothing inside. Then we walked toward te sex district...that's right folks, te sex district. We were on the hunt for Moulin Rouge...as it would happen, it started to rain, perhaps God's way of telling us to move. We quickly took our pics of Moulin Rouge and jumped on the subway and headed for the Arche de Triomph! That was a sight to behold! We ducked into a nearby 2 story McDonald's to wait out the rain. From there we walked to the Eiffel Tower and waited in a 1hour line to buy tickets to te summit. On the way up we met a nice man an his daughter from Mississippi who would be our companions for the trip to the summit! It was a gorgeous site! You could see all o Paris...the city of lights! It was a beautiful night to see the city...te rain rolled out just in time. :) Each hour after dark the tower sparkles for a few minutes. We got to see it from the ground once we got down. What a beautiful sight! (feel like we keep saying that, but everything I so beautiful here!) After seeing the main event we had to search for the Metro to get home, which wouldn't normally be an issue except we thought it closed at midnight. Thankfully, it closed at 1. Time for sleep! Tomorrow we plan on seeing the mini Statue of Liberty. More to come...