Monday, February 11th:

I haven't yet mentioned how we started out every day in Paris. Our lovely little budget hotel included an even more lovely little breakfast for the excellent price of about 25euro/night. Each morning we would make sure we were up around 9am, throw some clothes on, and head to the room in which breakfast was served. Upon arrival, we would be handed a lovely little tray on which our meal sat: a mini-baguette, a large croissant, little things of butter, jam, and spreadable cheese, and our choice of coffee or tea. It sounds plain, I know, and the first time we saw it we were disappointed, but it was way more delicious than American bread and butter could ever be. Yum. I miss that place. Oh and apparently you have to be richer than god to drink espresso beverages in Paris, because we were literally speechless [for a second before we started mumbling profanities] when we saw that no cappuccino in the city was less than 4 or 4,50euro. It was hard news to swallow [In Rome you can get a cappuccino pretty much anywhere for around 80 cents].
Anyway, I believe it was on Monday morning when we met up with some fellow EAP kids at the Louvre, where I was maliciously conned into buying an expensive museum pass that I didn't really want. Okay, that's kind of a bold-faced lie, but I was grumpy after I decided to buy the 4-day pass instead of the much cheaper 2-day pass. That's what I get for giving in to peer pressure. [Damnit, why must I try so hard to fit in? I just want to be normal, okay?! God. I'm going to go write some angsty poetry in a corner now and listen to some Dashboard. No one understands me. (if you don't get it, don't worry about it).] The pass lets you skip the lines and enter about 60 museums and churches and things around Paris as many times as you want within your chosen time limit. Our first use of this sort of handy-dandy little device was in the Louvre, which was another kind of bad decision on my part. [I'm all about the definitive statements today, aren't I?] I hate the Louvre, and I really don't mean to come off as some art-history elitist or anything, I just think it's a terrible idea. Everyone tries to see as much of it as they can in as little time as possible, and when you stop to look at EVERYTHING, I don't believe you really appreciate any of it. You have to pick and choose. And even then it all starts to look the same. The one cool part was that a lot of the art I studied last quarter now resides in the Louvre, so I got too see it up close and made Mike listen to my expert knowledge of all the Panini paintings and such. He was a good sport. I felt so cultured.
Anyway, after several hours of being bombarded with ART from all sides, I was super-hungry, and those of you who know me well know that when I get super-hungry, I put my over-sized grumpypants on. And they were draggin' all over that museum, let me tell you. We finally left [thank god] and took way too long to find some vittles, which I don't actually remember. But I was determined to see Notre Dame and Saint Chappell, so we went onto the island and went into the Notre Dame. It's much cooler than I remembered it. But I felt like a little kid again in the cathedral; I don't know what it is about that place but to me it's literally awesome. I took my time checking out every detail and taking photos from every angle I could, then met my friends outside where we waited in the cold to go up on top of the cathedral. Have I mentioned lately how much I just adore this awesome little thing called the endless spiral staircase? Seriously, I can't escape them, ever. And apparently, Europe is all about them. Everyone here must have buns of steel. Back to Notre Dame...we climbed 400 steps to the top and a few of us girls gawked at the unreasonably attractive Italian men behind us in line. We blatantly ignored the 5-minute maximum and took our time checking out the incredible 360 degree view of the city.
After we tried not to fall to our deaths on the same 400 spiraling steps, it was dusk and therefore too late to see Saint Chappell. I was kind of bitter, and someone we ended up all separating, but Mike and I did some light shopping [read: I bought an awesome pair of bright red gloves] and had an adventure finding the closest metro stop to take home.

Okay, I'm going to be straightforward with you and tell you I don't remember the order of things that happened for the rest of the trip, so I'm going to punk out on the day-by-day reports and just summarize the rest. Believe me, it's for the best.

Oh, and Flickr e-mailed me back, and if my flatmate Gilli keeps lets me keep using her computer for the next hour or so, next time you look here these posts will be studded with photos. [Thank you, Gilli!]

[NOTE: pictures are up for the previous post. Have a look, will ya?]