Before my trip to Paris, I was obsessing about every single detail, and one of those details was what to wear. Everyone knows Paris is one of the fashion capitals of the world, everyone there dresses beautifully. I did not want to look like an idiot, so I decided to purchase these boots.I’m not a fashion expert or anything, but I figured they looked fashionable enough to not make me stick out in the sea of fashion-forwardness that Paris was undoubtedly going to be. Now they don’t look so bad, at least, that’s what I told myself. I wore them a few times before my trip, and they did hurt a bit, but I figured, I would break them in.
Don’t judge me. Or do, whatever, but they freaking hurt. Like a lot. I know the heels are only three inches tall, but I swear, walking for hours on those cobblestones lead to one of the worst pains I have ever experienced in my life. It was dumb to buy those shoes, they absolutely killed, so please keep that in mind when you wonder about some of the decisions that were made when I was wearing them. Yeah, so:
Day 2:
After we got back to out hotel, we went straight to bed. We were extremely exhausted after our flight, and I was asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Not really. I said that for effect, but I did fall asleep rather quickly.
Anyways, I woke up and it was Friday. We were going to start using our museum pass that day and out first stop was Versailles. We wanted to get there early to have time to visit it and have enough time to see the Louvre afterwards. I woke up on time, as I usually wake up really early when I’m home, so waking up wasn’t an issue. My cousin however, loves to sleep. Loves it.
It took a while for her to wake up, and I’ll admit, I dawdled a bit online and we both took a long time getting ready. We had breakfast at our hotel, which took a while, but finally, we left. Two hours behind schedule. We took the metro to Bir-Hakeim and then took the RER C to Versailles. It took twenty minutes, and it permitted me to see a lot of the city.
I remember these tourists were sitting near us, an American family, I think. A man, his wife, and their two teen aged daughters. I caught snippets of their conversation, I remember one of the daughters complaining, saying she didn’t want to see Versailles. Ha.
Anyways, we arrived at Versailles, and holy carp, it is huge. Like HUGE. I always knew it was big, but I didn’t think it would be that big.
We waited in line for a long time, but it was worth it. It is so beautiful. We visited the palace first. I took so many photos at Versailles, like over three hundred, but here are some for your viewing pleasure:
There were all kinds of tourists there. This man obviously came all the way from the Wrong Side of the Tracks. He doesn’t live by the rules.
Every inch of this place was beautiful. Once we were outside, I was completely blown away again. Although, the gardens weren’t as nice, I could tell how gorgeous they’d be in the summer with all the leaves and the flowers. Also, a lot of the statues were covered as well, but it was still very nice.
My feet were killing me at this point. And my phone was nearly dead. I also met a cat, but he didn’t stay still. He was most definitely not ready for his closeup.
I like cats, and this one came up to me and was really cute. But then he left. Anyways, our feet were killing us, our phones were dying, and our stomachs growling. We walked and found this restaurant. Unfortunately, their kitchen had closed, so we just had a drink and although we had wanted to go to Trianon, we decided, it was too damn far and we were running out of time to go to the Louvre. So we left Versailles and took the RER back to Paris. We stopped to get some food at a restaurent. I ordered boeuf bourguignon while my cousin ordered a pasta dish. She grimaced and I asked her how it was. “C’est mangeable.” For dessert, she ordered a chocolate mousse and I had a tarte tatin, which was amazing. Like actually delicious. It was the bomb.
Yeah, so we paid and went to the Louvre. It was getting pretty late, so we were unsure of how much we would see. We found a spot to charge our phones for a bit, and finally went inside. Some photos of some stuff:
In the room with the Mona Lisa, I sat down to wait for my cousin. My feet were killing me and the crowd in front of the painting was annoying. There was a woman sitting next to me and we began talking. Small world! She graduated from one of the universities in my city. She offered a lot of advice as she had visited Paris before.
My phone shut off right after taking a photo of Venus de Milo, and we quickly left to go back to our hotel. We decided we hadn’t had enough of the Louvre, so we wanted to go back the next day. My feet were numb when I took off my shoes.
Day 3:
We overslept. After quickly getting ready and eating breakfast, we headed back to the Louvre, where I was able to take many more photos. 
We had lunch in the cafeteria in the Louvre, and it was actually very good. I had lamb. Lamb is pretty good. We then went to the Chapelle Expiatoire. It was quite beautiful…
And when we wanted to go inside, this happened:
I was pretty disappointed, but we left and went to the Orsay museum. The line was really long, but we finally went inside. It was lovely, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but I was able to take a few, mostly of the building, not the artwork.
a
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Orsay and I was disappointed we didn’t spend more time there. But my feet were vibrating with pain and we had to leave to go sit down.
After we left, we sat down on a bench, watching cars go by and trying to think of where to go next(Actually, we could no longer walk..). The internet recommended a place called Djoon to me, so after a nice break on that bench, we took the Metro there. We got off at Quai de la Gare, and once we arrived at Djoon, we realized it wasn’t open yet. We were hungry, so we decided to go find another place to eat. We stopped at this movie theater called MK2. They were also selling things inside, like books, and DVDs, and food. Just loads of stuff. Oh! And something amazing happened! The most flattering thing! Someone came up to me and asked me where the François Mitterand library was! Of course, I didn’t know, but I was psyched an actual French person thought I was from Paris.
I know that in Paris, I should be eating French food, but once we left the theater, the first place we saw that was open and full of people was this pub called the Frog and Library. The Frog pubs are apparently a chain of English pubs in Paris. Anyways, we went in and sat down. Our waiter had an accent when he spoke, so I switched to English with him and he seemed somewhat happy to be speaking in English with us. We ordered food that was very much not French (quesadillas and chicken bites) and my cousin said that her drink(some cocktail) was “buvable”.
This guy sitting at the table next to us began speaking with us. Asked us where we were from, how we were liking Paris. He was very kind and offered some advice. However he did tell us we looked kind of mad and miserable.Well shucks. We left the pub and went back to Djoon. We had wanted to go there because we had read it was a dance club, but for some reason, no dancing was going on. We were there for hours. We ordered drinks and dessert( Mi-cuit for her, crème brûlée for me) and sat, talking for a long time. No dancing still. Disappointed, we left and went to bed.
I have been obsessed with macarons for a long time and I had my first real from-France macarons that day at the Louvre. They were delicious
I was pretty satisfied with my first two days with the museum pass and it was proving to be uber convenient(we were able to skip a few lines), although the Chapelle Expiatoire being closed was a huge bummer. Also, my shoes definitely held me back. Il faut souffrir pour être belle.
... And Other Things 