Lets Be Honest: Day Two, well sort of day one in Paris.

Waking up at 9:30, the time we had hopped to leave the flat, my mother and I realized we were both to tired to not get a little bit of a late start.

Stretching and attempting to massage out the crick in my neck that had only been made worse due to sleeping on the couch.

Miraculously, we were out of the flat by 10:30 and we went off to a café slightly down the road for breakfast, well mostly coffee. But once we got to the café we each ordered a croissant, which was the best croissant that I have ever had. I am pretty sure that it had just come out of the oven because the middle was warm and gooey and the top was flaky and buttery and just wonderfully magnificent.

Feeling full and excited to for the first full day in Paris to begin and off we went.

The Musée d'Orsay was our first stop, set up in an old train station it was filled to the brim with mostly impressionist and post impressionist art. I was in heaven. There was a Van Gogph exhibition, Renoir, Degas, and tons of Monet and Manet, and then the crown jewel (or at least in my opinion) Edouard Manet’s Luncheon in the Grass. Luncheon in the Grass is my favourite painting and the marvel of being able to see it in person was just positively breath taking.

Even though it is my favourite painting I did not know that it was housed at the Musee d’Orsay. I did not even know it was going to be there, displayed proudly and boldly on it’s own wall when I turned the corner to enter the impressionist wing.

The prints that I had seen all my life did no justice to the real painting. I mean for one I had no idea how big it actually was until I saw it. And the colours, they were just so much more vibrant that any replica I had every seen.

I could just go on and on. The beauty and the satirical elements that it possesses standing tall and proud just took my breath away.

I could have sat in front of it for hours.

Even thought I think the Musee d’Orsay is the only museum that I honestly could have spent days in (most museums I get tired by about hour two and am ready to move on the see the rest of the city I’m in) both my mother and I were hungry and decided to go to the café.

Very artsy, beautiful, the café had all of this metal and orange wire design filling the room.

The menu was, overwhelming. I wasn’t starving and neither was my mother and due to our experience with dinner the night before we knew nothing we were going to get would be by any means small.

After some debate over how we should tackle our just slightly rumbling tummies we decided that my mother would order a Café Cream (espresso with frothy milk) and I would order the Croque Monsieur which was these two slices of tomato bread with a thin slice of ham and cheese in the middle topped with hot gruyere which just sat in a lump on top melting ever so slightly just as if it was butter.

Even though it wasn’t very big it was rich and after only just half I felt stuffed and as if I would or could ever eat again.

Wandering about the museum a little my mother realised that she had forget the tickets for the Eiffel tower back at the flat. So we had to go make our way back but not before we found a good pastries at a cute little shop to have over tea right before we left for the Eiffel Tower that night.

Our tickets for the Eiffel Tower were at eight but we wanted to leave plenty of time to get there on the metro and then take photos of it from the ground so we left around seven.

Getting seeing it for the first time was breath taking, the lights running up it and just the sheer magnitude was widely impressive. All I did was take pictures of it. Honestly, I would walk a few feet figure out that now this was the better angle, take about five shots and then walk a little and do the same thing all over again. I think that it is highly probable that I just do not have enough photos of the Eiffel Tower (see below to understand the full magnitude of my sarcasm here).

Even though we already had tickets there was still a short line we had to wait in before we could go up and while we were waiting, my eyes wandering aimlessly and my head mindlessly following my eyes I noticed three French military men walking in what appeared to be a loose formation carrying very, and I mean very, large guns. It made sense why they were there, protect the monument for terrorist attacks, but it still didn’t change the fact that they were terrifying and how thankful I was that my passport was just in my bag (in scary situations my mind wanders to the worst possible scenario and in that scenario my passport came in handy).

Finally they walked past and honestly the funny thing was nobody else seemed bothered by them or much less seemed to notice them at all were as me and mother were fascinated and a little bit scared of them and therefore neither one of us could stop talking about them.

The trip to the top wasn’t that spectacular due to the fact that way to many people were packed in this little glass elevator and I was unlucky enough to be pushed to the centre. Slightly upsetting but oh well, I got a good view from the sommett. The city was beautiful, all lit up at night and I could see for miles and if it wasn’t about three degrees up there I could have stayed for hours but once a half hour had passed and I was shaking and my toes were going numb it was time to go.

The trip down was better, I was able to shove my way to the window and I then had my nose pressed to the glass the entire way down. If I had my way I would ride up and down that elevator, with no other annoying tourists of course.

Part of me wanted to stay out all night, just wander the streets and see Paris for Paris but my body was screaming NO, and yawns kept interrupting my sentences. It was time to go to bed, plus I needed to get up bright and early for my adventures the next day.