We arrived n Paris earlier today, so we found our hotel and then headed to the Louvre. We walked around there for nearly 3 hours. We saw the Mona Lisa, but there was a huge crowd around it, obviously. It's a beautiful painting, but what really makes it so different than all the others? We saw so many gorgeous paintings ... it just seems like a cult obsession. After that we walked around the tuleries. A girl saw my University of Michigan Dance Marathon t-shirt and said she just graduated from there. That was a fun coincidence. We continued on to Champ Elysees. As it turns out, Paris is also campaigning to be the host city for the 2012 Olympics. The entire street was closed off and all the way down, they had little areas blocked off for different sports. But it was only little kids competing. It was soooo cute. Then we saw the Arc de Triomphe, which is HUGE. We decided to just keep going, so then we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We walked halfway up and then took the elevator to the third/top level. It was so scary going up those steps. I actually thought I might pass out at one point. It was hard to breathe because I was so worked up. But once we got to each level, it was great. From up there, we saw an outdoor concert going on only about 100 feet away. So we went down to check it out. As soon as we got there, Maroon 5 started playing! It was so awesome! We figured it was going to be some crazy European music. lol So they played 3 songs and then Natalie Imbruglia performed. It was great. THere were 5 or 6 other bands that we watched, all in French. They were also good. It was just such a cool surprise. After that we headed back to the hotel and e-mailed some family in friends. We met some cool people down there and compared backpacking tips and stories.