Well, today was my last day in Paris. Kate left very early this morning, and I had every intention of getting up early to say goodbye to her and then heading out for a run along the Saine, but I went and overslept. Ughh.... I hate when I do that! There is no one in Europe who knocks on my door to wake me up for practice when I sleep through my alarm like Diane does =/

Anyway... after sleeping in later than we had planned, Susanna and I headed out to go see Musee D'Orsay. As famous as the Louvre is, the art in this museum (18th and 19th century) is what I really like. And on the first Sunday every month, admission is free =]

It didn't look like it would be a far walk from our hostel on the map (look being the key word), and considering we would have to walk past the Eiffel Tower to get there, we decided it would be worth walking. Of course, as soon as the Eiffel Tower came into view, my camera came out. I honestly don't think I could ever get sick of its beauty, which is really funny when you think about the fact that when it was first built, the Parisians considered it a huge eye sore to their city. & now it is the second most visited attraction in the world.

As happy as I was that we got to see the Eiffel Tower again, in hindsight we probably should have taken the metro to the museum. We definitely got there quite a bit later than the tour guide suggested, and the free Sunday thing didn't help either. Let's just say it was five times as long as the line to get into Versailles and seemed to be moving even slower than the line to get tickets for Versailles yesterday. Susanna and I sure didn't want to spend our entire last day in Paris waiting in the line, so we decided to skip the museum. I was kind of bummed, but during my first trip to Italy I quickly learned that not seeing something on your list just gives you an excuse to visit again =]

Visiting the Catacombs was on our list for Sunday as well, so we decided to head there next. & of course, we were greeted by yet another very long line. We decided we would go grab some coffee and crepes before deciding about whether or not we were going to wait, and found this really cute ally with a bakery that had a line out the door. After our crepes and coffees we were feeling up for braving the line, but needed some more substantial food first. I suggested going back to the bakery with the line out the door, and Susanna agreed that sounded good. We also grabbed some cheese from a cheese store, which was kind of an adventure seeing as how neither one of us knows anything about cheese, Kate and her French knowledge were on a train back to Germany, and the storekeeper didn't know any English. But through hand signals and a few laughs, we walked away with cheese. After grabbing a baguette from the bakery, we joined the line. It seriously moved at a snail's pace; the capacity inside is pretty low and very strict. But after awhile, we finally got inside =]

The Catacombs were really cool and interesting. Definitely not a place I would ever want to be stuck in alone. They were quite different from the crypt I visited in Rome. For one thing, the crypt in Rome is composed of just a few rooms, whereas the Catacombs are kilometers of tunnels underneath the city. The one in Rome also seemed more like art, whereas this was just bones on top of bones on top of bones. It was also significantly cooler down there, which was definitely to my liking =]

After the Catacombs, we wandered back to our hostel. I'm quite certain that every store window we saw was like torture to both Susanna and I. We have to leave SO early tomorrow (taking the first train at 5) and the stores are closed today, so there is no hope of going back to get any of the cute things we saw on our walk home. Although for the sake of my bank account it might not be an awful thing. Especially with the exchange rate right now =/

I probably should have mentioned early that the weather was forecasted to be rainy all day today, but so far we hadn't even felt a drop. Both Susanna and I had really wanted to have a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to check the weather report for the evening to see if we could have a picnic without getting rained on. Sure enough, it was supposed to be clear until 9pm! We didn't really know what time shops closed on Sundays, but we were fairly certain that it would be earlier than normal. Sure enough, it was. We got our baguette without a problem, but the fruit and veggie stand was already closed. As was the cheese shop. And the wine shop. It looked like our picnic wasn't going to happen after all, but we decided to try one last place—the grocery store down the street. & sure enough, it was open! So we bough strawberries, cookies, cheese, and wine to go with our bread and headed for the Eiffel Tower.

Our picnic was perfect. I think I could spend every Sunday afternoon with bread, cheese, fruit, wine, and a magazine relaxing in front of the Eiffel Tower. After we finished our picnic, we headed towards the Saine. Susanna wanted to walk along it a bit and it was also on our way to this spot where I had heard you can take really great pictures of the Eiffel Tower. The Saine is beautiful at twilight, and if you add the Eiffel Tower in the background to the equation... well, need I say more? =] After we crossed to the other side of the river, we noticed that it had started lightning a bit in the distance. But it still seemed quite far away and nothing that we should be that worried about. We walked slowly along the river, mainly because I was stopping to take pictures every minute. I absolutely love photos at night, but without a tripod it is really difficult to keep the camera and lens still. I was determined to get at least one good shot, though, and right after I did the wind started to pick up. Ten seconds later, it was monsooning...

Now, keep in mind that we had one umbrella between the two of us and absolutely no idea where the nearest metro was. People were running for cover under tourist stands' roofs and it didn't seem like anyone else had a clue where the metro was either. I was pretty worried about my camera getting wet, though, and didn't like the idea of just waiting in the rain very much, so Susanna and I risked it and headed in the direction that I thought the metro was in. & we were in luck! We found the metro, and it was right next to the place where I had heard you can take really great pictures of the Eiffel Tower. Of course we weren't going to stop to do that in the storm, but the view there was amazing.

Getting caught in the storm was definitely a funny ending to a great trip to Paris =] & our metro ride back to the hostel was funny, too. I had on my MSU crew jacket because it was raining, but Susanna and I were speaking in German. There was a group of guys on the metro with us who were speaking English, and I could tell that they recognized the Spartan emblem, but were perplexed as to why we were speaking German. I explained after a few stops, but it was pretty funny watching them try to figure it out on their own. It turns out that they just graduated from Notre Dame... so then of course I reminded them about last fall. =]

Anyway... we have to be up super early tomorrow (like 4:20). It's going to be a long day to say the least, especially since I have class when we get back to Jena....