europe, day 3

okay. we were hung over yesterday and didn't get started until 2 p.m., which will explain the short post.



we found a doorway.



we found the bastille, or at least the "place de bastille," which i think is french for "lanes? you expect us to have lanes on our roads? stupid americans" ...

we were floating around the place de voges, which is the oldest square in paris, we were told by our helpful concierge. but we were searching for a pizza place, because we'd been walking in some pretty severe heat for a few hours, nursing our thick heads, and we didn't care as much about history as we did about sustenance.



we found a nice cafe where only the assistant chef was smoking while he cooked -- a major upgrade from the norm ... i had quiche lorraine and a salad, while frijolita had the pizza. i felt kind of ill, mainly because my mind kept saying "no way in a million years that you would ever have these two different foods within the same eight hour period."



then we hit the louvre.

frankly, it was fricking jinormous. too jinormous, really, to enjoy properly. many japanese tourists taking pictures of everything, people scurrying like ants to a picnic basket to see ...



the mona lisa. f said to me as we left the room that, while the mona lisa is a great painting, we can't understand why everyone makes like mad to see it. of course, we did that very same thing, but there's no explanation as to why we did it. maybe because everyone says "oh, you've got to see the mona lisa" blah blah blah ...

i was more impressed with the palace itself, to be honest, the artworks seemed to me to be overshadowed by their gallery. to imagine that someone lived there, called that "home" ...



i mean, imagine shoveling those stairs in the winter!



we are in love with the metro, and used it last night to run for mussels near the st germain des pres. coming up from underground on the way home, we saw the eiffel tower all lit up and shit. it was ... beautiful. almost beyond beautiful.

but, of course, we've not gone to see it in person yet. maybe in tomorrow's post you'll see some up-close shots.