Color Me Impressed by Impressionists

Monet's House is absolutely precious. It was really small and simple and just seemed so peaceful. Not to mention the extensive and beautiful garden outside. I definitely spent more time exploring and photographing the garden and the water garden (yup, with the water lillies!) than I did walking through the house. And since I haven't sorted or uploaded my pictures yet, I'm now going to incorporate pictures from friends.

My friend Liz and I in the garden

So I loved the garden. After we got back from Giverny, we returned to Notre Dame to climb up the towers. We had to go up 400 steps, but it was worth it. We saw one of the bells and an excellent panoramic view of Paris from the very top of one of the towers. Excellent pictures will be coming as soon as I upload them. Pretty sure I have over 700 to upload from Bruges and Paris. So needless to say, I've been snap happy :)

After Notre Dame, we just wandered back towards our hotel and grabbed dinner, nothing too exciting. The guy who took my order did speak to me in French, Spanish, English and Italian. I was quite confused and I just kept smiling, except he gave me free fries so I didn't complain haha.

Today we had another lecture, then just did some more exploring of Paris before visiting the Lourve. I have to say, after Chartes, Monet's House, the Van Gogh Museum, the Musee d'Orsey and Notre Dame, I wasn't too impressed. The works of art weren't my favorite, the amount of people was absolutely nuts, and I just didn't have an enjoyable experience. The architecture was pretty cool, and I did enjoy some of the ceilings, so I did get some pictures, but I wasn't blown away. And as for the Mona Lisa.. well. It's not my type of painting to begin with, and the gazillion people elbowing you in the ribs to take a crappy photo of it really didn't enhance the experience. It's absolutely nuts how people were fighting over getting close to this painting of (don't shoot me) an ugly woman.

Anyways. After the Lourve, we tired to wander and do some shopping.. Key word, tried. Apparently there is a Tropical Carnival of Paris today? AKA a giant parade with loads of people dressed up. It was crazy packed and we ended up lost, attempting to find a metro station just to get out of there and make it home. Nuts. But kind of fun to say I saw, even if it was by total accident.

In just a little bit, I'm headed out again because our group is having a picnic by the "Eiffel T" for dinner. Super cute, I know. Don't worry, pictures will follow! And Liz will probably upload them sooner than I will so you'll see some relatively soon. Here is one that she and I took on our bus tour the other day, though!

Photo credit to Steve, love of my life

Anyways, off to Switzerland in the morning! Let you know how it is when I can.
Lucy