Paris Day 2! Kissing graves

This is going to be a long one! 

We started off not too early (compared to our other days) a little before 9am. We walked to the Montparnasse cemetery which was actually beautiful. We don’t do cemeteries right in the US. The tombstones were all works of art and it was so peaceful, beautiful, and green. We got to see the gravestones of two women we study, Simone de Beauvoir (critical feminist writer, wrote the Second Sex) and Agnes Varda (famous director, she actually only died around 4 years ago). It’s a tradition for people to put on lipstick and kiss their graves! I didn’t do it because I didn’t have lipstick but a few of the girls did. We walked around there for a while and just took everything in. I actually really enjoyed it, more than you’d think for a graveyard.

After we were done at the cemetery, we headed to Agnes Varda’s house. She lived on a street called Rue Daguerre, which she loved because she was originally a photographer (Rue Daguerre like daguerreotypes!). 

Her house was really unassuming (for being pink), if you weren’t in the know you would never know she lived there because there wasn’t a sign or anything. She’s really commemorated with a mural which we walked to next. We talked about ways that we remember famous women and how they’re different. I think this mural is awesome because it remembers Varda for her work and what she was passionate about. 

After we finished up taking pictures at the mural we walked over to our group lunch at Bouillor Chartier. It was explained to me as being like an American diner, but French. It was a really long restaurant which was interesting and we went all the way to the back. I didn’t get any pictures of the interior unfortunately but it was very kind of dark and woody with a ton of mirrors in our dining area haha. 

Now for the courses. French bread to start of course it was delicious as always (extra delicious here). And then here’s my first course (it came with a really yummy little pickle but I forgot to take a pic until after):

Do you know what that is? I didn’t. We assumed it was meatloaf. Guess what it actually is. LIVER. I did only eat half of it because the texture was terrible and I was not a fan of the flavor but I was trying to power through because I was really hungry. Did not find out it was liver until later that night. I was not happy. And at lunch they were offering everyone salads instead except for our table 🥲. 

Next up we had our main course:

Shout out to Tate for letting me take a picture of his because I definitely forgot before I started to eat hahaha. Steak with parsley butter on top and then French fries on the side. They serve their French fries with some kind of mayonnaise sauce here that I can’t decide if I like. I ate it with ketchup and it was pretty good. I was lucky because the steak I got was pretty done, not too pink/red in the middle like other people’s were, which was very good for me. It was an ok steak. Marie couldn’t even cut hers because there was some layer of fat or something at the bottom lol. And the French fries were actually really good. I have had delicious French fries here!

Finally, dessert. This was actually the best part of the entire meal (other than my Coke Zero HAHA). 

It looks very unassuming but it was peaches and ice cream topped with whipped cream and raspberry sauce. My mouth is watering. It was like ice cream on one side underneath and peaches on the other, and I ate the ice cream side first and everybody else must have done peaches first because at first nobody believed me that there was ice cream haha. There was and it was delicious. 

It was also Rob’s birthday!! They brought him out a lava cake with a firework candle and we all sung to him! 

Side note about lunch, our waiters were INSANE. They had like 10 plates stacked up their ARM no tray! I wish I had a picture but I wasn’t in a good spot to get one. 

After lunch they set us loose for our free time. Usually we have free time at the end of the day but today we had the Eiffel Tower and a Seine River cruise scheduled at night. We had the plan to go to this little shopping area to find a jewelry store that Ellie’s friend recommended. On the way there we stopped and used a McDonald’s bathroom. French McDonald’s! I wanted to check out their menu just to see ( I know mom would disown me if I chose to eat McDonalds while I’m literally in FRANCE haha), but I didn’t really get the chance. After that we made our way to the jewelry store, however we made the unfortunate discovery that May 1st is France’s Labor Day so basically all of the shops were closed. We did find a couple little vintage stores but they didn’t really have anything great unfortunately. 

Here's some pictures from our walk:

After that, Marie, Annie, and I headed over to a cathedral that we passed to see if we could go inside. We could and I am so glad that we did:

Oh my goodness it was INCREDIBLE. The pictures just don’t do it justice. It was massive with high vaulted ceilings, stained glass everywhere, and beautiful artwork. I wish our churches looked like this!! It was so peaceful in there and awe inspiring. I think it’s so cool the ways that people choose to honor God and worship. 

We spent some time just walking in there, and then we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit before our Eiffel Tower reservation. On the way there we passed a park with a tall tower and went inside to check it out. 

We found a sign (in French, but we were actually able to decipher some of it!) that said it was the only remaining  part of the Saint Jacques Church and it’s a historical monument. It is actually crazy to me how much history you can find just wandering around here! The church and the tower were absolutely incredible and we quite literally just stumbled upon them randomly! I love France. We also saw the Seine River while we were heading to the metro. 

We headed back to the hotel, chilled for a little bit (I did an outfit change because I was actually too hot in my long sleeve. The weather is unpredictable), and then met back up with Annie to head to the Eiffel Tower. Here’s my first view of it!

We got our tickets and got outside, had a photo shoot of course, and then got in line to get in the elevator up. When I say it took an hour and a half to get to the top of the tower I am not kidding. It was FOREVER of waiting in lines. We stopped at the lower level (not the very top but still high) and looked out for a little bit.

Marie was very very scared but she powered through! She had jello legs the whole time haha. I was actually surprised that I didn’t. If I had done this a few years ago I think I definitely would have been absolutely freaking out but maybe I’ve gotten over my dislike of heights a bit! We got in another line to get to the very very top, there was a pretty big group of us, 15 or so people so it wasn’t too bad because we could all talk. We were with Rob and Mary Ann and I love both of them. They are hilarious and just so fun to talk to. They know so much! I do have quite the story about the line and Mary Ann:

So like I said we had around 15 people from the group in line with us, but at first the line is not very orderly, it’s kind of just a clump. So we’re standing in a clump and there’s just kind of people around us but we’re all very obviously together and in line. (Oh side story there was this French girl who was maybe 15 that I had two annoying encounters with. One, I was looking over the railing on the second level and she literally comes up right beside me and like sticks her camera out right in front of my view and like pushed in front of me. I was like girl I waited my turn for this, you can too. Then, when we were in line to go to the tippy top she was right behind us, me specifically, and kept pushing into me!! She must just not have any sense of personal space or some kind of sense of entitlement. Ok now back to the main story). Speaking of entitlement… So basically I was standing in line, more towards the back of our group, talking to a few people when Mary Ann like motions to us and is like guys move up and in, come up here closer to the rest of the group. That’s when we see here was this couple, on the older side of middle aged, like trying to push their way through our group like on the side! Mary Ann was like blocking them and just saying things like no, we’re all staying together, we were here first, no, no, stop! And they were YELLING at her in a different language, maybe Spanish maybe French? We couldn’t quite tell but they were physically pushing her and trying to get past our whole group and Mary Ann was not about to let that happen. She had us all like group together in a tight clump so they couldn’t get past but they just kept pushing. She was so frustrated, and Rob was at the front of our group, and trying to be a peacemaker I think so he told her to come up with him and just let them past since obviously it was so important to them. Even though we were literally going to end up on the exact same elevator. Mary Ann was SO mad. So she went to stand by Rob and sure enough they push past all of us. I was so mad for MaryAnn and just so irritated at them! I don’t understand people like that. They must not have a very happy life. It was kind of funny to watch Mary Ann afterwards though. Because they were literally still right in front of us! And we still had to wait like 20-30 minutes in line with them and Mary Ann just kept looking at them and like shaking her head. Anyways so that was probably the most eventful part of the line, and then we finally made it to the top!

To be honest, the view was basically the same as from the lower level hahaha but it was still insane to be on the TOP of the EIFFEL TOWER. It was very windy and cold up there, but we still spent a good amount of time there. I think mine and Marie’s favorite parts was when we started taking .5s of ourselves like this. We were actually peeing ourselves it was so funny to us. 

And then we have to get in more lines to get in the elevator going down. The problem with this is that we got in line at the Eiffel Tower at 5:30 and our reservation for the River cruise was at 8:15. Which seems like enough time, but with the lines and the waiting and the time we spent at the top… we were running late to say the least.  By this point we were in a group of 9: Me, Marie, sienna, Tate, grace, satchel, joss, and the McFarlands. And the McFarlands had the tickets. So either we were going to get there or nobody was going. So we are going as fast as we can. Once we made it down the tower we hurried to the metro, get on the train, only to find out that it’s not doing the full route and stops a mile away from where we need to get out. And by this time it is 8:17. So we get off, hurry up the stairs, and try and figure out if there’s a bus or something. There was, but it would take us longer to do the bus than to walk. So we started speed walking. And Rob was calling Valerie asking her to stall and tell them we would be there soon, and he was in contact with the person who scheduled it for us and she said that we should be ok because they were excited about our very large group haha and they were understanding. But we were all still very stressed and everyone is waiting for us. So we are SPEED walking. And we’ve already walked an insane amount today because we’ve done a ton and everyone’s feet were very dead. Very. So we speed walked a whole mile, made it there at 8:45, and THEY LET US ON!! So blessed and grateful. So we got on the River cruise and went to the top deck. And then it started to rain so we all pulled out jackets and umbrellas and we were having a grand old time. 

We got to see Notre Dame! We saw some other cool Parisy buildings and got the added experience of lightning and thunder. It did start raining really really hard so we went down inside the boat for a little bit, but then it was time to pass the Eiffel Tower so we went up and braved the storm! A few people had stayed out the entire time haha dedication. 

Here’s the Eiffel Tower at night on the River!! This was maybe my favorite moment ever. It was pouring rain but we were just having so much fun. We were laughing and taking pictures and THEN we realized that the tower starts sparkling at 10 and we were going to go past it with the perfect view!! These are some of my favorite pictures. 

Ok that last picture is so funny, there were these French people taking pictures and we were walking past them to go back down into the boat and they asked us to get in the picture with them hahaha. So precious!

So anyways, moral of the story is that sometimes things happen that seem bad and stressful but it ends up working out, like being late and missing the cruise that we were supposed to take. Because otherwise I would have missed out on these memories!!! We were so soaked and cold but we hardly felt it. The cruise finished up and we were STARVING because we hadn’t eaten since lunch. Sammy and Sailer were going to a Mexican restaurant that was right by us that Sammy’s mom had recommended so me, Marie, Ellie, sienna, Annie, and Sophie joined them. We had to sit at two separate tables so Marie, Ellie, Annie, and I sat together. We all got chicken quesadillas and they were BOMB. They came with some delicious guacamole. I wish I had a pic but again I DEVOURED those things. Then we were finished and the other table was still eating and we decided we wanted crepes. So we found a crepe place nearby and headed over there. It was still raining haha and we were still soaked but we got some crepes!

Nutella banana crepe. When I tell you this was the yummiest thing ever?! (Sorry dad, but there’s a new crepe winner in my heart) Oh my gosh I will think about this crepe forever. And the man making them was a pro. He kept spanking the crepes. Ellie is in love with him now. We devoured our crepes too and then headed back to the Mexican place to meet back up with the rest of our group and then we got on the metro and headed home. 

By the time we got back it was like 11:45pm, and we have to leave at 7:15am tomorrow, but oh it was so worth it. I LOVE PARIS!!!!

Random notes/happenings:

I forgot to write about Coke man in my blog yesterday. Basically at Harmony Cafe yesterday, the bartender brought a Coke bottle out to a different table, and it had a bottle cap on it of course. So he grabs the bottle opener out of his pocket, grabs the Coke bottle by the neck with the same hand, puts the bottle behind his shoulder (to stabilize it maybe?) and then cracks the lid off with the bottle opener. All with one hand. ??!!???!!?! I was AMAZED. Do not ask me for a demonstration, and this is the best explanation I have. My jaw literally dropped. And nobody else saw it!!! I seriously might have to go back just to order a Coke Zero and have him do it for me again. It was insane to me. 

We were supposed to eat cake at the Eiffel Tower for Rob but Rob got his butter knife confiscated at security. Or the hotel’s butter knife confiscated I guess. He’s so funny. 

Croissant on the metro floor. How paris!