friday, july 20

i woke up this morning with a throbbing headache, so i went back to sleep and slept till 10am. then i got up, got ready, and we headed out, this time to the arc de triomphe. we strolled down the champs elysee and arrived at the arc:

we arrived and decided that, hey, we like climbing stairs, let's climb some more to the top of this thing! so we did.
we love spiral staircases.

the view from the top, looking out over the champs elysee:
me, at the windy top, with the eiffel tower in the background:
another view from the top, again with the eiffel tower:
as we came down from the arc de triomphe, we saw four bikers from the tour de france. i wonder who they were...

after, we took the metro back to the eiffel tower so we could get more pictures like this one:
then we got back on the metro to go back to the musee d'orsay to finish looking at all the famous paintings (they kicked us out before we saw all of them yesterday). we had to walk a few blocks to get from the metro station to the museum, and i am so glad we did, because we stumbled upon this little beauty:i have no idea what it is, but it was very picturesque.

at the musee d'orsay, i took more pictures of cool artworks. i especially like this one:
and of course, this one. this is a statue created by one of rodin's students: camille claudel. i think it is beautiful. it is titled the age of maturity and depicts an old woman leading a man away from a young woman. how inevitable and tragic.

we had to wait for a bit for lauren, and i got bored. i started messing with the macro setting on my camera, and this is the result.

after the orsay we waited for a taxi, but there was a line and no one was stopping, so we took a water bus down the seine to notre dame cathedral.

here i am, waiting for the water bus.

view of the louvre from the seine.

notre dame cathedral from the seine.

notre dame cathedral from the front.

notre dame cathedral from the inside.

we arrived at notre dame about five minutes before it closed for the evening. they were holding mass when we went in, so i felt a little bad about taking pictures, but as you can see it did not stop me. at least i turned my flash off.

votive candles at notre dame.

me, outside notre dame cathedral.

the famous gargoyles of notre dame are visible at the top of this picture.

beautiful building next to notre dame.

beach volleyball tournament outside of the beautiful building next to notre dame.

we finished the day with some shopping and dinner, then we went back to our hotel room for the night. tomorrow we fly home. it has been a long three weeks, but i am so glad i had this experience. my feet hurt, my head hurts, my neck hurts, and my sinuses hurt, but i don't care. i just spent the last three weeks in europe!