Paris: Jour Un, Deux, Trois Et Quatre

Ok so that's enough french. We got to Paris May 31and went on a walking tour... a free walking tour. It was a tour of the city and gave a little bit of history.  We took a few pictures along the way.

The Eiffel Tower. We will be visiting it soon.

An Egyptian obelisk, in Place de la Concorde, where the giant guillotine used to be and thousands of executions took place.

Arc de Triomphe. We will be visiting the Arc today.

It was a really good tour, but by the end of the 3 1/2 hour tour Andrew and I were really tired. So we went back to the hostel and watched an episode of Glee, watched a UFC fight and ate popcorn.

On June 1, we were rejuvenated, so we hit the town running. We got our museum passes (which allow you to go into almost any museum in Paris) and began at Notre Dame Cathedral, which was beautiful. We climbed the North Tower and had a great view of Paris.

After ND Cathedral we were all churched out so we went to Pantheon. The architecture of these places are amazing!

It was around noon by this time so we went to Jardin de Luxembourg for a picnic. The gardens here in Paris are not the same as those back at home. They don't really have any grass, and when they do have grass there are signs saying not to walk on it. They are also obsessed with symmetry, to the extent that all the trees are made rectangular or square.

This is a well known gay area in Paris. There are always rainbow flags flying around and men in short shorts... notice the street name? It also smells bad... Coincidence, we think not.

We thought that it would be a good idea to go to Le Musee D'Orsay. So we went, we saw... and I almost died. I don't like museums. I don't have an appreciation for art. I get it, it's old but that doesn't mean it is good. Also, the museum was packed! We saw some Monet and Van Gogh (which I do really like), but then I was done. So I was following Andrew around, which I am sure is pretty annoying, but then I found some benches. Andrew could now go look around and then come and get me when he moved on. Thank goodness I don't think Andrew has an appreciation for art either.

Then if we hadn't been to enough museums already, we decided to see Napoleon's tomb and walked through the Military Museum (very quickly!!!). We only went through the WWII portion (which was large), and it did not compare to the one in Caen. However, there were lots of French WWII items of display, including lots of rifles and uniforms that were in great shape (because they were hardly even used in the 2 weeks or so it took Hitler to invade France, which, by the way, had the largest land army at that time...).

June 2, and then we went to the Louvre. So I thought I didn't like museums when I came to Europe, then after June 1, I really didn't think I liked museums, but after this day I knew 100% museums just aren't my thing. We get to the Louvre at around 10am. The line to get in isn't bad and we decided that before the masses came we would go see the really famous pieces first. So... we went over to the Mona Lisa. The rooms leading up to the room holding the Mona Lisa are 40 degrees because there were so many people. Once we get into the room where the Mona Lisa is there are tons of people and every one of them is holding up their cameras trying to take a picture of a picture... Don't they get it... they can buy Mona Lisa replicas, magnets, towels... pretty much anything you could ever want, and yet they are still taking a picture. You can even download high definition Mona Lisa pictures on the internet for free I am sure. Pictures of pictures...

After we had seen some of the famous things Andrew wanted to see we were wandering through the museum and I found the best thing in the entire museum (other than the exit): the 2rd floor. Here is where they keep some french pieces, none of which are extremely famous, so nobody is up there and the temperature drops about 10 degrees because the rooms aren't packed with sweaty barbarians.

Picture taken after we left!

After being at the Louvre for a good part of the day (ok maybe only a few hours), I was tired (I believe that museums suck the life out of me, much like malls), so we went grocery shopping and went back to the hostel for supper and another episode of glee and a movie. We did, however, get lots of walking done through the city's large and beautiful boulevards.

June 3, we got to go to Versailles Palace and it was gorgeous. The gardens were so beautiful and we spent all day there. We managed to get there quite early, so the gardens (which span 800 hectares of land) were relatively empty. The sweaty barbarians, however, were soon to follow.

The palace.

The gardens.

A Dream Come True

Yesterday was the best day EVER... ok not ever, but it was just what I needed.

Yesterday morning I researched where we were going to stay for the next two nights and some things to do in and around Paris (our next major city).

Andrew sewed Canadian flags onto our backpacks (twice, because the first time you could see the white thread). We were sick of people assuming that we were American.

Then for our afternoon getaway Andrew and I went to the Dunnes grocery store and we got chocolate chip muffins and we came back and watched Glee. This lead to a discussion where Andrew informed me that he was a part of Notre Dame's High School Glee club. When I told him he could never get into a glee club he proceeded to show me some of his moves (I believe he was singing Sweet Caroline). 

(I'm actually surprised how well these pictures turned out considering I was laughing so hard I was crying.)

The Last Few Days

We have really been enjoying our time in Killarney. The first day that we got here we spent it at the National Park then the next day (May 8) we spent the entire day in the park too. Below are some pictures from the second day spent in the park.

The next day we decided to go on a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry. We were really excited to see the beautiful landscape, what we didn't really know is that we were stuck in a tourist trap. The first two stops we made were at the most random places: a Bog Museum and a sheep hearding place. At both places you had to pay for admission and both times we were stopped for at least 3/4 of an hour. We paid for neither.

Andrew and I still had fun though. Andrew nicknamed an American tourist on our bus "old man steal me money" because he and his wife paid to get into all these stupid places that the bus stopped and bought other stupid things. Andrew and I were trying to figure out how to scam "old man steal me money" into giving us money. No such luck.

Here we are outside at one of the stops.

Ring of Kerry.

Ring of Kerry.

The next day (May 9) we didn't have any plans so we decided to go to Cork because we read that it is "The People's Capital" (whatever that means). So we got to Cork, it was pretty cold outside (even for Andrew), and we didn't really know where to go or what to see. We went to the tourist office to see what sites we wanted to see in Cork and discovered that we didn't really want to see anything in Cork. So instead of getting on the next train we decided to go to an old church and to a park. The park was really nice and we really enjoyed it but we discovered that we hated Cork. There was dog poop (I'm assuming it was dog poop, some it was questionable) everywhere!! Needless to say, Andrew and I got out of Cork as soon as we could. Now that I think about it we probably spent more time waiting for the train and on the train than actually in Cork. Nevertheless, it was a great day, and we had lots of fun.

Jack this picture is for you. Here is how they do construction (and demolition) in Cork.

(I just wanted to say that I really wanted to take a picture of some dog poop because that is how I will always remember Cork but Andrew wouldn't let me and he was holding the camera.)

So today we thought we would rent a couple of bikes and go into another (bigger) part of the National Park. 

We went North of Killarney to a lookout to have a really good view of part of the National park, but I was too captivated by two horses to really have a look at the view.

Here is picture Andrew took from the lookout.

Then we went to the South to see Torc waterfalls. On the little climb to the waterfalls we were talking to a guy who asked us where we were from, and when we said Canada he said, 'Don't you have Niagra Falls in Canada? Well this won't be as good as that.'

He was right, why did we even bother?? Ha ha.

Although they weren't quite the same size as Niagra Falls, they were still really pretty.

The real story to the bike ride is that after 10 minutes on the bikes I didn't want to bike anymore. See the problem with having a 5 star hostel is that I never want to leave. Today I would have preferred to have gone to Buy-Low (the grocery store here is actual called Dunnes) and purchased a couple containers of chocolate chip muffins and ate them while watching multiple episodes of Glee. Since we had already rented the bikes and because Andrew was having a good time I tried to be a good sport. Unfortunately for Andrew, that didn't last for too long. By the time we made it to the falls I was done, it was time to go back to the hostel, but I guess I didn't communicate this to Andrew because he proceeded to take us in the opposite direction of the hostel and on a route that the only way out was to go back the way we came. Half way through this new little adventure I tried to quit, by telling Andrew that I was not going to bike anymore (I'm not sure how I was going to get from the path back to the hostel because I was not going to bike or walk back... I know the thought of calling a taxi entered my head, but I don't think taxis pick people up on bike and walking paths) but he was so far ahead of me that he couldn't hear me yelling 'I QUIT!'

After I had finished throwing a tantrum we proceeded to go further away from the hostel so that Andrew could go to the washroom, but then finally we were able to go back to the hostel. I am glad to say that we made it back to the hostel and now looking back on today... I think it was a pretty good day and I think I actually liked the bike ride, but we definitely aren't renting bikes tomorrow.

Andrew and I are still having a great time in Killarney but we will be packing up the day after tomorrow to head out to who knows where. We are homeless as of right now because we haven't decided where we want to go before we meet up with Mom and Jack on the 15th.