À Paris, Mon Amour...

Before taking James to the airport to fly home, we did what any good tourists would do: we camped out in a hostel for a few nights, criss-crossed the city, and took more pictures than either of us thought possible.  It was a great weekend :)

For the first time ever, in all my little trips to Paris, I saw the SUN come out!  Complete with blue skies--it was a real treat for my anti-French petit coeur ;)

As it was James' first time in Paris, we did the usual tourist-y things: the Louvre (even though we were there on a Friday night, we missed their open-late hours for students, which was a real bummer!),  la Tour Eiffel, Cathédrale de Notre-Dame, etc.  Thus, this blog will be mostly pictures with captions.  If you want the details to any particular story, just ask ;)

Our hostel was really near Sacré Coeur, so we toured the inside (which I'd never seen) and marveled at the view from the top of the hill.  We also got stopped by rogue Africans who made us bracelets and then insisted that we pay them. :|

This one was one of my favorite views--look how small the tower looks from up here!

I can never get over how beautiful the basilica is.  The inside is really astonishing; unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed. 

After searching around Montmartre (my favorite quartier of Paris) for awhile, we finally found Café des 2 Moulins, made famous by its appearance in.....the movie Amélie!  It's the café where Amélie works, and it had never even dawned on me to look for it before.

The sevice was terrible, but the café was cute, and crème brûlée is always good :)

On Friday night we took the metro from our hostel to the Louvre, which unfortunately we'd just missed being able to go inside.  Instead we walked along the river, which was beautiful. 

Especially when the Eiffel Tower did her faithful little light show every hour for us :)

At Place de la Concorde there was a giant Ferris wheel, and from the top of it you could see l'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysées all lit up for Christmas.  We didn't ride the Ferris wheel, but the view from the ground was still beautiful.

In an ad in the metro, we found a cartoon girl who looks just like me :)

Saturday morning was sunny, so we ventured out to see l'Arc de Triomphe in the daylight.  We walked all the way down the Champs Elysées, taking our time, window shopping, enjoying the blue skies. 

We eventually made it to the Grand and Petit Palais, which--believe it or not--I'd never even seen before.  James loved them; the architecture really is awesome!

Across the bridge was the gold dome of Les Invalides, Napoleon Bonaparte's burial ground.  For the first time I saw the dome glinting gold instead of reflecting grey skies; that just makes you feel good :)

So good that we felt the need to take a picture :)

We made it to Notre Dame Cathedral right as the sun was setting.  There we saw a couple who had just gotten married inside the church exiting to have their pictures taken; my favorite part was when the vagrants holding signs advertising "FREE HUGS" overtook the newly-married couple and smothered them with free hugs.  Their photographer got it on camera; that's going to be a great picture :)

And what better way to send mon amour back to the States in style than a giant advertisement for a McDonald's McFarmer? :P