“Paris” in French. At least the way I speak it.
Sunday was our wrap-up day, our last day together. It was also the first Sunday of the month, which, fortunately for us, meant that the Louvre was free! We spent most of the day there, and enjoyed part of one wing. Seriously, that place is huge. I saw the Mona Lisa, which I really enjoyed since I have been taking a class on Leonardo da Vinci over the semester, and the Mona Lisa was (of course) one of his paintings that we paid special attention to. Kind of funny—there was a huge crowd pushing to see and take pictures of the Mona Lisa, which is behind bullet-proof glass and has an entire wall all to itself. Right in hallway outside, passed by unnoticed by most of the people who at that point are only excited to see da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, are two more da Vinci paintings. One is another portrait of a woman. He only completed four portraits of women in his life, and one is in a place where it frequently gets ignored by people rushing to see another. Weird. We also saw the Venus de Milo, and other famous pieces of art. Did you know there is an entire exhibition on the history of the Louvre? There is! Actually, there are more than one: History of the Louvre 1, the Medieval Louvre, and History of the Louvre 2. What kind of museum needs three different exhibitions just to cover its own history? Pretty cool, I think anyway.
After that, the plan was to visit the Champs-Elysees and get crepes as an early celebration of my birthday. We decided, however, that it would be a good idea to check first to find out when the last night bus or first morning bus ran to the airport Becca and I were flying out of early in the morning. We went there first and found out that the first bus in the morning would cut it too close for us, and the last bus at night departed in about half an hour. We went on a hasty quest to find crepes, but it was Sunday night and most places were closing. We did manage to find a bakery that was starting to close, but the woman was kind enough to let us in and patient enough to remain very pleasant as we took our time ooh-ing and aah-ing over the baguettes and French pastries. We had to get both. Yum. Then came a hurried goodbye, and Becca and I were on the bus to the airport, ready for a night of talking, paper writing on her part, and hopefully some sleeping on mine. We found a good spot for the night and got settled in, and then an airport employee came over to tell us that if we were not on the next flight out, we would have to leave because the airport was closing. What?! Airports close? Who even knew? With some help from the information desk, Becca and I navigated our way to the cheapest hotel in the town outside of Paris where the airport was located. Thanks, RyanAir. I’m sure hotels in that town love you. That was Sunday.
Becca wrote her paper and I caught a few hours of sleep before we got up to catch the earliest city bus to the airport. It didn’t work; we missed it. I was kind of concerned I would miss my flight if we had to wait an hour for the next bus, but the clerk at the hotel was just getting off work and offered to drive us! How kind. We made very good time, and were well in time to hang out at the airport because our flights were delayed. Mid-Monday found me flopping into bed and falling into a deliciously sound sleep.
BAM! …We’ll always have Paris.
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