"Of course I'm French! Why do you think I have this outrageous accent?!" (Part Deux)

Saturday (jeez, was it only Saturday? Time passes slowly in France... it ate too many croissants) we attempted to wake up for breakfast, failed, and grabbed a few croissants on our own. We headed to the Musée d'Orsay, which is a museum for Impressionist art. Yay! I also got tortilla chips (nearby, so this clearly belongs in the same paragraph), which are very hard to find here in London, so I was extra happy. There were a lot of Degas exhibits, including pastels, paintings, and sculptures, so I was quite the happy girl.

After a few hours of being a serious art student in the d'Orsay, it was time to go make fun of stuff in the Louvre. The Louvre is awesome because it takes itself so seriously as a tourist destination, and so the average layout of a room would be: Statue/Sign pointing to the Mona Lisa/Statue/Person trying to find Mona Lisa. I did not in fact go to see the Mona Lisa, although I caught a glimpse of her because she's in a central room in the central part of the central building. Surrounded by some art that is also awesome, by the way. And she's really small. And Winged Victory, another all-star has no arms or head, but she does have a hand displayed separately that is totally a man hand (think Seinfeld).

Hammurabi's Code was cool, but the British Museum totally has the Louvre beat in the "awesome mummies with sweet x-rays" department.

After the Louvre I realized that my foot may be broken or sprained (we'll see... I may get it checked out on Thursday and see how good socialized health care really is) so I started moping and dragging, so I took a nap. Then dinner and more sleep. France makes me le tired. BUT! I almost forgot. We also got dessert... andrew got an amazing eclair with chocolate mousse and I got a pie that had caramel and nuts on it. Mmmmmmm.

The next day we slept in past breakfast again and decided to check out a nearby farmers' market, where I got more quiche and more croissant. We took the Metro up to Sacré-Coeur and got to see another amazing view of the city:



Then we wandered for a bit, got food, and headed home.

Or at least tried to.

The comment in the previous entry about how the French will be French applies to our experience at Charles De Gaulle. Now, landing there, we realized that their signs were somewhat misleading. However, we didn't expect to get off the train and be confronted with a complete lack of signs. Except for one for a coffee shop. Apparently the way to escape Paris is to be intuitive enough to know that you need to climb these mythical stairs to get on an imaginary bus that takes you to a fantastical terminal. And, voila! You are not where you need to check in! So you check in and score! You are not where you need to check your bags! You find your way over there and sweet! You have no idea which gate you're at, but if you go through security for the wrong ones, you're in trouble. Then your flight number is wrong and you have to take a bus to the plane.

I, at some point, did consider walking through the Chunnel.

But we made it back and found that, while we were gone, France had conquered London and translated all the Tube signs into French (part of this is made up, part is not), an eerie reminder that when someone tells you that "you don't have to learn a foreign language, everyone speaks English", you should tell them to go to Charles De Gaulle. I mean Hell. Right. Hell.

Anyway, it was an overall awesome weekend and I can't wait to travel again. But I did end up homesick for London and I am incredibly glad to be back home.