June 3, Day 12

I woke up with a start when my roommate kind of just yelled my name and scurried out of bed to answer whoever was knocking on the door. I had no idea what time we had to be up this morning and thought to myself surely it won't be early than 930 or so. I was wrong, and I guess we had to be downstaris at 830 to head to the Lourve. So, no starbucks with me. I'm not a fan of rushed mornings, I was a wee bit cranky. hah. We took a long subway ride directly to the Lourve and once we got in and such, lo and behold, there sat a little starbucks nestled all cozy like between the other various souvenir shops in the museum. Armon said he would have told me but just thought it'd be funny if I just saw for myself. They stopped especially for me to get my morning coffee fix. It was awesome.
The Lourve is HUGE. Honestly I often felt that the museum was overcrowded; not with people, but with art work. I wasn't sure what to look at and if you looked at one thing you missed seeing something else behind you. Pretty crazy. I saw the Mona Lisa, yes, kind of anticlimactic really. Easton was saying how he feels it's more of a touristy thing. Like it's more of a big deal for those who don't know much about the painting or the story behind it, and artists know there are better more greater things to see. I completely agree, but at least I can say that I've seen it. More exciting though, I saw my most favorite sculpture that I've ever studied- the Nike of Samothrice- a beautiful winged victory sculpture. I also saw a painting I like called The Raft of Medusa, where the story is that these men got stranded on a raft and eventually resorted to cannibalism for survival. We took a photo in front of it of me biting Easton's arm. Quite appropriate. Just a couple paintings down from that one was Liberty Leading the People, the painting on the cover of Coldplay's most recent album Viva La Vida. It was fabulous. Got a photo in front of that guy too. After spending all morning and early afternoon trying to see everything crammed in the museum, we chilled outside by the huge glass pyramids of the Lourve with our feet in fountain pools. I definitely got some sun, and have a nice defined flip flop tan line beginning to develop. From there we walked to the famous archway, Arc de Triomphe. That was cool to see. Then from there we walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower. Loooooong walk, but it was nice once we got there to sit underneath the tower and what not. Funny thing happened while we were there- tehre are street vendors everywhere trying to sell stupid little Eiffel tower keychains and mini models. It was funny to see them all waiting by the exit of those who went up the tower to try and get them to buy something after having been to the top. When Armon and I were walking looking for Natasha and Jen who took the subway instead of walking to the tower, all of the sudden all of these guys selling things were all sprinting in a big group. One even tripped and fell and his merchqndise went everywhere but he quickly recovered and continued running. We were kind of confused until we saw two bike cops pull up from the direction the men were sprinting from. Hilarious sight. Apparently what they're doing is illegal, and for the rest of the time there we joked about yelled 'POLICE!!' everytime one of them came up and tried to sell something to us. hahah. We took a long subway ride home, I showered which puts me at 4 showers now in 12 days, not bad. We had dinner then Jen, Armon and I met in a room to watch the last episode of Lost which we had all missed seeing as we left the country the day it showed. So that was fun, the finale was AWESOME and I can't stop thinking about it and am excited to discuss and debate on the 4 hour train ride tomorrow to London! It was a fun day full of walking and more seeing of famous things.

As for now, I'm headed off to Starbucks ^_^