Friday marked the second and final day of our Paris Museum Pass and we wanted to use it to its fullest, so we planned to stop at the Louvre, Musee de l’Orangerie, and the Arc de Triumphe on our last big sightseeing day. Since we also planned to see the Arc de Triumphe at night, we also thought we’d plan a nicer dinner out near the Champs d’Elysses.

Our day started off early again and we planned to make it to the Louvre around opening time at 9am. On the way, we walked through the Tuilleries garden. I knew the Louvre was big, but it is more than just big. It’s an entire city block.

We attempted to enter through the underground entrance in the mall area (mall like shopping mall) but they didn’t accept museum passes at that entrance. While it was the wrong entrance, we got to see the giant underground pyramid that I’ve never seen in pictures. Plus, there was an underground mall outside this iconic museum. How strange is that?

We went back outside to enter through the big, glass pyramid and I came upon another surprise: did you know that there is a shrubbery maze outside the Louvre? We didn’t stop and explore further, but I thought it was pretty cool and I totally want to explore a maze at some point. Maybe it’s because I recently read the Maze Runner. Mazes = awesome.

I don’t know if we just weren’t in the mood for a museum again or if we were tired or if it really was super packed, but the Louvre sapped all my energy quickly. There were so many people and they were not very considerate about personal space. (Sidenote: there are very clear signs warning of pickpocketers, so you are super conscious of your purse, especially when taking photos. Also, my mother warned me to not bring anything valuable with me to Paris because her friend had an earring stolen from her earlobe. So the tourists bumping into you at every turn just causes you be super aware at every second. Is this dude really clueless or is he trying to steal my wallet?). Anyway, we saw the Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, among others in the Italian Renaissance wing, but we were much happier in the quieter wings looking at some of the Egyptian artifacts. We did pop by the Venus de Milo, but we left on the early side, not quite exploring the whole museum. I do understand how you could spend days in the Louvre, but I knew what I wanted to see and didn’t care about skipping. For example, furniture is not my thing. I don’t care to see some emperor’s old couch.

We left at lunchtime, made a quick trip to the Marais area to get Chris his absinthe, and had a nice lunch at a cafe. Then we headed back to the Tuilleries Garden and into the Musee de l’Orangerie to see Monet’s water lilly paintings. Six amazingly giant water lilly paintings. A Facebook friend recommended this museum after seeing my photos and comments about the impressionist paintings in the Musee d’Orsay, and it was a great recommendation.

We went back to the apartment to drop off our souvenirs and relax for a bit before dressing up for dinner and heading out for the evening.

When we got off the Metro at the beginning of the Champs d’Elysses, we happened upon the opening night of a Christmas fair that will run until the beginning of January. There’s no Thanksgiving in France (obviously), so Armistice Day was the last big holiday before Christmas. It felt so early to us to see a full on Christmas celebration, but it was also nice to get a taste of Christmas in Paris. We enjoyed walking around, looking at all the booths and yummy food vendors and crazy rides. However, it started raining a bit and we had no concept of how far the restaurant was, so we started to walk towards the restaurant, which we got to an hour before our reservation. The restaurant was clearly still closed and wasn’t due to open until our reservation at 7pm, so we continued to walk and marvel at the Champs d’Elysses. The further down you go, the fancier the stores. Almost every store had a door man. The Luis Vuitton store had a line to enter. And instead of going back for our fancy dinner at 7, we ended up eating at the equivalent of a Red Lobster – mussels frites were yummy and hit the spot, but the restaurant had balloons with mussels on them. It was clearly a family chain. We thought it was hilarious.

We continued to walk to the Arc de Triumphe and encountered our last torturous circular stairway up flights and flights to the top of the Arc. It was pretty amazing up there. We got some great photos of the Champs d’Elysses at night and the Eiffel Tower. However, we were wiped out. It was another long day of walking – some of it in heels for me – and since there was a metro right next to the Arc, it made sense to go home.

I mentioned in an earlier post that our trip has a definitely bell curve to it, with the previous day in Montmartre being the highlight. While this day was mostly enjoyable, I should mention here that the date was Friday, November 13 and when we got back to the apartment, we weren’t there long before we started receiving calls and texts making sure we were okay because of the news just started reporting about the Paris attacks. For us, it was about 9:30pm. We quickly called and texted family and put a message on Facebook that we were fine if people started seeing reports of something happening in Paris (we had been posting photos all week, so more people than normal knew we were there. It was sort of amazing to see an outpouring of care from childhood friends and friends of friends). It was a very long night as we tried to figure out how close we were to anything that had occurred and responding to the many more texts and calls that started to roll in as those in the U.S. were going home and seeing the 6pm news (midnight for us). I woke up several times to respond to things on Facebook and answer texts from concerned friends. Our host also was very nervous for us and offered for us to stay at her home in the Paris suburbs.

Needless to say, we slept until about noon the next day and after watching the news, we weren’t sure if we should be leaving the apartment. Would anything be open? Can we get food? Do we need to call the Embassy? What is going to happen to our flight on Sunday?

We got dressed and figured we’d at least go downstairs and look out the front door of the building and we found that in our neighborhood, things seemed to be happening as normal. There was definitely a strange vibe to the day. People were on their cell phones more than I saw the rest of the week. There was more police than normal. But people were still out. Woman were getting their hair done. People were grocery shopping. Children were out playing. And the cafes were packed. So we felt safe being out in our neighborhood. We didn’t venture further than that, but we took lots of photos of our neighborhood and enjoyed a leisurely lunch and coffee later and had a wonderful dinner at a nearby restaurant. Overall, this didn’t ruin our trip (and while we ordered a car to take us to the airport instead of taking public transportation, there were no problems with our flight home). We still had a great trip, but it was definitely a strange ending.

Je t’aime Paris. Stay safe.