Paris day two! Son of day one!

Getting up in the morning we headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast. It was either cereal or baguettes and so we grabbed some baguettes and butter. Let me tell you this. Here is where I found the shining diamond that is almost the only jewel in the turd of a crown that is Paris. The food.The bread was some of the best I've ever had. And no, there's no sarcasm there. I'll extrapolate on the food angle in a bit though.

We had decided that we'd go to the Louvre on our first real day in Paris and thought a train was the most prudent way to get there. One of the oddities of the public transport system though, is that the doors have a spring loaded handle that you need to use to open them to get off. This handle engages waaaay before the train has come to a stop though and so I managed to witness many people basically doing a tuck and roll while jumping from a moving carriage onto the platform. Including one guy who was pushing a pram.

We got to the Louvre without incident and it's here that I have some bad news. Nothing funny happened while we were there. Nothing. We did, however, get to see what intellectual circles like to refer to as "An assload of art". We got to see the Mona Lisa, The Wedding at Cana, the famous inspiration for the Gummi de Milo (The Venus de Milo), The Revolution and one last painting (the best one I'd seen there) The Martyr. To say that you really don't get any idea what these works are like from books is an understatement. I mean, the Mona Lisa just doesn't seem to live up to the hype. You've seen a billion life-size replicas all over the place so it's as you expect, just in a fancy frame and behind bullet-proof glass. The Wedding at Cana however, is massive. Absolutely huge. In fact, it's bigger than the walls at most people's houses. You really need to see that in person to be able to appreciate it. Also it was the first time I'd really seen The Martyr. And this is where I put on my "pretentious w***er" hat. The painting is haunting. It is simply amazing. I could have stared at it all day. No matter what I type here it can never do the impact of that painting justice. Sadly the best I could do was get a photo of it and buy a postcard from the gift shop of it. Which is really as much of a true representation of it as slot cars are a representation of a NASA launch.

After getting all arted up we did the only thing that seemed suitable. We went and bought some more awesome baguettes, some brie and camembert and a bottle of Muscat wine and decided to get drunk in the sun while eating bread and cheese under the Eiffel Tower. An absolutely brilliant way to spend lunch.

After Sarah had a quick nap in the sun and I watched the fountains and did the world's most horrible sketch of the Eiffel Tower in crappy pen we headed off to take a "free" walking tour of Paris. We made our way to St. Michael's and decided that we hadn't eaten enough crap yet, hence we got a crepe. It was possibly the best crepes I've ever had (true, I haven't had many crepes, but I normally don't like them at all and I yummed that bad boy up like it was my last meal).

As I mentioned before, we did the walking tour of Paris which went for about 3 hours and took us all over the city. We learnt heaps about the city and I would recommend walking tours of the city hosted by Kate to anyone. At one point the guide even asked "Who actually knows anything about the Eiffel Tower?" and thanks to John's inspiration and my massive Wikipedia fetish, I was able to deliver the entire speech the guide had prepared for that landmark. Unfortunately I didn't receive any tips for it though.

As it was now time for dinner (and we'd sobered up somewhat), we went for one last meal before we'd have to get up at 3:30 the next morning.Looking around (also with help from my good friend Google) we found the only restaurant in Paris that served frog's legs. We sat down and ordered a plate (for the low, low price of only roughly AU$50 for an entrée) in a restaurant that had four staff and two other customers aside from us. It was at this point the waiter told us that we had to order another plate (all at least AU$50 for entrée size) or leave. And so leave we did.

We took about two turns and found streets packed with people all dining in restaurants that were full to the brim. We found one that had a fantastic menu and sat down for our meal. For roughly AU$30 I had garlic escargot entrée, Duck L'orange main and a chocolate cake for dessert. Now, I don't know what the chocolate cake was called, but it was smaller than a cupcake and had liquid chocolate in the center. It was tiny and I thought "What?! That's it?!" Luckily I took a tiny bit at a time and soon realized that while it was small in stature, this chocolate cake was the richest, tastiest and chocolatiest thing I have ever tasted. It was magnificent. In fact, the entire meal was. I'll be discussing Paris a little more when I compare it to Rome but it's safe to say I have no real interest in going back there. Except for the food.

Now it was time to get home and time for bed.After all, tomorrow we had to be at the airport God-awfully early and get to Barcelona.

Fun Fact:There is an official council whose sole job it is to come up with "French sounding" words so that English ones don't "pollute" the language. Including the words for "computer", "weekend" and the gender of the iPod. My god I hate those arrogant p****.