Paris: Slept in until 8:45 (ooooh, such rebels...not) because we were super tired from yesterday. We headed out to the Rodin museum at 10, and took a quick turn through the gardens where his sculptures were. Thank goodness for the museum pass, which allows us to see and sample a bunch of the museums and sights around Paris.

Next, we walked over to Army Museum (Hotel des Invalides) to see Napoleon's tomb. The dome was awesome and so grand! Napoleon sure went all out to honor himself at his death! The guy rests in the centre of the dome with a huge chapel at one end and the tombs of important army officials surrounding him on the second floor. Underneath these tombs, and surrounding Napoleons's tomb are carvings and records of his accomplishments. Oh, did I mention that his tomb is grossly enlarged? I wonder if he had a complex that he was trying to compensate for.

We briefly walked through the Army museum and saw the history between Louis XIV to Napoleon. We also saw Napoleon's stuffed horse, which was super creepy and encased in a dark area, probably to keep preserved as long as possible.

Next, we headed over to the Louvre. They have 2 Starbucks! But we resisted b/c we were pretty dehydrated and just wanted water. Grabbed a couple of sandwiches at the bustling museum food court and ate outside the Apple store in the Louvre Carousel. Yes, there was an Apple store in the stores circling the Louvre. We went in to see if we could get some help with our sim card problem, but it it looked like you needed an appointment to see a technician. The good news is that when Pete was speaking to one of the people there, he figured out that the sim cards had expiry dates on them! Tsk, Tsk FNAC Parinor. More on this later.

Rather than waste any more time on the sim card problem, we started our visit to the Louvre. Since we had downloaded the RS tour for the iPad, we were set. We plugged in our headphones and followed the 2 hour tour through the Denon wing-Greek and Roman art, Italian Renaissance, French Classical, Neo-Clasical and Romantacism. Then whole layout was obviously different from when i last visited 6 years ago. When we got to the Mona Lisa, I kind of hung back because it was packed and I had seen it before. Pete crammed in to get a photo, but afterwards, he agreed that it was a bit of an underwhelming experience.

Heading over to the upper Richelieu wing, we thought we'd see some Dutch and French works, but by the time we got there, our feet were so sore that we decided to go back to the main floor to see the courtyard and glass pyramids. Outside, mini-sandstorms were happening as the wind kicked up dust from the gravel paths. A very nice French lady saw us taking a self portrait and offered to come around the partitions to take some pictures for us.

From the courtyard, we walked through the Tuileries Garden to Place de la Concorde and L'Obelisque, up to the Champs Élysées. There were many fancy stores, all of which we couldn't afford, or justify buying stuff from. We did stop in at the FNAC where a very helpful salesperson processed the return of the 2 sim cards with 04/2011 dates (he confirmed that this was the expiration date) and let us try the one that had an 06/2011 date on it. It worked immediately! PTL we now have internet access after being in France for 5 days already. But looking back, we are thankful that God kept us even without the use of a sim card. He led us even in the most stressful times.

We crossed to the middle intersection a few times to see if we could get a good shot if the Arc. We also looked around in the side streets for a place to have dinner - most of the restaurants on the Avenue were super expensive. We ended up up at a resto-bar called Casitas on rue Washington. It had a jazz singer and some tasty set menus.

After dinner, we walked the rest of the way to the Arc de Triomphe - we didn't have much further to go! Pete took some pictures of the structure outside of the roundabout while I watched some tourists try to run across the roundabout to the Arc. Bad mistake, as there were speeding cars going through it. They figured out the underground footpath and we crossed it with them to get to the Arc. There, we bypassed the ticket booth and lined up to climb up the stairs with our museum passes. The view above was breathtaking, especially as the sun started setting over the city.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the famous Laduree cafe where we purchased a few macarons to share. I don't generally like macarons, but Mmmm! These were good!