I'm sitting on a mall bench at Forum des Halles, an underground mall in Paris. My parents are convinced that they need to buy sweaters if they are to enjoy their vacation, as the weather in Paris has been inclement of late in the sense that it isn't 25 degrees hot here.
Day 3 began at 8 am, I took my 5 hours of sleep like a champ and was ready to leave in 15 minutes. However, nobody else was as quick to get ready, nor were they in any hurry to leave for breakfast. There was a dynamic change of plans this morning based on one thing; availability. The initial plan was to take a maxi cab to the Louvre and then back home later. Upon calling the maxi cab station in the morning, we found out that all the maxi cabs were booked until noon (who knows how far in advance we'd have to call to get a cab.) once again Europe has let me down. The remaining option is to take a bus and train, so following a quick concensus on the only options we have as non-painfully-in-advance tourists, we decided to plan the day a bit in advance to avoid getting lost on the commute. We then tried to set up a boat tour, only to find 1) most tours are full-day, 40 euros in cost and upwards, and include a dinner or bus ride, all of which is totally unecessary to us. After dancelling the boat tour, the entire day blew wide open, somewhat anyway. We had a nice cheap (and mostly microwaved) breakfast (the best part was the fresh-squeezed orange juice) and we headed to the louvre.
The Mona Lisa is the most overhyped, underwhelming painting in the history of art. What a joke it was to see literally 70 people concentrically crammed in front of this thing with cameras shooting photo and video, most not even knowing whose wife was in the oicture or why the picture is famous. I don't pretend to be a skilled art critic or art historian, but as my romanian friend mentioned, there were a great many paintings and art works in the museum that seemed vastly more impressive than the Mona Lisa. We went through the miseum so quickly that we didnt see an entire third of it, and honestly the artworks we saw didnt seem to be on a profiundly higher level than thag we would find in the Royal Ontario Museum or the AGO, save perhaps for a few oversized canvasses in the italian section.
Following the Louvre (again, all hype), we went to Notre Dame, which was surprisingly close. once there, though, i was once again thoroughly underwhelmed. I thought the ceilings were high, but € 8.50 just to climb to the top? And the towers were closed by the time we got to them? And my family spent 45 minutes in the thing while I was chilling outside? All a bit excessive in my opinion.
The third day ended with more only-in-Paris bullshit. Only in Paris would a boat ride only run a segment that goes to four places, two of which cannot be stopped at because of high water, one of which is closed. For € 19. With no information on the tour, just a quiet ride around. My cousin was really keen on it though, so while we had to abandon it that day, I am really going to push for it on the day when we loop back to Paris, simply because it sounds like a phenomenal last day (sitting).
We ate dinner at a tourist trap, but we did eat a decent amount of french food, which made it okay. My sister thought her fish fillet was duck. She ordered duck, got a fish fillet, and everyone at the table forgot that she had ordered duck. It really was quite classic.
We got lost on the subway ride home. Nothing bad happened, i just...didn't need the extra fatigue from seeing all that was seen that day.
I ate a full jar of caviar on day 3. Most for pre-breakfast breakfast and the rest for dinner. I forgot to mention that the freshest OJ on Earth (the best part) was part of a €5 breakfast on day 3 morning, which was liked by all.
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