family fun, days 1-3: paris.

(It was Monday morning when we arrived, so our official Day 1)

Michelle finally came back with our dad, and I think I had never been so happy to see him (I think it was the combination of really wanting to get food and rest plus not having seen him since my birthday). Michelle bought me an orange soda to help revive me a bit, then we took the train to our hotel in central Paris. After crashing on the bed for a bit, we all went out to find some sustenance (lol, Thor). My dad got a sandwich, Michelle and I shared a crepe, and my mom got some soup from a Chinese restaurant around the corner. We eventually worked up the strength to start sightseeing, thankfully.
We headed to Notre Dame to meet Sara, toured the church, then started to head to Sacre Couer, but my mom and I ended up too tired to make the extra trek, so we went back to the hotel to nap, while the three of them went to Sacre Couer and Centre Pompidou before coming back. By then, it was dinner time. We ended up having a pretty terrible first real dining experience in Paris =\ especially Michelle, lol. At a random French restaurant with no English menu and no English-speaking staff, I had a hamburger and French fries (haha), and Michelle had some...weird salad. Anyway, after dinner, we walked down Champs Elysees as the sun set over Arc de Triomphe, which was kinda neat. We got to the Arc, climbed to the top (except for our dad), and got to see all the streets radiating out from the square--it really is like the spokes of a wheel! We also got to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle, hehe.

Day 2: We woke up, got breakfast to go at a nearby bakery, and hopped on the train to Versailles! After waiting in line for a bit and getting our tickets, we walked through the golden gates and saw SO MANY people. Seriously, Versailles was where we ended up waiting in line the longest (it wound up being an hour)...the line snaked around the front courtyard several times, and it was just to get into the palace. (Funny story: our mom thought the Asian girl in the group in front of us was Jenny Fan...and she didn't look like her at all, lol. But they were a random group of people that had met at their hostel! which was kinda neat.) When we finally got in, we toured for a couple of hours through all of the Grand Apartments of Louis the XIV. Talk about extravagant! Sheesh. And extensive. It was still pretty cool, though (I have a lot of pictures from the palace). We took some pictures out at the biiiig gardens in the back before heading out. It was around 4 p.m., but we were too hungry not to eat, so we ate a super-late lunch before getting back on the train. We tried to make it to Musee D'Orsay, but it closed just as we got there...sad. So we looked at our map, were intrigued by the Galleries Lafayette and the picture of its cool glass dome ceiling, and set off. We found a tall, Prudential Tower-like tower, and after wandering around the mall for a bit, we gave up. Turns out we went to the wrong one (there were two)! Fail. But it was okay, because we had crepes and ice cream in the meantime, haha.
We then headed to the Eiffel Tower, where we took pictures, saw all the guys selling trinkets running from the cops (pretty funny--apparently, they sell those things without a license, so when they think they see the cops coming, they all grab their things and run--it was pretty intense! I have a picture somewhere), and then decided to climb up to the second level when we saw that the line was nearly NON-EXISTENT. Haha. Michelle and I climbed up 669 steps to the second level, took pictures, looked around (it's so cool! Learning about the engineering of the structure was pretty neat), and went back down. We went to get pho (yes, in Paris) for dinner in their semi-shady Chinatown, haha. Yum!

Day 3: Our last day in Paris together, and we spent most of it at the Louvre! Except for our mom, who declined. Our dad, Michelle, and I spent about four hours total in the museum. My legs got so tired, lol. It was pretty neat seeing all those famous artpieces (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo), along with many that I didn't know about but still admired. It was funny--my mom was asking this, but I couldn't answer, and I kind of have the same question: what makes the Mona Lisa so famous? It's a pretty good painting, yes, but there are many that I thought were more impressive. Guess I'm not well-educated enough in art history...
After wandering around for four hours, we headed to Pierre Herme to get macarons! Such cute but expensive (around 2 euro each!) cookies. We then went back to the hotel, swung by Berthillon for supposedly famous (and pretty tasty) ice cream--thanks for the recommendation, Caiqian :) sorry I couldn't see you in Paris!--and then headed to the train station. Au revoir, Paris!