Jess 3-10-08

Hello all! A batch of pictures for you from Paris for Day 1. I'm sorry, I was mistaken, we went to the Arc du Triomphe on the third day, and not the first. We went from the Musee D'Orsay, which we visited on Day 3 (after our 1 whole day of doing nothing), so that will be on a different batch of photos. Nonetheless everything we wrote down yesterday happened... just not in that order, haha. After we exited the Louvre we took the train home. Nonetheless all that walking made my ankles ache and Bill's back ache and we wobbled from the train station home in Montemartre.

In any case, Bill and I both did very well on our midterm exams. I got a B+ and two As (my painting class doesn't have a midterm), and Bill did even better with three As (and hasn't gotten one back yet)! Last night we got back into the routine of things while Bill worked on his paper and we made dinner together. We tried a brand new dish (for us) of risotto which came out really creamy and cheesy and delicious. We gobbled it up before we could take a picture of it, sorry all :) Tonight I think I'll make more salame dolce (cookie salami... don't worry there's no meat, only cookies and sugar and chocolate... mmmmmm.... I can taste it already) to keep Bill awake to finish his paper.

Well, anyway, here are the pictures! More updates on Paris to come soon.


Bill on the street in front of our Apartment. The stairs in the background lead up to Sacre Coeur from the right side.

Me attempting to figure out where to go in our walking excursion to the 1st arrondissement. Little did we know...

Bill standing in front of a church that we found, dedicated to St. Vincent De Paul! We thought we'd take a photo in honor of East Haven's own St. Vincent.

Jess in front of Les Halles, a big glass hole in the ground shopping center.

It was pretty windy in Paris, especially when you got near the Seine River. Bill and I are on Ponte Neuf, where all the artists are supposed to be but it seemed to be a little too cold that day.

From the other side of the river you could see Sacre Coeur waaaaay in the distance. Bill's pointing at it... that's how far we walked. Oops!

Me in front of the Musee D'Orsay! We were very excited to be there until we found out it was closed on Mondays and went to the Louvre instead.

Bill took this really pretty shot that also shows how incredibly long the Louvre is. It's a city within a city.


You can also see how HUGE the Louvre is in this photo, we still have a couple hundred meters to go before we get to the entrance at this point. See how tiny the people are in the distance? This was taken by the decidedly not-French mother-and-son couple I talked about before.

Well we saw this lady here and were totally surprised. We had no idea the Venus di Milo was in the Louvre! It's a good thing Bill pointed her out because I didn't see her at all. She's got her own hallway and everything.

This is me doing a bad impression of Da Vinci's "St. John the Baptist" (see picture #2), who is also in the Louvre just outside the room for the Mona Lisa. As you can see, she's pretty well protected, and we had a pretty clear shot to see her up close and personal :)

Bill right outside the Louvre as the sun is starting to set :)