Day Four (April 15, 2009)

Today was a short day. We got up a little later and headed out to the Eiffel Tower. We waited in line and finally went all the way up, it was beautiful but it was windy and cold. When we originally got our ticket the top floor was closed so we only went up to the 2nd stage. While we were walking around the 2nd stage the top floor opened again so we got a ticket to that floor and headed up. The panoramic aerial views of Paris are absolutely beautiful. What I love about this city is that it doesn't have many high rises or skyscrapers so it really looks like an old city. We came back down to the ground where it was warmer and went to Monoprix to get some lunch. We then found the metro and went to see the Arc de Triomphe. It is very cool to stand on the little island amid the sea of cars zipping around the roundabout. To get to the island you have to take a tunnel underground. It wouldn't be safe to get there above ground. We walked around and took pictures and then sat and people watched for a little while. Then we decided to go to the Grand Palais because there were two great exhibits, one on Andy Warhol, the other about Graffiti from all over the world. As we walked down the Avenue de Champs Elysees we walking in a few stores including Louis Vuitton, we wanted to just look at the pretty and very expensive purses. We also went into the Disney Store where I ended up buying the cutest Minnie Mouse Paris shirt. Once we made it to the Grand Palais we found out that it was too expensive to go to both exhibits so we ended up deciding to just go to Andy Warhol, but the line was so long and we figured they would be closed by the time we got to the front that we would to it tomorrow. I had wanted to sip coffee at a French cafe since we got here so we found one just off the Champs Elysees and sipped while people watching. The Avenue des Champs Elysees is really beautiful even thought it is full of stores. We made our way back down to the Arc to people watch and kill time. While there Molly decided she wanted to get a souvenir we saw at a ship over by Notre Dame so we metroed back there and people watched at Notre Dame for the rest of our time out tonight. Tomorrow we are going to go to that Warhol exhibit and then take the train to Brussels!