PARIS

Paris in 2 ½ days? Possibly the worst idea ever, but Nick and I just did it.

Musee d'Orsay, Moulin Rouge, Montmartre & Sacre Coeur, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, St. Michel, Notre Dame, Hotel de Ville, Place de Vosges, Mosque de Paris..

..yep, we did all that.

First thing's first: I took Nick to L'As du Falafel for the best damn 5 euro falafel in the world. Unfortunately now that I'm allergic to sesame I had to settle for the greasy kebab meat instead. Still good, though, and Nick can't wait to go back.

After our visit to the gothic Notre Dame, Nick decided that cathedrals are his favorite part of Europe. Doesn't hurt that there's a different huge, old, impressive church on practically every corner in Paris.

I thought it would be a great first introduction to Paris on Monday night for Nick to stroll through the lovely Tuileries gardens from the Louvre to the Champs Elysees. The fact that it was pitch-black outside and we were trudging through slush leftover from the snow may have hindered my original idea, but it didn't much matter. We were in Paris.

After tearing up a little at the ghastly difference between the quaint, adorable looking hotel I saw on the internet and the worn, cracking structure with gaggable violet walls that was our actual hostel...we decided to give Paris our best shot, fill up on chocolate-nutella-banana crepes, and ignore the fatigue from trying to see four cities in three weeks that had crept up on us.

Yesterday, we found out the Louvre was closed on Mondays, so we contemplated impressionism instead at the Musee d'Orsay.

Today, we showed up at the Picasso Museum, where we found out that it's under construction—until 2012. So we headed to the Mosque of Paris, a beautiful mosaic-tiled structure with the story of France's immigrant people within its walls. Of course, we missed the afternoon tour by 5 minutes and they wouldn't let us in past the courtyard. So we went back to the Louvre.

That's the thing about Paris—when one thing's closed, there's always something else to do. Too much to do, in fact.

After four hours within the beige marble walls of the Louvre, Nick and I had had enough. Dusk had fallen on the Greek statues in the skylight-ceiling room and if we had to walk one more stretch of museum exhibit we were going to vomit. So we hit up one last thing—the ancient-Turkish-clothing-exhibit. Because when you're in Paris for 2 ½ days and you're absolutely fed up and just want to keel over and die, you keep going and see one more thing. Because it's Paris.

...*Special thanks to my host family in Paris for having Nick & I for dinner last night. As usual, there was lots of delicious food, more than five different types of alcohol to taste test, and the constant clutter of conversation and laughter and music that makes the Palayrets so special. Merci beaucoup! Vous me manquez déjà!

Now for England....if we make it through the snow delays!