France

Paris was a stressful, surreal blur. All right, that's a little dramatic. But from June 28 to June 30, we were in France. It was an overall good experience, but I found it to be rather draining.

The apartment we found on airbnb was amazing. Ludwig was such a cool guy, and he gave us good suggestions. That night, we went to a Basque place in the same neighborhood. It was really neat to try real French food while also avoiding the touristy restaurants.

Probably my least favorite part of our trip was going to Montmartre, where we saw La Basilique du Sacré Coeur. It was really neat, and the inside was cool, but it was not worth it. The climb to the top was a little miserable, and all the way up, we were harassed by guys trying to sell us things. I could have definitely done without that experience.  

On our first full day, we went to all of our favorite American places to get that out of our systems. Early on, we decided that a museum pass was right for us. We had a huge list of places we could go, and we didn't ever have to wait in line. Musee d'Orsay had Van Gogh, Monet, and tons more impressionism pieces. The museum is massive. We went to the Centre Pompidou. Modern art, especially this much of it, can be a lot to handle, but I really enjoyed it. They had Dalí, Picasso, and Warhol. We went to the Louvre to see the highlights (Mona Lisa, Michelangelo). We saw Monet's water lilies at L'Orangerie.

We shopped the Champs-Élysées and ended up at the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed to the top and got the best view of Paris. We found a good spot and waited for sunset, so that we could take pictures with the lit up Eiffel Tower. For our final night in Paris, we went to the Eiffel Tower and watched it sparkle. We just sat on the lawn and drank some champagne. This night was extra cool, because we rang in the second half of 2013 while at the Eiffel Tower.

I also documented the trip through even more photos on Tumblr.

Bryce :)