Paris: What Really Happened

(now that you've written your own stories, I'm sure you're just dying to know what really happened!)

So I wrote this really long awesome post about Paris with tons of great descriptions...but apparently it got deleted. Joy. Oh well,
here are the photos I meant to post and a few comments to go along with them:

In the main courtyard of the Louvre. I always thought when I saw the pyramid that it was on the outside of the building, but it's actually right in the center.


Mom and Dad enjoyed embarrassing me as we waited in line for the Louvre.

In all honesty, and I know I might sound like a sinner if I say this, but the Mona Lisa is tiny and not all its cracked up to be. The Winged Victory of Samothrace and Venus de Milo are much more impressive. But hey, it's Paris and you've got to wait in line to get your picture taken five feet away from the itty-bitty masterpiece.

The Eiffel Tower was much larger than I had expected. We didn't go up, but we did walk around underneath eating ice cream. To explain the picture in one of my previous blog posts, while we were walking around the Eiffel Tower, a Jamaican man came up and started making a bracelet using my finger to hold the string. He finished the bracelet, tied it around my wrist and then asked for money. Um, no? Haha, this is just one of the examples of the many beggars that we encountered in Paris.

After the Eiffel Tower, we went to Shakespeare and Company, a famous bookshop that used to hold a writer's club with members like Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound. When Mom and I arrived, a book reading was happening. I was SO excited to find out that the author was Tatiana de Rosnay, the lady who wrote Sarah's Key! She's a really talented author and she's quite famous in the literary world, too.


And yes, folks, the rumors are true!
While waiting in line to get my copy of Sarah's Key signed, I turned to see where Mom had gone and I look straight into the eyes of a freakishly familiar, blonde headed guy...
I did a double take...Owen Wilson.
He saw that I figured out who he was and he turned and disappeared into Shakespeare and Company. I had to give Mom a look and a huge pointing gesture and then she figured out who he was, too. Mom had my camera and started snapping pictures.
I asked "Mr. Wilson" if he would sign my book, he said, "sure" and then turned back into the corner, attempting to stay incognito.

After I had both Tatiana de Rosnay and Owen Wilson's autograph, I started to walk back down the street towards the Notre Dame. My mom had other plans. She asked "Mr. Wilson" if we could get a picture, he begrudgingly said, "sure" and then other people noticed and started pulling out their phones. "Mr. Wilson" escaped on his bicycle and Mom and I walked back to the apartment in a Tatiana de Rosnay and Owen Wilson haze (only stopping to check out a super awesome vintage store) and had a supper of goat cheese quiches and wine. I CANNOT believe our luck.




Apparently Owen Wilson was in Paris promoting his new Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris.



We spent the next day perusing Shakespeare and Company (coolest bookstore ever) and visiting the Palace of Versailles. The Palace of Versailles is where King Louis XIV, King Louis XV, and King Louis XVI lived and ruled France. The palace is ridiculously extravagant and makes Biltmore look like an outhouse. The Palace took over twenty years and thirty thousand workers to complete. The grandiose nature of the palace and the excessive lifestyle of the royal family angered the people of France. In 1789, the French Revolution took place and King Louis XVI and the Queen, Marie Antoinette were captured from the palace and put to death by guillotine.

I wish I had a better picture, but the palace is so gigantic that it wouldn't fit into the frame!



And because I know you some of you wanted to know what our apartment looked like, here's a picture of the bedroom looking towards the living room and kitchen.

Our adventure in Paris was wonderful and exciting and I am so glad that I went. It's an absolutely beautiful city and the Louvre should be on everyone's bucket list. It's not my absolute favorite city in the world, but it is fabulous.