Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, The Arc de Triomphe, and the Moulin Rouge

On Tuesday night, we went to the Eiffel Tower at sunset and took the stairs allllll the way up (Well, not all the way. But almost!). The view was beautiful, and Rob was freaking out from the height, but once he got used to it, he was fine. We spent some money in the gift shop and then went back down to street level and ate crepes while watching the light show at 11pm, which was pretty but could also induce a seizure!! The tower is way bigger than I thought it would be, and was definitely way more impressive than I could've ever imagined.

Yesterday morning, we woke up early and headed straight to the Louvre... that place is GINORMOUS! We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and Hammurabi's Code, among other things. We didn't get to see it all, as that would take way more than a day - and our legs were still tired from climbing nearly 700 stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower!

After the Louvre, we stopped at a little boulangerie for lunch, grabbed some ice cream, and went fora walk through the Jardin de Touillerie, down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped at a public toilet in the Jardin de Touillerie, which was surprisingly clean. And the boys had to walk through turnstiles to get to the urinals (very odd!). Among other strange things we saw on our walk was a small child, laying on the gravel drinking from a puddle... while her parents looked on. Hilarious, but so strange as well!!

The Arc de Triomphe was huge! We didn't climb to the top (we'd had enough the day before at the Eiffel Tower!), but we got some great photos from ground level.

We then headed over to the Moulin Rouge, which pretty much looked exactly how I expected it to look. We had first considered going there at night, but decided against it, which turned out to be a wise decision. It's slightly seedy during the day, so I can only imagine what it's like at night.

We spent the rest of the evening in and around the hostel, relaxing and planning the next leg of our trip. We decided to scrap a day in Florence, and instead use that day to stop in Pisa and see the Leaning Tower and the Duomo. It looks fantastic, and we've found a great little hostel/bed and breakfast place that we're thinking of staying at!

We spent the evening singing karaoke with Klare (our Aussie roommate) and a tour group that was staying at the hostel.

This morning we checked out of Saint Christopher's Inn, and we're planning to relax all day in Paris before catching the night train to Nice. We've booked couchettes (sleeper cars), which I'm pretty excited about. I think it will be a cool experience.

Nice will be a relaxing break after running around Paris for 3 days!!

I hope everything is well at home!!

PS: A shout-out to Jim, who has commented on our blog every day!! Awesome :)