Ali and Maddie in France: Combs for Cats

July 8th, Day 11: Today while Ali had her beauty sleep, Maddie walked down to the boulangerie to grab breakfast. After both of us were ready for the day we decided to hit up the Catacombs. While the line took longer than the catacombs themselves, it was well worth it. The catacombs now contain roughly 6-7 million Parisians. It was a very unique experience, so many skulls! We were pleasantly surprised with the smell down there. It just smelled like a cave, no scents of death whatsoever. After seeing all the bones, we had worked up an appetite (Bone Appétit). So we went to our local favorite, the Comptoir du Panthéon. When we finished we realized it was almost 6pm on a Friday which meant it was time to get free entrance at the Louvre! Yay for being 26 and under. Robert had suggested that we take the bus 27 which has a stop directly at the Louvre. Sounds perfect, but it was too perfect. The busses said they were done for their route twice before ever making it to our stop and they could just skip some stops too. We ended up just getting off at a stop that was close enough for us to walk. Once we finally made it there we enjoyed the beautiful glass pyramids and fountains. Because it was so hot out, people were wading in the pools of water so, naturally, Maddie had to join in on the fun and hop in herself. Unbeknownst to her, the sides of the fountain walls were sloped, so upon entrance, she slipped and fell directly in the water on her bottom. Thank goodness for black shorts and warm weather! She dried off quickly. Once inside, we only saw a little bit, it seemed like, even though we were there for 2 hours. Maddie recognized some of the art from having been there before and Ali recognized some of the art and artists from AP Art History. We figured we could go back at least 3 more times before our trip resolves. We know now to make a game-plan for pieces to view before going and hoping to randomly come across pieces. We didn't want to test the busses coming home, so we decided to take the trusty metro. It's much easier and more reliable to navigate as we are starting to get the hang of public transit. As we were getting back home fairly later than normal, we had difficulty finding a decent restaurant that was open, serving food, and near the apartment. After our third attempt, we found a nice Vietnamese food restaurant open and serving up the street. They were very nice, though we felt at times they may have been making fun of our poor attempts at speaking French. In our defense, it was getting late and our minds were full of art, not grammar. But hey, at least we're trying.