We had planned to jump out of bed again this morning to go to the Orsay, maybe St-Sulpice for an organ concert, and then the catacombs. Unfortunately, I hit the snooze button a couple times, and we didn’t get up until about 8:30. Which isn’t terribly late until you consider how long it takes to go to the pastry shop and then to the café, which meant we didn’t get to the Orsay until around 11. Oops. Bad idea for a Sunday! (The first Sunday of the month, no less---most museums have free admissions on Sunday, darn it!)The lines were horribly long, so we opted to try Notre Dame. We walked along the Quai to the cathedral—a nice, pretty walk! We took a couple of “artistic” photos on the way…there was this iron ring that we guessed must’ve been used to moor boats?...it was so old that it had worn into the wall. We walked by some Parisiens doing Tai Chi, and kept out of the way of joggers and cyclists. Once we got to the Ile de la Cité, we walked through a famous flower market (on Sundays it’s more of a bird market), and then bought some postcards at a little nearby newsstand. Then we walked the block to Notre Dame. It’s very imposing. We got to walk through 
and take pictures of the interior, the great hall and the little saints’ chapels on the sides. I felt weird, though, because there was a mass going on right then—I kinda felt like I was intruding (though there were other tourists who were darn near obnoxious in their touristyness!) I got a couple photos of these carvings of Jesus and His lessons and disciples which had been created in the mid-1300s. Then we came to the end of the interior tour and had to ask how to get to the bell tower to climb up the 400 steps. Unfortunately again, it was one of those free-admission sites, and the line was quite long, so we decided to leave. Before leaving the Notre Dame plaza area, we went to the toilets near Charlemagne’s statue. It was so funny! There was a sign on the door to the restrooms that had its hours of operation; we had to wait about 5 minutes before they opened—apparently the “gardiennes” get to take a lunch break. They were so cute, though! These ladies were laughing at all of us and seemed so nice and funny. Then we decided to go to the catacombs. These were really cool! All these ancient bones dug up from cemeteries and deposited and arranged so intricately. Wow. And of course there were signs of quotations about death everywhere. The workers were very strict about tourists not using the flash on their cameras—I guess because the flash would deteriorate the bones? It was many steps down to the catacombs and not quite as many up. At the top of the stairs at the end was a worker who was checking bags. We saw a skull and some bone fragments on a nearby table and figured he must’ve caught someone trying to take a souvenir. Now that’s just morbid and disrespectful. Once out of there we decided to find a restaurant, and made a good choice. Our waiter was such a nice man! I had entrecote (a steak with green peppercorn sauce), green beans, and potatoes au gratin—the best au gratin I’ve ever had! Then we checked out the Montparnasse cemetery since we were close by. It was so crowded, it made me realize why the catacombs were deemed necessary!
There were some really cool gravestones, and in the middle of this cemetery was a really old windmill—there were no longer any blades on it, but the building part of it was still there. There was one particular sepulcher or tomb that was beautifully done in mosaic tiles: pretty daisies and vines, etc; but we didn’t take a picture of it because there was an old man at the tomb, presumably visiting his relatives. I think he might've been weeping. After the cemetery we wandered through the Montparnasse area, where we found a little arty flea market that was a couple blocks long (lots and lots of art!), and then we decided to try to find Les Deux Magots, a restaurant we had read about that supposedly had the best hot chocolate in the city. We asked a couple of ladies if they were familiar with it, and they made sure to tell us that it wasn't in Montparnasse (well, duh!--ok, at least Anne knew that :) but they did tell us which Metro stop it was near. So we hopped on the Metro and got off at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Lo and behold, there it was! But there was also a really cool old church there that we felt the need to explore. I think it was built in the 6th century (or at least one version of it was) and it was just really cool. And old. Somehow it was kind of cooler than Notre Dame--maybe because it was slightly less touristy? Right across the street from the church was the cafe we were looking for, and my GAWD, they have some damn fine hot chocolate! It was very dark, almost bittersweet, but very creamy. SO good!
We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night. Beautiful! Every hour on the hour, for ten minutes, they make it sparkle--there are strobe lights on it, and this was set up for the Millennium celebration. It was cool! Since we were there already, and didn't know when we would have time to make it back, we decided to go ahead and go up to the top, since there weren't any lines for tickets. Up we went! It was a little freaky to go up the elevators, since it's not like a straight building. I kinda felt like we were in space. It was weird! They let us out at the second floor, and we had to go to a different elevator to go to the top. Once at the top (the 3rd "etage" or floor), I was a little disappointed because it was all enclosed by glass. So I was taking all these pictures through the glass (none of them came out, I don't think), and then I realized that, hey, there were stairs going up!
THAT's where it all was open! They had little rooms set up with mannequins re-enacting scenes from 1889, which of course creeped me out. But the view was gorgeous, and we could watch the fog roll in. It was surprisingly not cold at the top. While we were up there, it was the top of the hour again, so the strobe lights started flashing. Cool! We spent a few minutes trying to figure out where these beautiful blue-green lights were, which building on the ground. Finally after a bit we decided to make our way back down. Finding the down elevator was a bit confusing, but we finally did make it back to the 2nd floor, where we saw the very very expensive ($300/plate) Jules Verne restaurant--it was closed, of course, but I took a picture of its awning. Then we took a few more pictures from that floor and headed back down to walk to where the blue-green lights were.
Interestingly those pretty lights were part of the gardens of some kind of modern art museum or something, but we didn't go in. We started walking around and decided to walk down the Champs Elysees since I had never seen it. It was a bit of a hike, but my ankle could take it (I'd make sure of it!:) On our way to the Place de la Concorde, which is one end of the Champs Elysees, we passed an Aston Martin dealership, which of course I took a picture of. When am I ever going to see something like that 
again? (well, next time I go, of course!) It was a beautiful walk, even so late at night. I think it was about 10 pm when we left the Eiffel Tower. On our walk, we also passed the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, beautiful buildings. I took a picture of the trees on the Champs Elysees...the perfectionism of the French and their hedgetrimming really cracked me up. The Champs Elysees is lined with perfectly square/rectangular trees!
Finally we arrived at the Place de la Concorde. The American Embassy is somewhere close by. There was a huge roundabout--it made me think of "European Vacation" where they keep driving in circles and Chevy Chase keeps saying, "Look kids, there's Big Ben!" There was a really gorgeous fountain there, I guess it might have been Neptune and some mermaids...I'm not up on my mythology, I just know it was beautiful. A short distance away was a huge obelisk that commemorated the spot where Marie Antoinette et al. were beheaded.
After taking several pictures here (a nice one of me in front of the fountain--thanks Anne!) we decided we were pooped and hopped on the Metro to go home.
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