*welcome to my life*: Day 5

Woke up at 4plus to catch the 5.30am Eurostar train from King's Cross Station to Gare du Nord station in Paris.

It was raining when we arrived so the weather was wonderfully chilly. Headed to our hotel to deposit our stuff first.

Snapshots of Paris on our way to the Louvre!

Saw the cosiest little cheese shop

Bakeries with the most aesthetically-pleasing, sweetest little pastries dot the streets

My first meal in Paris and the first time I ever spoke in French:) G taught me how to order this little briorche which is....I forgot.

The Louvre! *Claps in excitement*

The queue to go in was scarily long but was surprisingly fast-moving. You gotta hand it to the Louvre staff - that was only like 10% of the queue in the picture but we got into the Louvre within half an hour or so.

The iconic glass pyramid at the entrance of the Louvre simply filled me with awe

What being in the glass pyramid feels like

Aaaaand we enter the Louvre!
I took so many pictures of the sculptures and paintings, I would either be nuts or hate myself terribly to put them all up. So just the more famous and beautiful art pieces would have the honour of gracing my blog:D

The most famous painting in the Louvre, and in the entire world, for that matter:

There's something surreal about seeing such a famous, renowned piece of artwork with my own eyes. For a moment there, I could hardly believe I was really looking at the Mona Lisa.

The famous The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I

Some other beautiful paintings and sculptures and pictures of the Egyptian art.

Venus de Milo

Self-portrait by A. Dürer

The Lacemaker by J. Vermeer

Psyche and Cupid by A. Canova

And another famous art piece, probably one of the most popular in the Louvre, after the Mona Lisa:

Captive (The Dying Slave) by Michelangelo

After nearly 5 hours in the Louvre, we pretty much saw everything we wanted to see. So with that, we bid adieu to the Louvre:)

With its breathtaking architecture

We chilled awhile in the Gardens of the Louvre and saw the cutest little French doggy:D

Saw the prettiest blue sky

And the Eiffel Towers in the distance!

What we saw on our way to the Arc du Triomph:

The most beautiful fields of lavendars

Oh yes, you might not be able to tell from the sunshine and blue sky, but it's actually pretty cold. I was wearing a jacket, a windbreaker and a scarf and I could still feel the wind.

LOL talk about the French's obsession with aesthetics. I have no idea what building this is, but while undergoing renovation, they still made sure the building would be picture-perfect...by putting a life-sized cardboard picture to hide renovation works.

There was an arts cultural show going on somewhere along the road that stretched from the Louvre to the Arc du Triomph so police were deployed to maintain order. I tried my best but I couldn't see a lot of cute French policemen, maybe cos they were all wearing sunglasses.

*Squeal!*

Hahahha okaaaay I'm not in the league to buy LV stuff YET but it's still pretty exciting to see this Louis Vuitton flagship store in Paris. And we even get to walk past Champs-Elysees!

Unfortunately, that's about as close as I got to Champs, shopping paradise of Paris and pretty much Europe:(((((. WHY? Because dear old BMW insisted on going to some stuffy, boring old church on our last day in Paris, while we had agreed previously to go shopping. So now do you guys understand how much I hate her?

And hello, how many churches do you want to go to to prove your undying devotion to Jesus? We've already gone to the more famous ones like Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame AND one more at Mont St Michel (which frankly speaking, I've never heard of ). So devoted, go donate your money to your church but DON'T eat into my shopping time. WTF. Stupid waste of my time. 4 churches in 10 days!

And the best part? The church which ate into MY shopping time was .... see, I can't even be bothered to remember the name. That's cos IT WASN'T EVEN FREAKING FAMOUS. Sure, it may be a replica of the St. Peter's Basalica (however you spell that) but that's all that is. A REPLICA. A small, tiny, boring church and NOT ONE OF THE MUST-SEE LANDMARKS IN PARIS AS YOU SO LOUDLY PROCLAIMED.

How do I know? COS I WENT TO GOOGLE SEARCH AND IT NEVER CAME UP ON PARIS' LIST OF MUST -SEE ATTRACTIONS.

Bloody hell. Got scammed out of shopping at a TRUE Paris landmark to go to a stuffy little church. #*$&#^&*$*#&$%*$&!&*^&%

Next time I go Europe, I'm automatically banning all Christians from my buddy list. Unless I go to China. Then I will invite my fellow buddhist/taoist/ free-thinker friends and one of those annoying self-righteous Christians and see how she likes it if we go temples pray every day HAHAHHAHA.