Au revoir Paris! It's been great!

I don't think I've mentioned it yet but Ryan and I have been fighting an ongoing battle with our apartment washer/dryer (it's a two in one) that is crammed into our tiny bathroom this entire week. Just when we think we finally got it figured out the clothes come out soaking wet. When we try to use just the dryer they come out completely steamed and even more wet. All we wanted to do this morning was wash the towels so the apartment owners didn't have to. The washer/dryer was having none of it though. Eventually we came to a point where Ryan and I both were just sitting on the bathroom floor crisscross applesauce staring at the darn thing. That didn't seem to work either so we tried reading the directions again. I gave up because I don't read directions and went to start packing. Luckily Ryan stuck with it and finally got it working.

After the washer/dryer fiasco we headed out for a morning walk around.

(Me heading out the main entrance to the apartment building)

We stopped at our favorite bakery. We made friends with the lady working there and visited her almost everyday. Ryan loved it because she could understand his French and he could understand hers. They bonded over this. I just smiled and nodded a lot and gave an occasional thumbs up.

After strolling around the streets and visiting shops for a couple hours we headed back toward the apartment. We had to stop however because Ryan saw Quick. Quick is a fast food restaurant that we never visited until today but walked passed daily to get to our apartment. For some reason I'll never understand, Ryan is obsessed with this place. Everytime we walk past he starts wigging out and yelling, "QUICK! QUICK! QUICK! QUICK!" over and over again in a crazy tone. When I questioned him about this weird fascination he said, "Well, at least I'm not obsessed with French toilets!!" After comtemplating this for a moment I decided that french toilets are indeed weirder than Quick. So today I stopped into Quick without complaints. There was one item on the menu that immediately caught both our eyes. We looked at each other at the same time and said, "INTENSE milkshakes??" For only 1 euro and a name like that, we couldn't resist.

We drank our INTENSE milkshakes with INTENSITY!

There was one museum that my uncle recommended that Ryan and I both wanted to see but hadn't had a chance yet. So after we were recovered from all that intenseness we headed off to visit the Pompidou museum. Unlike at Louvre, we could actually walk around this museum without being trampled by stampedes of people. We could stop and enjoy a piece of art and even read about it if we wanted to. This was a modern art museum so we had a blast walking around and creating our own meanings and purposes for the art on display.

For example...

We believe this piece of art would go great out on a patio. You know, put a table under it and enjoy some meals protected from the weather by a giant mushroom!

I would like to put this in the middle of my bedroom...

And this...

And this...

Nah! Just kidding, that would be 100% creepy!

We believe the inspiration for this piece was the Paris metro system.

The world would be a better place if all our fences looked like these!

We believe this is a hammock. Ryan and I would like to build our own one of these.

The plan: step 1- Go to a dumpster and take metal, lots of medal.

Step 2- Weld the metal together. That's as far as we got... should work right?

Naturally we had to check out the toilets in the Pompidou. I was pretty excited when I saw this sparkly and inviting sign. And guess what? They're free!

Do not be fooled though... the inside is dreadful... smelly and dreadful!

We had so much fun in the Pompidou today! What a neat place full of so many varieties of modern art! This is a place you could spend hours and hours!

Sadly, we had to pack it up after we got back from the Pompidou. We took the metro to the airport and are staying in a hotel right next door. Can you believe the week is already over? Au revoir (goodbye) Paris! What an amazing place!

Tomorrow Ryan will head to Germany and I will go to England where I'm meeting up with Kate who works at Destination ImagiNation Headquarters in New Jersey. We are very excited to be running a camp together all next week at Lakenheath AFB. Stay tuned because next week will be a whole new world of adventures!