Happy Birthday!

Today was going to be yet another busy day, so we headed to the Louvre first thing in the morning.  I (Byron) have been there before, but failed to recall exactly how large and grand it is.  It is humongous!  In fact, Beth taught me on our way that it was originally built as a palace and is
actually the largest palace in France.  We waited in a very long line....to have our bags pass
through security.  Once we got our tickets we looked at a lot of paintings, mostly from the
renaissance period.  While trying to find the Mona Lisa we stumbled onto many Egyptian artifacts.   One of the most interesting was the many sarcophogus' that were in one tomb.  We didn't realize that there were several nested layers before the mummy.  We were also able to see the very popular Mona Lisa, and Wedding Feast at Cana!  So cool!  Our favorite of the day was the Venus de Milo below.

She dates back to before Jesus (about 115 B.C.).

After the Louvre, we made our way to Northeast Paris for Beth's cooking class!  They didn't have room for me (Byron), so after dropping her off, I walked up the giant nearby hill to a place called Montmartre, with the nearby famous basilica Sacre Coeur.  The basilica was beautiful, though not suprisingly quite a bit smaller than the Cathedrals we've seen (but still huge!).  It was nice, however, in that it seemed to be more of a "working church" than the Cathedrals, which appeared to be more tourist destinations than anything.  I wasn't allowed to take any pictures in Sacre Coeur, they had a little station explaining Christianity and how to become a Christian, and just seemed far less about cash flow than the Cathedrals.

I then went to the marketplace at Montmartre, which is known as a home for local artisans.  Sure enough, there was a fairly large square with 30+ artists who were painting pictures, either portaits of paying customers, or just random subjects.  They were VERY talented.  Almost no stick figures.

I returned to the cooking class a couple of hours later to pick up Beth and help her sample the confections she'd made.  She made me Creme Brulee, a deconstructed Lemon Merangue pie, Souffle, a chocolate tarte, and several Financier.  After sampling/stuffing ourselves, we didn't really need dinner.  Cakes are great, but this sure was fun :)

My birthday dessert!!

Us sampling/stuffing

Oh, and just down the street from the cooking class was this place called "Viking" so we thought we'd be able to get some amazing food there (for those of you that aren't familiar, "The Viking" is quite the cafe in downtown Fergus Falls).  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a laundromat.

Despite all the dessert, we decided that skipping a meal in Paris seemed foolish.  So, we returned to the room to rest out feet for a bit before heading back out for a late evening snack.  We headed to the Tower at Montparnasse, one of the tallest buildings in Paris (which, by the way... there aren't many tall buildings in Paris from what we've seen.  Most are 5 stories tall at the most, but that's about it).  There we went to the 56th floor around 9:00 PM to have drinks at "Ciel de Paris" (Sky of Paris), which had an absolutely breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.  We knew reservations were required, so we were just planning to have drinks at the bar, but after about a half an hour a table opened up and they moved us to the front and center table of the restaurant, where we enjoyed an appetizer, bottle of wine, and a perfect view.  What a birthday!

A tout a l'heure!