May 11, Laziness and food. And more food.

After all the lack of sleep and exhaustion from being tourists, we accidentally slept in. It was so hard to get out of bed with the laziness tempting us to stay under the covers. I realized at that point that what I missed the most about home was being all to sleep until noon. We worked up the strength to get up, get ready, and start the day. We decided to eat brunch at the Latin Quarter where we all ordered a three-course meal. I had mussels in white wine, which wasn't too tasty, an amazing kebab meal, and finished off with a very yummy crème brulée. While we were eating, it was pouring outside, but fortunately it stopped once we were ready to leave. We then walked over to Shakespeare and Company which is a very cute english bookstore, visited by book lovers from all around the world. We admired the historical setting of all the books on the old bookshelves, all the old typewriters and picture frames, and the hundreds of notes left by international visitors in one section of the upper floor. We all bought a book of our own because, how could you not at the one and only Shakespeare and Company?

After that, we went back to the Latin Quarter to eat. Again! This time, at a cute crêperie where we each ate a delicious crêpe! We walked some more around the Latin Quarter, then headed for l'Arc de Triomphe. Once we reached the very top, we spent quite some time there just appreciating the view, taking photos.. and attempting to do dance dares! When we came back down, there was a memorial going on by the unknown soldier which we watched for a bit. It may have been a tad bit inappropriate to do dance dares behind tourists while they were watching the ceremony.. YOLO I guess ;) The silliness continued as we walked along the very crowded Champs Elysée (mainly to give praise to the huge Sephora). Madusha and I pretended to not be North American by speaking in English and French accents in the hopes of fooling other tourists into thinking we were really European. I don't know why that was fun for us. And it lasted for quite some time, actually. Wow, we're lame. But after that, we traveled to Parc Monceau - a gorgeous park with beautiful architectural features, ponds, bridges and gardens. We hung around there for a bit and read the books that we bought from Shakespeare and Company.

Next was dinner! And what better place to go for food than the good ol' Latin Quarter? Actually, we initially wanted to eat and have drinks at The Great Canadian Pub at Saint-Michel, but found that it was already full. So we walked through the Latin Quarter to search for another pub. Sadly, everything was packed. We were getting really hungry so instead, we just ended up settling for a Chinese restaurant called Le Mandarin lol, except it was nothing like the Mandarin from Canada. We ordered our food, which wasn't cheap, and we did not think that the portions would be so small! But I guess that's Europe for ya! We quickly devoured our food and left. We got back to the hotel late, as usual; went to bed late, as usual; and were prepared to be super tired the next morning.. as usual.

Ps. Parisien street dancers are badass.