Tea Party Outfits

I am finally done with my Paris posts! I apologize again it took so long. -_-‘
Since I finally have the freedom (freedom~!) to write about new things, I decided to write another post about Paris! XD Ok, not really, but I just wanted to make a brief post describing my outfits for the Tea Parties! So here we go:

♥Tea Party Princess♥
My outfit rundown:
Headbow: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
Blouse: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
Jsk: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright’s Millefeuille Jumperskirt
Accessories: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, Chocomint, Claire’s, offbrand
Socks: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
Shoes: An*Tai*Na
I wore this outfit to the BtSSB Tea Party. The dress I wore was my first Baby dress, so wearing it to my first Tea Party was so special! I also carried my Baby, the Stars Shine Bright umbrella with me, but of course not inside. ^^ I had sooo much fun at the Tea Party with my friends!

☆Princess of the Stars☆
My outfit rundown:
Tiara: Bijou Brigitte
Blouse: Angelic Pretty
Jsk: Angelic Pretty’s Starry Night Theater
Accessories: Angelic Pretty, Chocomint, Claire’s, Hema, Bijou Brigitte, offbrand
Wristcuffs: Angelic Pretty
Socks: Angelic Pretty
Shoes: An*Tai*Na
An alternative name for this coord is ‘Hoshi no Hime’, which means the same. ^^
Starry Night Theater was my first Dream Dress and my first Angelic Pretty dress. Wearing it to my first Angelic Pretty Tea Party was like a dream! The theme of the Tea Party was ‘Princesse d’Éte’, ‘Summer Princess’, so I tried to make my pretty dress as princessy as possible! ♥ I also had my pink Star Bag with me, but it’s not pictured. ^^

I made an entry on Daily_Lolita about my outfits for the Tea Parties too. ^^ If you want to see more of my outfits or read about the Tea Parties, you can find the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright post here and the Angelic Pretty one here.
I hope you like my outfits!

Paris, Day 8 – Montmartre and Goodbye

On Thursday July 12 we woke up, had breakfast and started packing. This was quite a challenge: even though I had brought a bag and a suitcase, I still had a lot of new things to bring home! After some struggling, we managed to pack everything!

Packing all my stuff! Unbelievable we managed to take everything back with us!
I checked the room at least three times and then it was really time to say goodbye. I really loved our room, I even snapped some last pictures of it. We arrived downstairs and checked out. It was the first time I could officially use my credit card to pay for the hotel! We were allowed to leave our suitcases in the hotel lobby and we went on our way to spend some last time in Paris.

Our last outfits! It was a bit colder this day.
We passed the pink Hello Kitty shop not far from our hotel and my mom decided to go inside, where she fell head over heels in love with an adorable teddy bear! She decided to buy it and take pictures of it on our next trip. ^^ My mom called the little bear Amélie. ♥

The Hello Kitty shop! Even though almost everything was Hello Kitty,
my mom still managed to buy something non-Hello Kitty! XD
We went on our way to Montmartre. Last year we wanted to go to the café from the movie Amélie, but it was closed. We decided to see if it was opened this time!
We arrived at station Abbesses, but even though I had a map with me, I had no idea where to go (Montmartre has so many little streets). We passed a really cool pink shop and asked for directions in the pharmacy next to it. The (quite uninterested) woman directed me to Rue Lepic. We quickly found the street and walked downhill. We passed some foodshops, including one that sold sea animals. I’m not a big fan of huge, dead crabs. -_-‘
We arrived at Café des Deux Moulins and it was opened! Yay~!

The café looks much more inviting when it’s opened! XD
Of course we went inside and we chose a table a bit in the back. I somehow squeezed myself to my chair (the tables were very close to each other) and we received a menu. It was so funny to read: there was a whole list of special cocktails based on characters from the movie! For example: a crazy Amélie consisted of vodka, lemon juice, grenadine and apple juice. There was also a special Amélie menu: a hot drink with a crême brulée. We chose the Amélie menu with hot chocolate. ^^
The hot chocolate mugs were really cute: some chocolate was poured along the sides, creating a creative, flowerlike effect. The crême brulée was delicious! I used to not really like this dessert, but now I love it!

I tried to do the famous Amélie pose. ^^
We enjoyed our food very much! It was also fun to see so many people around us taking pictures of the café. All movie fans. ^^ It was also cool to see what things were really used in the movie and what not. The sigaretshop wasn’t there, but the long bar of course was!
We left the café again and followed the Rue Lepic to the closest metrostation. We arrived at an intersection and just when we wanted to cross the road I looked behind me and saw the famous Moulin Rouge! O_O I was so surprised! The location is so weird: at a busy, grey street!
We decided to take some pictures of it, but then my mom’s battery died. Luckily my camera still worked!

So, me in front of the Moulin Rouge in all its… glory?
On the picture, I’m standing on a big air grid (is that the right word? Well, air was blown upwards). I asked my mom, who was wearing a skirt, jokingly if she wouldn’t come stand next to me. And she did! She hadn’t noticed the air stream! Awkward moment followed. XD
We walked into metrostation Blanche and went to Sacré Coeur. When we arrived at the station, we discovered another Photomaton and we decided to take our last series of pictures!
While walking up to Sacré Coeur through the shopping street, we bought some chocolates. We also browsed some souvenirshops (I accidentally broke a piece of a magnet, oops!). I bought an awesome t-shirt, which was quite difficult: I wanted a shirt with blue and white stripes in size 3 or 4, but the shop man constantly brought me a shirt that ressembled the one I liked, but wasn’t the same. Eventually he found the right one, yay!
We decided to go up the hill with the Funiculaire, the little train. We could use our Navigos for it, which came in handy. ^^
When we got out of the Funiculaire, we sat down on some benches to enjoy the view.

The view from Sacré Coeur is so amazing..!
While we were eating our chocolates, a street performer was doing his routine: he did tricks with a football. He even climbed up a lamp post while balancing the ball on his head!
We decided to leave our benches and we sat down in the middle of the stairs in front of Sacré Coeur.

My mom in front of Sacré Coeur.
We sat down for a while when it suddenly started to rain. We put our umbrellas above our heads and remained seated. It was quite nice just sitting there, looking at the dark clouds hanging above Paris.

Our feet have been in many places in Paris by now!
We decided to browse a near souvenirshop briefly, after which we took the Funiculaire down again (yes, we were lazy).
We decided to eat crêpes for the last time! We both chose lemon and sugar (the crêpes weren’t freshly made. The baker just heated a pre-made one. Such s scam! XD)

We ♥ crêpes!
We sat down on some benches on the little square with the carrousel (avoiding the string men). A bunch of bold birds hipped up to us and we feeded them some crêpe. One pigeon almost pulled my mom’s crêpe out of her hands!
After we finished our crêpes, we decided it was time to take some pictures with our new beary friend Amélie.

Isn’t she cute? ^^ We asked an Asian girl to take a picture of us. I wonder
if she was surprised to see us with a teddybear..?
We left the square again and looked a bit around in the shops again. We found an amazing shop with gorgeous serving trays and also a little department with Kimmidolls! My mom bought us both a keychain, so cute! ♥
It was time to go back to the hotel and grab our suitcases: we wanted to have plenty of time before we had to catch the Thalys train.
We arrived at our metrostation for the last time, took the escalator for the last time and looked at the boulangerie for the last time. I hate goodbyes. :(
We said goodbye to the hotel staff and dragged our suitcases to the metrostation. We had plenty of time, so we did everything slowly.
While on our way to Gare du Nord, I had a strange incident in the metro. A weird and obviously drunk man was being annoying and tried to draw my attention by constantly putting up his middle finger at me. I saw it, but tried to pretend as if I didn’t. Then, after a while, he got out of the metro and the doors closed. I felt relieved, but the metro didn’t start driving yet. Then, he went to stand in the window opposite of me and continued to give me the middle finger and pointing at me as if he wanted to say: ‘I keep my eyes on you!’ I looked at him sarcastically: I didn’t want to lower myself to his level. Then he started yelling in French: ‘Go back to your own country!’. It felt weird, since I was going back to my country. XD I was glad the metro started driving then. What if he had come inside or something? I still don’t know if it was really me he was talking to, or the coloured man next to me. But I am sure he would have protected me if the crazy guy had come back inside, I could see he braced himself. Weird huh!? The things you experience in Paris…
We arrived at Gare du Nord, dragged our suitcases with us and went up the escalator. Now it was only a matter of time before the big sign would tell us where our train would arrive. After a while, our train appeared.

Our train would depart at 18:25h (6:25 pm).
As you can see on the picture, our train would depart at 18:25h, number 9375. The only downside was that there would be another train at the same time with number 9475. Of course, these two would depart from the same station! We really had to make sure we would take the right one!
With our last money I bought us both a tuna salad sandwich (which was totally delicious) and a bottle of coke for in the train.

Our luggage. It’s amazing we managed to bring everything back with us!
It was time to go to our platform and we managed to get in the train easily, although we did need some help with our suitcases. Then, the train started driving and we said goodbye to Paris for the third time.
After a couple of hours, we arrived at Amsterdam Central with a 30 minute delay (although they told us it was only 20 minutes. Those jerks! They just didn’t want to refund us) and we returned to our city by train, together with my father who had come to pick us up. It had been an amazing trip to Paris, once again!

Thank you all so much for reading and for your great comments! Due to certain circumstances it took me a long time to finish these posts. An outfit and purchases post is coming up! I hope you enjoyed my travel posts, because soon there will be new ones…
I can tell you I’ve had some exciting things in these past few weeks too! Please look forward to them! Thanks again for reading! ♥

Paris, Day 7 – Buttes-Chaumont and Musée du Louvre

On Wednesday we had trouble waking up, again. We got dressed and had breakfast downstairs, where my mom decided to take some pictures. They turned out quite hilarious, because we both look very tired and gloomy, so we had to retake them.
We had to decide what to do on this day, because this was our last full day in Paris. We would leave the next day, although in the evening. There were two things we really wanted to do: go to Parc des Buttes-Chamont and Musée du Louvre, so we decided to do both! We had heard it was possible to purchase Louvre tickets in advance at FNAC shops, so I asked the hotel girl whether she knew where we could find one. She showed me on the map and wrote it down for me. We got our things and decided to leave. Of course we wanted to take an outfit picture first, but I realized I had forgotten my camera (like… how?), so I went upstairs again.

We matched on this day!
We took the metro to Gare Saint-Lazare, but when we got out I had no idea where to go! We randomly walked left and I saw a sign, yay! We passed some cute shops and entered a shopping center, after which we found the FNAC.
The FNAC shop sold a lot of stuff and electronics. We asked where to purchase the tickets and went to the right floor, where televisions were sold too. One tv was playing a Japanese movie I didn’t know, but it looked nice.
At the back of the floor we found the ticket service and it was totally empty! The poor guy behind the checkout had nothing to do before we came, haha!
We only had to buy a ticket for my mom, since I belong to the category ‘age 18-26’, which means free entrance.
We bought the ticket and went downstairs, after looking at a tv playing Adele’s concert in the Royal Albert Hall.
We took the metro to Louis Blanc, where we transferred to line 7bis. Now as you may or may not know, the Parisian metrolines are always busy and crowded, because the metros are always passing several big stations. Line 7bis doesn’t: it’s like a little side line without any big stations. The metro that we took was old fashioned and creaky and moreover: deserted.
We arrived at station Buttes-Chaumont, where we got out. The station was just like the metro: old and without people. It scared me a little…
When we exited the station (after standing in a big, scary elevator), the surroundings were very different from the Paris that we knew: it was a little like a village, with lots of trees. We quickly found the entrance of the park and followed the road that would lead us to the well-known pavilion on the big hill.

The park had lots of stairs between the bushes and the trees.
When we arrived at the top of the stairs, we heard music playing. When we followed the sound, we arrived at a little pavilion where Asian women dressed in red were doing some kind of workout, which was a mixture of dancing and maybe yoga. It looked pretty nice. ^^
We decided to keep on walking by just following a path. We had gotten quite high, because we could see Sacré Coeur in the distance! There were some beautiful flowerbeds with pink and red flowers. We kept on walking and saw the pavilion in front of us! On our left was a beautiful bridge, but we decided to go to the pavilion first. There, a couple of people were having an elaborate picnic. And when I say elaborate, I mean elaborate, with wonderful salads and bread and champagne etc. We had a little chat and they told us they were from Australia! They had come to Paris to celebrate one of the women’s birthday. ^^ We congratulated her and they took a picture for us with our own camera!

It’s a shame that every piece of art gets besmirched… I do like this picture though.
We enjoyed the view for a while and then went down the stairs again.

In front of the pavilion.
We walked up to the bridge we had seen. It was beautiful to walk on it, looking at the big pond underneath. The park is surrounded by houses, which gives a lovely effect.

I really liked this bridge! It was so beautiful!
My mom asked me to walk on the bridge again while she took pictures from between the trees a little further away.

I switched umbrellas!
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is famous for its pavilion on the rock. I had seen it on many pictures before and now I could finally see it myself, so I took pictures of it from every angle! It’s a shame the sun didn’t shine though. Hopefully next time!

This is my favourite of all jumping pictures! You can see the pavilion behind me.
We decided to just follow the path along the pond, where several beautiful big trees were standing. We also found a little piece of art on the ground!

Unintentional bird art! I think it’s so cute! Later we found a second one.
We walked and walked and enjoyed our surroundings. I took some hilarious pictures of my mom sitting on the top of some stairs with two umbrellas as if she was protecting herself with them! XD
Suddenly we heard the sound of falling water and we found a waterfall within a beautiful cave filled with stalactites!

The cave was very beautiful and I love the sound of falling water!
A girl was sitting against one of the walls, painting the waterfall. We took a feet picture and left the cave again.
We decided to leave the park, but somehow we couldn’t find our exit anymore! We ended up at an exit we had passed before (which was like at the other side of the park) and went looking for a metro station. The general rule ‘Everything in Paris is within a 300m distance of a metro station’ did not apply here! We walked around half of the park, uphill! We even doubted about taking the bus, but I didn’t know which one to take and whether they accepted our Navigo tickets. It really bugged me, because I wanted to go to the Louvre so badly!
Finally we found the station. I can tell you: I did not like this metro line. It was very old and deserted again and I didn’t feel safe at all. I was glad to transfer to a ‘normal’ line!
We finally arrived at the Louvre! We sat down on the benches next to the fountains first to rest for a little while, but then we finally decided to enter!

Mom with her ticket! We were finally going to enter the Louvre!
There were two lines: one for people who still had to purchase tickets and one for people who already had them. The first line was veeeery long, but the second line only had like three people in it! We felt so cool entering the short line!

Almost time to enter!
My mom showed her ticket and while I thought I had to show my passport to show them my age, I could walk right through!
Then we were in! Finally, we were inside the pyramid! I was so excited!
A guard pointed at a little desk where you had to show your bags, but we didn’t really understand whether we had to wait or not. He walked away and didn’t return and since nobody else told us what to do, we decided to walk away. We didn’t have anything dangerous with us.
We asked someone to take a picture of us.

Our first picture together inside Musée du Louvre!
We went down the escalator, where we arrived in a beautiful, big hall with lots of people. I immediately noticed more lines! It turns out that the line above, in front of the pyramid, is only the line to get into the hall. After that, you have to stand in line again for tickets! I was so glad my mom had hers! Please buy tickets in advance if you can!
We went to get a museum guide, but since there were none in our language, we took an English one. We bought a book with famous art pieces at the gigantic bookstore and then went to get something to eat. There was another shop from Paul, so we bought sandwiches there. I could finally eat my beloved tomato-mozzarella-pesto sandwich again! ♥
Suddenly a museum guard walked up to us and asked if we could make some place for three teenagers. It was so weird: why did they have to ask a guard for that? They didn’t even ask us first! It’s not like we had refused to make some place. =S
We finished our food and then it was time to enter the museum officially! I read a little in our new book and we chose the wing on the right. Before we could enter, I had to put my umbrella into a wardrobe cabinet. We went back to the entrance, my mom showed her ticket and we walked into the museum!
Now I have to be honest with you: I cannot really describe well what we did and saw at the Louvre. Many people say: ‘It’s so big, it would take you weeks to look at everything in peace!’ I always thought that was exaggerated, but it’s not! The Louvre is huge and an artwork at itself! The halls, walls, floors, everything is beautiful!
Since it’s so big, we sometimes ended up lost. I have no idea to what places we have been, but I can tell you a little how we walked and some of the things we saw! I must warn you: when it comes to art I’m kind of a barbarian… I picked up a few things at school (I really tried, but art classes were terribly boring), but that’s about it. So it might be possible that I’ll tell you: ‘Oh I quite liked this sculpture!’ and it turns out to be a world famous masterpiece. In that case I apologize!
First, we followed a route that said it would take us to the Mona Lisa and we ended up in a beautiful room filled with sculptures.

Just look at this beautiful hall! Not only the sculptures are beautiful,
the ceiling was gorgeous too!
There were a lot of incredibly beautiful sculptures of people I had never heard of before. We followed the route and found ourselves in a new room with sculptures, where I discovered a very famous one: Psyché and Amor by Antonio Canova!

Both my mom and I loved this sculpture so much! It’s so stunningly beautiful!
I’ve seen this sculpture in books before, but it’s so much more beautiful in real life!
We walked on and found a sculpture that seemed to be holding a cellphone (I swear) and taking a picture of himself! We liked it so much we decided to make a little parody of it.

Don’t we look alike? Haha!
It was very crowded in the museum, but we still had the chance to look at the signs. I was a bit disappointed that all the explanations were only in French. It turns out you could rent an audio guide, but it still would’ve been nice if I could just read a little.
We walked up some stairs and arrived at a huge hall and it was clear that the big and important paintings were here. There were multiple big halls like this one and they contained some of my ultimate favourite artpieces.

‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugène Delacroix, one of those paintings
that returns in every history book.
After walking some more, we found a painting that truly captured our hearts. It’s both my mom’s and my favourite of all the things we have seen.

‘The Coronation of Napoleon’, by Jaques-Louis David. This painting was huge!
The painting was sooo big and so detailed! I loved to read that Napoleon’s mother, who is painted in the middle, wasn’t even present at the actual ceremony! I’m glad I know enough French to read that off the sign.
We walked around for a long time and ended up in a hall with a sculpture that appears to be very famous, but I had never heard of it.

‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’ in the distance. Look at all the people!
We walked on, following the signs saying ‘Mona Lisa’, after which we arrived at a bright hall with more paintings and sculptures. Suddenly, when we went right, there was an enormous crowd in front of a big, empty wall with only one painting: the world famous Mona Lisa. My mom didn’t feel like conquering the crowd, but I did! Somehow, without even pushing, I managed to get to the front and I could finally look at the real deal. Many people say the Mona Lisa is smaller than they expect, but because everyone says that I expected it to be tiny! So it’s actually bigger than I thought! XD

‘Mona Lisa’ by Leonardo da Vinci. It was impossible to get
both me and the painting clear, unfortunately.
The Mona Lisa was guarded heavily of course. It was placed behind glass and there were guards. The guards also made sure people could leave the crowd by creating openings at the front. This was ideal: you didn’t have to go back through the crowd. That being said, I did feel a bit uncomfortable with the rest of the paintings. There were only one, maybe two guards for each hall and only small gates to protect the artpieces. Although I did like the fact you could examine the art so well, it also gave me a feeling of… unsafety. My bag wasn’t checked at all: I could have brought a knife with me and rip an entire piece out of a painting before the guards could stop me. Of course I would never do that, but the fact the paintings were so easily approachable… Oh well.

The crowd in front of the Mona Lisa.
We followed a new route that would take us to another famous piece of art, a sculpture this time.

‘Venus de Milo.’
Ok, I may be stupid but… am I the only one who thought Milo was the artist who made Venus? Milo turns out to be the place the sculpture was found! I really didn’t know that…
We continued our way through the hall. There were more beautiful statues, but I didn’t really know any of them.

I was really impressed by all the art around me. I was so happy to finally be in the Louvre!
We decided to go look for the wing with the Dutch paintings, since I wanted to see ‘The Lacemaker’ by Johannes Vermeer.
It was so wonderful to just walk through the Louvre and look through the windows! It was so much fun to see how close the people outside were to the big halls filled with art, yet couldn’t see anything!
We arrived at the Dutch and Belgian wing, but to be honest I didn’t really like it. Unlike the other parts of the Louvre, the walls and ceilings weren’t pretty: they were modern and ugly dark green.
One painting I wanted to see wasn’t exhibited, but after a while we found ‘The Lacemaker’, which was tiny! The frame was bigger than the painting! XD

‘The Lacemaker’ by Johannes Vermeer, or as we say ‘De Kantkloster’. ^^
It’s a shame so many paintings in this wing contained dead animals. -_-’ I’m not really into that.
My poor mom got more tired by the minute, but she wanted to see ‘La Cour de Marly’ so badly! We left the Dutch and Belgian wing and quickly went into the wing with the chambers of Napoleon. We also visited a temporary exhibition for a minute. After that, we descended some stairs. My poor mom was sooo tired! We walked around the corner and finally arrived at the Cour de Marly, where the sun started to shine through the glass roof!

My mom enjoying the sun at la Cour de Marly.
La Cour de Marly is like a courtyard with different sculptures of mostly horses. The sun shining through the glass roof made the beautiful place even prettier!

One of my favourite pictures of me in Musée du Louvre!
It was so nice to just walk around looking at the sculptures, but we were both quite tired. We took some pictures around us, trying to make sure there weren’t any people in it (which is very hard).

Cool picture of my mom, looking at a non-horse sculpture.
My mom was so tired that we decided to leave. We returned to the big hall, where we briefly visited the bookshop again (they sold jewelry that was copied right out of paintings, so gorgeous!) and I went to pick up my umbrella.

Leaving the Louvre.
It was finally time to leave. The weather had become quite nice outside, which resulted into beautiful light entering the glass pyramid.

A last picture inside Musée du Louvre, with my mysterious-looking book. ♥
We left the pyramid and were outside again. We decided to sit down for a minute, to get a little rest. Then it was time to go back to the hotel. We bought two pastries at the boulangerie and my mom slept for a while.
That night, we decided to eat one last time at Café d’Albert across the street. We both wanted a salad with chips: my mom chose salmon again, I chose bacon and cheese.

Our delicious salads! I would love to eat this more often!
Because it was our last night in Paris, we decided to have dessert. While we were waiting for it to come, we took some hilarious pictures of my tired face. XD
I don’t remember the name of what kind of dessert we chose (something with ‘Minuit’ in it maybe…?), but I was expecting something like a crêpe with ice cream, but what we got was so much better!

The most delicious dessert I had eaten in a long time! ♥
It tasted sooo good! It reminded me of the brownie/ice cream combinations from Burger King, but this was even better! Such a perfect way to end a wonderful day!
Back at the hotel we decided to skip packing. The next day we would have enough time to do it, so we looked at our pictures, read and went to sleep.

Paris, Day 6 – Notre Dame, Shopping and Paris by Night

On Tuesdaymorning we were quite tired, so we slowly went to get breakfast and got dressed. Last year we had followed a walking route from my mom’s book through Quartier Latin, which we enjoyed a lot, so we decided to pick another route from the book. We chose the one around Notre Dame, since it looked quite nice. I had also received an email from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright Paris that they had found my buttons and that I could pick them up if I wanted!
We collected our things and went on our way.

Our outfits of the day! I wore my pirate skirt! This is one of the few pictures
where you can see my green shirt, since I put on a cardigan later.
I chose a metrostation that seemed close to the walking route. When we got out of the station, we noticed a little market across the street. My mom loves markets, so we decided to take a look.
The market was so cool and, to me, so French! There were a lot of foodstalls that sold everything! From fruit to fish to sausages!

The giant fruitstall!
We decided to buy raspberries and walked around some more. I saw a stall with absolutely adorable flower rings and bought two roses, in mint and pink.
After I looked at a map (to find out where the heck we were), we crossed the street and sat down next to little fountain. We decided to take some Amélie-like pictures with the raspberries (Haven’t seen that movie? Watch it, it’s one of my favourites!).

I love raspberries so much. ♥
We sat for a while and after I checked the map again we went on our way.
We walked past some nice buildings when we discovered a comic shop that sold all kinds of awesome figurines from movies, series and games. I saw a really beautiful Legend of Zelda statue, of Link and Epona. We found Doctor Who things and decided to buy a little spinning Tardis for my brother. For my dad we bought a Gromit figurine (from Wallace and Gromit). Finally we had some presents, yay!
We kept on walking (I was a bit lost, haha), but it was quite fun. Finally we saw the Notre Dame in the distance and we recognized the surroundings. We were standing in front of the shop Shakespeare & co, where we had been last year!
I started to feel quite cold, but luckily my mom had brought an extra cardigan with her! It was a bit big on me, but also nice and warm.
We walked along the street, into a little park with lovely flowers and a big black statue.

Mom. ♥
The park was really small, but incredibly well maintained. The different flowers were so colourful!

Me behind the flowers. I liked this outfit with my mom’s white cardigan a lot!
We crossed the street and went right, because I thought it would be easier to get to the start of the route. We walked past several stalls with paintings and books, until I discovered the route was at the other side of the Seine, so we walked back and crossed the bridge.

The beautiful cathedral. I love the architecture so much!
After we looked at a man feeding birds (he held up his hand and the birds sat on his hand, head and shoulders. It looked really cute), we walked into the garden next to the church. The garden wasn’t very special, but there we quite a lot of small houses made of straw, that reminded me of African huts.

Taking a picture of each other. Don’t you just love the little straw house?
We walked through the garden and ended up at the back of Notre Dame. Lots of people were taking picture and we asked a man if he could take a picture of us too.

Behind the beautiful cathedral!
We followed the route and bumped into a weird, circle-shaped device that spun around where children were playing on. After they left, I tried it too! It was a lot of fun, because the device was in an angle of 45 degrees. When you lay down on it, it seemed like you were hanging upside down sometimes! I made me very dizzy! ^^
We continued to follow the route and left the garden, crossed the road and walked through an old, deserted street that used to be a very busy street in… the Middle Ages. Well, now it was a little dead. We passed a bush with an enormous snail shell on it, but thank God it was empty. XD I wonder if it was real..? After walking some more, we found ourselves in a more crowded street again with tourist shops.

It was fun to see how different the souvenirs were close to the Notre Dame!
We found an umbrella that really resembled a beautiful umbrella we had seen the year before: a dark blue one with colourful flowers on it. We decided to buy it and take pictures with it! Although the route said we had to go right, we decided to go left, back to the Notre Dame. I was a bit tired and I really wanted to go inside the church this time! We arrived at the big square in front of Notre Dame and took some pictures.

My mom with the new umbrella. Her make up matched the colour perfectly!
The square was very crowded as usual. The long line in front of the entrance of the cathedral reached everywhere. We took some (jumping) pictures in front of Notre Dame, which was a challenge with all the tourists walking by!

We took a similar picture like this one last year too.
We also managed to take a picture of Point Zero, the spot from where all the distances in Paris are measured.

My mom regrets not taking more pictures like this during the previous days.
Despite the amount of people, we decided to go stand in line. We had to see the inside of Notre Dame some day after all, so why not try it today? To our surprise we didn’t stand in line for long! Entering the church is free, so it takes less time to let people enter.

Almost time to enter!
We entered through a big wooden door and immediately the atmosphere changed. I think that is what makes churches so special: whether you’re a believer or not, everyone speaks softly in a church, making the whole experience of visiting a church spiritual.
I must be honest: I love the Notre Dame from the outside, but from the inside it was not very special to me. Some of the windows were really beautiful, that much is true. But the rest wasn’t very different from any other church.

The beautiful side window.
We followed the outer path inside the cathedral, walking the wrong way. There was a small exhibition about saint Thérèse de Lisieux, which was interesting to read and look at. When we arrived at the other side, we could finally enter the middle part of the church. I was hoping we could see the round front window of the cathedral from there, since I heard it was very beautiful. But there were organ pipes in front of it! =(
After walking around some more, we left the church again. We had finally seen it from the inside!
For a moment we doubted about what to do, but we decided to stop following the route and go somewhere else. We walked back into the street with the tourist shops, when we saw two bicycle taxis! We were very excited and took a look at the prices. It was quite expensive, but since we wanted to take the taxi so bad, we decided to take one to the Louvre!

I love bicycle taxis! I was so glad we took one!
Our driver (or should I say ‘cycler’?) was British and very nice. He was so strong. And brave! One bus drove so close past us I was scared!

It was so much fun looking at the driver and the beautiful buildings of Paris!
After a while we arrived at the Louvre (again! XD) and we thanked our driver. We had gotten quite hungry, so we decided to go get something to eat at the stall from Paul. We both chose a piece of chocolate cake.

Mom with our lunch!
We sat down on a bench under a tree and immediately a bunch of birds came up to us, with little greedy eyes. My mom held out her hand and some of them flew up to it to see if she had any food! When we finished our lunch, we bought a croissant, just to feed them!

I love feeding birds! They are so much lighter than you expect!
After the birds finished the croissant (XD), my mom suggested to go to my shops! We walked to Rue de Rivoli and took the metro to Bastille. There, a violinist was playing beautiful music. I really love the musicians in the metro stations. They create such a great atmosphere!
We arrived at Ledru-Rollin, where we took pictures again in the Photomaton! When we left the metrostation, the sun started to shine. After a brief stop at McDonald’s (where I could go to the toilet normally), we went to Baby, the Stars Shine Bright. While walking to the shop, Sawada-san passed us on the street, haha!
The shop was completely deserted! It was very different from a couple of days ago, when the shop was filled with dressed up girls in poofy petticoats. We said hello to Claire and I browsed the shop some more. Of course there weren’t any new items, but I just love looking around there so much! My mom showed me a cardigan she liked, with a piano keys print on the bottom. I liked it too, but I would have preferred it if the piano had been printed on the back of the cardigan too. Suddenly, I saw a cardigan I hadn’t seen last time: a red, short sleeved one with white polkadots. I instantly fell in love! I adore red with white polkadots and I had been looking for ages for a cardigan like this one. I tried it on and it was so perfect, I just had to buy it! It’s perfect for in and out of Lolita. ♥
Sawada-san had returned and I asked if they had found my pins. He went to the back and gave me a new set! He also gave a set to my mom, so sweet! ♥
I also decided to buy one of the big Baby bags I had seen a couple of days before: a big, linen bag with a bow and chocolates on it. I preferred the white one, but since it was sold out I decided to buy the brown one. It’s cute and very handy to bring lots of Lolita stuff with you!

I made a picture just like this one last year!
I took some last pictures of the shop (because I love it sooo much), until Claire was finished wrapping my things.

Me and Claire. ♥
I thanked Claire and Sawada-san for the 100th time and then we left the shop. Hopefully I’ll be able to shop there again next year! Or sooner..?

Purchase picture!
Then we went on our way to Angelic Pretty!
When we arrived there, it was just like Baby: deserted! Such a difference, the shop seemed a lot bigger! Dominique and Cocotte were there, yay! I looked around and showed my mom some things, which was a lot easier now. It’s funny: my mom loves Baby’s dresses most, but she prefers AP’s jewelry (except for the Baby necklace she once gave me).
I walked up to the closet with dresses to see if the Cutsew OP was still there and it was! While my mom was talking to Dominique I tried it on. I was a bit nervous about the size: Sydney bought it too and she’s skinnier than me. But to my great happiness it fit and it looked so cute! I showed it to my mom and she really liked it! Of course I couldn’t leave it hanging, since it was for sale too! So I bought the adorable dress! ^^
After thanking both Dominique and Cocotte again for their help and for the wonderful Tea Party, it was time to go.

With my Angelic Pretty bag!
We returned to the metro and we decided to go back to the hotel to rest for a while. We wanted to try to get up the Eiffeltower again that night.
Apparently, it was rush hour because the metro was so full! We decided to wait for the next one and sat down, but other people didn’t and literally squeezed themselves in. Since there were so many people, the doors couldn’t close and the metro didn’t depart before several tries of closing the doors!
We arrived at our station and we bought huge macarons in the cute bakery close to our hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and chatting on Facebook.
Both my mom and I wanted to eat at McDonald’s (somehow we had cravings XD) and I had looked up where the closest restaurant was. It was only one station away, so we decided to go look for it. When we exited the metro station (after shaking off a man that started talking to us in English about him living there for quite some years) we were shocked! We were only one station away, but this seemed like some kind of bad ghetto! After walking a few meters, my mom said: ‘Ok, I recall my statement that every part of Paris is beautiful. I want to go back, I don’t feel safe here!’ and we went back to the metro. I suggested to go the McDonald’s on the Champs-Elysées and my mom agreed, so we went on our way!
After looking at some shops at the Champs-Elysées, we walked into McDonald’s. It was very crowded, so we waited for a while. The staff was very slow, wow. It was almost interesting. In the next line there was a man and sorry, I must say it: he was a real pig! He was waiting for the rest of his order, but he was already stuffing his fries into his mouth. And when I say stuffing, I mean stuffing! Ugh, disgusting.
We found a place to sit outside, so we could look at the people passing by.

Somehow I can totally imagine this being a meme, like a ‘rich girl meme’? XD
‘Only eats fries… at Champs-Elysées!’ would be the caption. XD
After we finished our dinner, I went to to the toilet (looong line), while my mom went to get some desserts at the McCafé. She bought tiramisu for herself and cheesecake for me. We decided to eat it at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe.

'Only eats tiramisu… at Arc de Triomphe!' XD
The sky was turning darker and we finished our dessert.

Yay, my very own Marilyn Monroe picture! ^^
We decided to go the Eiffeltower and we took the metro after taking some together pictures.
We arrived at Trocadéro, but when we arrived there we found one of the many obstacles in Paris: more gates. There was no way of getting through, so we walked all the way around Trocadéro. Well, at least we saw a new side of Paris again. -_- After somehow getting around the big building, there were more gates. Luckily we could walk around them and continue our way. We could finally see the Eiffeltower again! The tower started sparkling while we crossed the river.

Perfect picture is perfect. ♥
We crossed the street and set foot on the square underneath the Eiffeltower, but we quickly realized this was not going to work. The line in front of the only elevator was very long. We asked a member of the staff if the top was opened, but she told us it would close in 45 minutes. Standing in line for the Eiffeltower itself would take about an hour, so I didn’t want to go up anymore. We decided it was not meant to be this time in Paris.
I suggested to go to Tour Montparnasse instead: the second highest building in Paris with a panoramic view on top. I had thought of it before, but now was the perfect moment! We went on our way to station Bir-Hakeim.
We took the metro and arrived at station Montparnasse Bienvenüe, but to my disgust it was super quiet! This station is so big, why was it so quiet?
We followed the signs that said ‘Tour Montparnasse’, but when we walked around the corner the metal fence was down! For a moment I got really angry and upset: was this really happening again? But then I remembered the Tower would be open until midnight, so we decided to take a different exit.
We exited the station and immediately saw the blue lighted tower in front of us. We walked up to it and entered through the front door, but there were only security guards. Luckily they told us the entrance was around the corner, but the last elevator ride up would be at eleven. It was 15 minutes before eleven, so that was okay. We bought our tickets and entered the elevator. We were together with a couple with a young child. I was a little worried about the time, since I didn’t want to end up missing the last train again. I asked the man if he knew at what time the last metro would depart and he looked it up for me in his phone. The last train wouldn’t leave anytime soon, so I felt okay again.
We arrived at the top, where a photographer took a picture of us in front of a green screen. They put a panoramic picture of Paris behind us later. We walked through a hall up some stairs to get to the roof. When we arrived there, I let out a sigh of amazement. The roof was surrounded by glass windows, so you could see everything perfectly! The view on the Eiffeltower was wonderful too! The building wasn’t very big, so you could easily walk around.
My mom had been acting a little strange ever since we had exited the metrostation. It turned out she wasn’t feeling comfortable at all! To her, the building seemed supersmall and way too high. She had a lot of trouble with her vertigo and she couldn’t enjoy the view. At least I did enjoy it, otherwise the little trip would have been for nothing. ^^’
While I looked at the city, a bunch of people was yelling every time the search light of the Eiffeltower hit the building. Then I realized it was almost 11 pm, time for the Eiffeltower to sparkle! We found a little spot in front of the glass and waited. Finally, it started to sparkle again!

I loved the view so much! Paris by night is really gorgeous!
As soon as the Tower stopped sparkling lot of people left and we decided to follow them. They were probably returning to the metrostation, so at least we wouldn’t be alone there. We checked our picture first and then went down with the elevator again.

Tour Montparnasse, I really recommend it! The view is great!
The metrostation was much more crowded now and we felt a lot safer. We took the direct metroline to our hotel. Two guys with a violin and a saxophone walked into our train segment and started to play music, which was a lot fun!
We arrived our hotel and went to bed.