"Louis XIV was the Lady Gaga of his time"

Went on a 3 hour walking tour today! Stopped at/walked through/looked at: Marais (Jewish/gay neighborhood, where everyone gets along; shops also are open on Sundays), Latin Quarter (students, the Sorbonne, cheap food), the Seine (picnics when it warms up, cars=bathrooms, toxic water), Notre Dame, the Louvre (good place to walk when it's cold outside since it goes on forever), St. Michel, the Arc de Triomphe, and more (see below)!

We started at the center of the city, in the plaza of Hôtel de Ville. The ice skating rink in the center was blasting American pop music. It was strangely anachronistic, looking at the old architecture and hearing annoyingly catchy songs associated with Sarah rocking out in the passenger seat of the car.

The carousel also had a hilarious giraffe hidden on the inner part of the circle, but he was moving too quickly for me to capture a shot.

Parisian cousins of Patience and Fortitude (NYPL lions)?

 Notre Dame

 AHHHH!!!! So excited! Can't wait for it to reopen!!

 Tourist street...the advice was to go at least 5 blocks away from any monument in order to find cheap, good food.

 La Seine

Lovers' Bridge/Pont de l'Archevêché

 Accordion music!!

 Reflections in the Louvre pyramid

 Tuileries- Fashion week sets up here, and apparently people can move the green metal chairs right outside the models' tents, stuff their face with hamburgers and other foods off-limits to models, and heckle them. Also, the way to spot a local is to look for a person with three chairs: one for themselves, one for their coffee/cigarettes, and the last for their book.

Random seagull

Guillotine street, basically...apparently those who were famous and executed walked down this path while spectators pelted them with tomatoes.  They also sold souvenirs including "playbills" listing who was to be killed that day and handkerchiefs for children to write down names of the condemned and dip them in leftover blood to wave as they sang songs and cheers. Quality family entertainment.

 Just like being back at Washington Square...yeah, right.

 Didn't buy macarons today, but I might once school starts. There's a nearby boulangerie that sells macarons the size of hockey pucks.