January 5

Our last day...le sigh! We slept in a bit and let our feet recover from the previous days. Heading to the Metro, we picked up a couple sandwiches...the curry chicken on a baguette was sooo good! We munched on the street and went to the Musee Picasso. They had so much of his work...very large collection! It was cool to see some early works before he started in with the cubism. He was a very talented sculptor as well.

We were ready for another bite to eat when we left the museum, so we went to a Thai place that we saw walking over. Brendan managed to order the Pad Thai which wasn't called that on the menu. We also had a bit of coffee to wake up. *Yawn*

From there, Brendan wanted to look for technical books in a bunch of book stores near St. Germain. While he was perusing, I stepped in the street and bought a cheap pink scarf.

Next up, we crossed some bridges and headed back over to Île de la Cité. We headed over to Sainte Chapelle which was built in 1245. First we entered through the lower chapel (and Brendan bought another book).

From there, we went up some narrow steps to the spectacular upper chapel. It seems like the entire structure is stained glass!

After enjoying the chapel, we walked around a bit more in the island and bought a "hot dog." It was basically a hot dog in a big roll with cheese melted over it, and potato chips stuck on top. Actually very good!

We hopped back on the RER and went to the Tour Eiffel. The lines were much more manageable this time around, so we jumped into one. I noticed the couple in front of us eating cotton candy, and I had to get in on that, so I went to a little carnival across the road and bought some...it was huge and very sticky, but yummy. We decided, since we were there, we were gonna go all the way to the top, baby! We bought our tickets and got on the elevator. After a stop at the first level, it took us straight to the second level. The views were really good, though it was getting dark out.

On the second level, we had to get in another line to take one of the four smaller elevators to the top. While waiting, we got to see the tower sparkle, as it does the first 10 minutes of every hour.

About 30 minutes later, we were on top! It was quite windy and chilly, but really cool to see so far into the distance. There were photos facing all the directions that you could look at to help yourself identify the landmarks. It was fabulous!

We went back down to the first level and saw a few exhibits. There was also this totally pointless maze of Christmas trees with really scary music playing in it. We thought maybe something would jump out at us, but no, nothing happened. ANYway, bought some tchotches at one of the many gift shops, then headed back to the hotel.

Decided to get a bite to eat at the grocery store so that we could eat in the room and pack for our early morning. Unfortunately, we had to reserve a cab and didn't have the option of the shuttle or Metro because our flight was so early. So we pretty much got packed up and got a tiny amount of sleep.