day 24.

Fontainebleau & Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte

Today was a fun filled day! We woke up early and boarded the bus around 6:50am and headed straight to Fontainebleau. Of course it was crazy beautiful and extravagant and I absolutely loved all the hidden doors and details throughout... 

 After Fontainbleau we took our bus to the market and got some yummy food for a picnic at Vaux le Vicomte and it was also Griffin's brithday! I don't think I've ever eaten so much in my life!!!! I literally had a serious food baby!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRIFF!!!!

i was just so excited to be there!!

After the picnic we entered Vaux le Vicomte, it was absolutely breathtaking!!! Here are a few pics...

day 23.

MUSSE DORSE & VILLA SAVOYE

Today we started the morning off with a nice long walk to Musse D'orse. Along the way we saw some pretty cool things like...

the Eiffel Tower in the day time! We saw it the first night we got there [which I think it looks a lot better when it's all lit up, it's brown and not too attractive up close in the day] so it was cool to see what it looked like in daylight.

Griffin doing his daily creep and Andrea trying to take a jumping pic with the Eiffel in the background.

While we were still walking to Musse D'orse I decided to see how good my pick-pocketing skills were, so I easily snatched Lee's sunglasses out of his backpack... foolish foolish boy. I then stole his hat right off his head and told him to watch his stuff!!! Then we took a pic. It was cool. And he was sad.

we passed by a little indoor car dealership [which by the way all of their car dealerships are inside and very exclusive, unlike our HUGE car lots in America] But this is a brand new car, I love how it's the new modern 'old' car, it's so cool!!! [and I love black cars]

Okay... now I am a tad bit OBSESSED with living walls. [I used a grass wall in one of my designs for a wellness center backdrop for a reception area] But here I am so happy to see it and Griff just looking confused. 

yeah ohh yeah so cool.

After walking for what felt like a few more miles we made it the museum!! I didn't really take too many pictures.. don't know why but here it is. That place was huge and had a lot of really cool art!

As we were looking at the beautiful paintings we came across a woman painting a replica of another piece. It looked identical!! As you can see below...

Then I spent about an hour sketching a random statue I saw. This isn't my favorite sketch but here it is...

We then had lunch at a little corner cafe, wasn't too impressed with the food for the price I paid but that's France for ya in a touristy area! After lunch we took the metro and then road a bus to Le Corbusier's architectural masterpiece; Villa Savoye. It was such a cool house! It is known for its modern architecture and is also one of the most easily recognizable and renowned examples of the International style. Villa Savoye has survived several attempts of demolition and was declared as a historical monument in 1965. Which was very rare because Corbusier was still living in the house at that time. 

Below is a little collage I made of different details of the house. Including their newest addition... the little tikki type area outside, where we all sat and sketched Villa Savoye.

We had a fun little photo shoot inside the house with this nice blue wall :)

me and Phil just loungin'

looking hawt

oh wow... we were struggling.

the end.

day 22.

ST. CHAPELLE. POMPIDOU. LOUVRE.

Well it's the second day in Paris! We jumped on the metro and headed the the heart of Paris where St. Chapelle is located. It was built during the high point of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture by King Louis IX. It is made mainly of all stained glass and it is quite a sight to see!

all stained glass from top to bottom, it was gorgeous!

view from the outside

I absolutely love all of the random street art they have in Europe

After St. Chapelle we ventured over to the Pompidou! Which is one of my favorite places we've been to. I am a huge fan of Modern Art and it was everywhere in here. Also on our walk over her we passed a million cool shops and department stores, I got that giddy feeling in my body and I wanted to shop all day!!! Too bad everything here is so expensive! Dang exchange rate... But anyway back to the Pompidou, I loved the industrial feeling it protrayed, I also loved that a bunch of people will just sit outside of the building and layout or eat their lunch or play music. It was just one giant hang out spot!

going up the escalators to the top!

it was quite a sight to see when we got to the top, you could see the tops of all the buildings in Paris. It went on for miles!

Inside the Pompidou they had a cool rooftop restaurant, an internet cafe and an awesome modern art museum. Here are some of my favorite things I saw...

I love how something so simple can transform a whole room

such a cool pattern on the wall!

loved this. It kind of reminds me of my life :)

a very cool sculpture outside of the Pompidou

After checking out the exhibit inside, we went outside to have lunch. It was a little more of a struggle than I thought it would be, compared to London. Because there, they speak English. But we are in France now, and I have no idea how to speak French. The only sentence I can say is "je ne parle pas francais" which means I don't speak French. So that doesn't really help much. We had to go to 3 different cafes because non of them took cards or they couldn't get their card machine to work. Finally we found someone who spoke a bit of English and we were able to order our food that we had no idea what we were eating. It was good though!


Our final destination was the Louvre, which was HUGE!! We could have easily spent all day there! It was a lot of fun exploring around and jumping over the pyramid!! haha

the Louvre Pyramid by I.M. Pei

the inside of the pyramid 

it's is absolutely AMAZING!! I love how they have such a modern piece of architecture in the middle of this historic area, it's quite the contrast

I loved this sculpture.. it kind of reminded me of Titanic

the original Mona Lisa!!!! there were a million people trying to snap a shot and we almost got in a fight with this crazy girl 

another original painting of the last supp by Leonardy da Vinci

amazing ceiling detail

having a grand ol' time trying to fit 5 people on this little thing!

I know... I know... I've got some mad jumping skills!

my girl Andrea