Exploring Europe

Let me start with apologies for any blatant misspellings here -- as I write this, I am in Germany -- land with the mixed up letters on the keyboard (plus spelling in French is strictly for experts). So use your best judgement while reading.
So Paris...
France marked our first real "foreign language" experience thus far -- though some would argue that Irish and Scottish accents are actually entirely different languages.
MONDAY
We took a nice bus from the airport to the city center -- about an 1-2 hour ride -- where we were plopped down in the middle of Paris with no bearings. After making it to Mountmatre and checking into our hostel, the three of us hiked (and subwayed) over to a cafe near the Eiffel Tower to eat before we battled the crowds. We stood in the queue for only about 45 minutes to get tickets and a lift up to the second level for some quality panoramic views and more annoying tourists. If Germany is the land of mixed up keyboards, certainly Paris is the city of annoying tourists. The tower looked great lit up at night, and after walking on the Seine for a bit, we decided to call it a night.
TUESDAY
We got up early to go to the Louvre before the crowds -- unbeknowst to us that it actually isn´t open on Tuesdays. Annoying again. At least that brought us close to the Tourist Center where we had wits enough to purchase a 3 day museum and monuments pass for 36€ that would get us in quickly to most of the things we wanted to see (i.e. less interaction with annoying tourists). So our first real experience of the day was the Musee d'Orsay: sculptures, and paintings, some by Monet, and some other ambiguous artists that I can't remember at the moment. Before venturing into the Hotel de Invalides, we had a nice afternoon picnic on the lawn -- consisting of brie and bread (surprise, surprise). At the hotel we saw the Musee du Army -- recounting the French perspective on WWII; in another section of the building was Napoleon's Tomb. It was massive -- especially since he was such a small man in life -- but I heard it's due to his insistence to be buried with all his riches. Greedy bastard, if you ask me... You should see the size of the thing. We then took the subway over to Notre Dame where we got to skip another long line of toursists to get into the cathedral -- pitures to follow -- and went underneath to explore the crypt: or the preserved section of early Paris.
WEDNESDAY
This time when we got to the Louvre, we actually got in. Of course one could spend a lifetime there and either get lost in all the amazing art, or just get lost in the building itself. We picked the latter. We did get to see the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Monet's Water Lillies, and a ton of other stuff. But, as with many popular sites, it was full of obnoxious tourists and we couldn't stand to stay much longer than 4 hours. So we went over to Saint-Chappel, where the stained glass recounts the entire Old and New Testaments. Crazy.
no time left got to go!!!!