Et voilà! - one million photos from Paris. I will just frame it like this: the number of photos in this post is a reflection of the title of this post, a phrase used by the darling girl who met Melissa and I at the top of the 6th floor walk-up (5th floor by European standards; the ground level is 0 and numbers go from there. I think it makes so much more sense that way) to give us the key and show us the apartment—she told us to get some rest so we'd be ready for our "l'affront de Paris" (in other words, our Parisian offensive).

M and I stayed in this lovely apartment (found through airbnb—in the past, I'd found apartments by Googling around; I highly recommend this website as an easier alternative). I've stayed in apartments in the Cinque Terre, Venice, NYC, and Balboa Island and it continues to be one of my favorite ways to take trips. I love the interactions I've had with the people who rent out or care for the apartments and the space really feels like your own while you're there. Melissa and I noted how this apartment set a rather high expectation for where we would want to live if we were ever to live in Paris, with its well-traveled textiles, flattering floor-length mirrors, and the overall atmosphere. It was hot, but the windows kept things cool at night until we closed them upon the nightly thunderstorm at 5am. Every morning we woke up to the rain, blundering around in the dark trying to close the windows and mop up the puddles of water that got in first. But we wouldn't have had it any other way.

This view and that balcony garden—yes. We couldn't get enough.

The first night we had a picnic on the Champ du Mars and ate what turned out to be one of the best pizza I've had since Italy. The crust and the sauce (and cheese, obviously) were perfection. buonissima.

a picnic lunch on the Seine (we were both wearing skirts but we made it work)

This man was brightly clad in an orange Hawaiian-print shirt and matching goggles and we were dying over his tourist-imitating antics in front of Notre Dame. We observed while enjoying our sorbet and our sides hurt from laughing.

sorbet! The poire (pear) was unreal.

Place des Vosges - this square is beautiful and it was one of my favorite stops after having studied it in architectural history classes.

ohhhhhhhh Champs-Élysées... (my favorite song)

...and a contender for my favorite photo from the trip - an impromptu/unfiltered selfie atop the Arc de Triomphe. Neither Melissa or I had been to the top on our previous trips, and this was another of my favorite moments. We highly recommend ascending at dusk for pretty daytime and nighttime views in quick succession.

This city is beautiful. I'm still in awe.

Paris, we love you.

currently listening: Feathers - Jack & White, The Journey - Fm radio

(I can't find a link for the original illustration, as the blog address along the left no longer exists, but credit goes here.)

This is quite possibly my favorite photograph that I took in Paris. I loved the Musée d'Orangerie and this woman standing in front of one of the Monet paintings with her Monet bag was so fabulous.

children sailing boats at the Jardin du Luxembourg

This man had set up shop outside the Musée d'Orsay and quickly attracted a crowd of amazed spectators. He had a very sharp pair of scissors and just held up a piece of black paper and cut it out in the shape of this girl's profile. On the spot.

Even the Parisian children had the best sense of style and hearing them speak French was darling.

These two photos (immediately above and below) are from a ceremony in which the horses were assigned to the various contrade (a contrada is a team of sorts, each one of which is made up by a different quarter of the city). You could tell from the reactions of the contrada which groups received the coveted horses. Tartuca was the last chosen, and thus stuck with a horse that bucked off its jockey twice in a trial-run yesterday.