Help Needed: Paris Planning!

Paris is way ugly.

It's hard to believe that it's been over 5 months since Andrew and I booked our tickets to Paris last November. Now, here we are, 24 days away from saying à tout à l'heure (my French skillz are mad strong) to the U.S. and bonjour to baguettes and dudes named Henri (my French stereotypes are also mad strong).


As I wrote before, this will be my very first trip to Paris. I went to France once, in high school when I was living in Germany and my friend and her mom and I went to the south of France. That was quite a lovely trip, and enough to give me confidence that the whole "the French have amazing cheese and perfumes" racket is actually based in truth. However, in the years and years of French classes I took through middle and high school and college, nobody ever really talked much about any place other than Paris. Oh, and sometimes Morocco. Once I think we talked about the Ivory Coast too, but I could be making that up.

A French dude named Henri.
This one happened to have
discovered radioactivity.

Regardless, I learned a lot about Paris in my French classes. Like, beaucoup -- the history of Les Invalides, the structure of the arrondissements, the meaning behind the Arc de Triomphe. All these lessons were accompanied by textbook pictures, but it was hard to get a feel for the actual layout of the city, the design. I remember a couple of years ago, watching the final part of the Tour de France when they all ride into Paris and thinking "huh, so that's where all that stuff is".


So now that this trip is rapidly approaching, I've started to freak out a bit. There's so much to do, so much to see. Andrew has been to Paris many times before, so he's very easy-going about what we do. So now I turn to you, my many friends who have visited or lived in Paris...


What should we do?
What are your absolute, non-negotiable, must see places?

The Rodin Museum.
Can you say, le eye sore.

We have about 4 full days and 5 nights, and I think we both would like to do a mix of tourist-y standards along with some fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pantalons neighborhood wandering/café  sitting. There are seemingly a million museums in Paris, but I think we've settled on doing the Museé Rodin, the Museé D'Orsay, and of course, the Louvre. And we are staying at an apartment in the Marais, quite close to Les Halles.


If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Bonus points if you have access to or know a tour guide named Henri. 


Feel free to leave a comment, email, Facebook, text, whatever -- and a big, big thank you (I mean, merci) in advance!