Saturday, July 3, 2010.
Well, life is so incredibly good. I have a few days to catch up on, so I figure I'll just start and work backwards.
The morning started around 4 AM Paris time, when I woke up. I was late to the last meeting, and I'd missed breakfast so I didn't want to miss breakfast again! (especially because everyone raved about it). So I got up thinking that it was already 10 AM, but my roommate was just going to bed! We chatted for a few minutes about random stuff and then back to bed for me. ARound 9, I did go to breakfast, and it was very good. They had french cheeses, and pan au chocolats there, and they were all very good!
We got together as a group after breakfast to have devotional and little instruction session things about some of the businesses and cultural visits that we have/would be seeing. We took the metro ride (about a half hour cause of transfers) to the Louvre museum. Our group leaders decided to take us to see a few of the bigger things at the Louvre (Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, etc.) and then let us all go off on our own (in groups) after that. It was really hard to stay with the group! There were so many people, I'd turn around to take a picture or to take a closer look at a painting or a statue and I'd lose the group I was with. It made it really difficult.
I found a group to hang out with, and we walked around the Louvre and saw Venus de Milo (Aphrodite), a bunch of really cool other statues, a statue of Ramses II, the coronation crown of Charlemagne, and a lot more. There are so many pieces of art it was on overload. Theres definitely tons more to see there.
We all were pretty hungry and we wanted to find a creperie, but we couldn't find one anywhere! So we found this bakery and had their sandwich, drink, and dessert combo. I got a baguette sandwich and a chocolate eclair. The chocolate eclair was AWESOME! The creme was chocolate too, and so much better than I thought it would be. French food ROCKS!
I also found a bakery that sold pan au chocolats...so I had to buy one of those too! And, it did not disappoint at all. I LOVE THIS CITY!
We decided to go to the Palais Garnier, which is the Paris Opera House next. Like, the Phantom of the OPera Paris Opera house. HOly awesomeness. The architechure is so incredibly beautiful and intricate. So much red in it all. We got to go into one of the boxes. The chandelier is just like in the play. Ironically, I could totally imagine everything from the musical going on in real life at the opera house (and apparently there really is a lake under it all). It gives such a beautiful view of the city and everything. I loved it there, and hopefully someday I'll be able to go see a show there.
The tomb of Napoleon was next. We finally made it to the metro stop and couple figure out where the building was, so we decided to just go to Notre Dame. The cathedral is architecturally amazing. We just went in really fast and then lined up to go up. I think I want to go back tomorrow and actually go inside more and go up into the towers. A couple of people got crepes (we finally found the creperies!) and then a few of us left to try and hit up versailles before it closed. There was this man with a creepy mask who was walking around and scaring women and he got one of the girls in our group. I'll see if I can get the video of it because it was hilarious!
We found the train that would get us to Versailles and hoped that we'd make it in time. We'd seen this advertisement for a huge light and water show that would be in the chateau gardens at night. There wasn't a ton of additional information...about ticket prices or times or anything so we just kind of went to see what we could find out. It was going to be about 20 euro, so some of the people in our group didn't want to do it, and then wait around for everything. I was willing to support the group even though I wanted to stay (I figured...its not a normal event, and it seemed pretty cool, so I was willing to pay). Anyway, as we were walking back to the metro, we ran into another group from our Study Abroad. They wanted to stay so I switched over to them with another girl from my original group. Boy, was I ever glad that I did!
We waited in line forever and were finally able to buy tickets...and we got a student discount!. It was only a few euro, but every little bit counts.
Then came dinner. We had to get something fast, so McDonalds it was! I think we are going to try and hit up a mcdonalds in every country we go to. Needless to say, it was really good! Their food tastes much more gourmet and I tried this dessert I'd never seen at a mcdonalds before. It was a thick chocolate brownie with ice cream and fudge on the top. I was quite surprised because I didn't even think I was eating mcdonalds anymore. Holy Crap. Is that even possible!?
We ran back to the castle and started walking around. They'd opened up alot of the gardens and had all the water running. Music played in the background, and there were a lot of the fountains that were choreographed to lights and music. They had some fire things that would shoot up too, and we found out there would be fireworks at the end of the night. Talk about awesome! I'll definitely throw up some pics from this when I get them on the computer.
They sold soft serve ice cream too, and it was different than anything I'd ever had. It wasn't grainy, and the chocolate was a better chocolate than they have in the US, and the vanilla was better too. Heaven!
After the fireworks were over, we ran back to the metro and met this really cool american couple on the train. The guy is working as a lawyer for a firm in Paris, so hes been living here for the past year. Such a nice couple. They told us the places to go and things to do on our last day in the city.
We made it back, and now I sit here writing about it on this. Why? I don't know. Probably because I can type faster than I can hand write. But needless to say, this trip was the best decision I could have made for this month in my 2010 life. HOly crap...this is awesome. And we haven't even been gone a week!
On a side note, I have to say...I LOVE PARIS, and I LOVE FRENCH. I love hearing the language, and I've loved getting to practice my french here and there. I'm surprised at how much I've remembered and how much has come back by just hearing it constantly. I'd definitely like to work on becoming more fluent in it. Its such a beautiful language.
Tomorrow we go to church, see the Arc de Triumphe, and who knows what else. Its full of possibility...I know that for sure!
Au Revoirs,
M
No comments:
Post a Comment