paris, france

After about a 4 hour train ride we arrived in Paris! We took the metro a couple of stops and found our hotel - a basic basic room with a bed a table and a chair. The bathroom was down the hall and it smelled a little funny, but it was cheaper than a hostel and would suit us just fine.. we wouldn't be hanging out there anyways, we would be out seeing the city all day! It was late afternoon and we weren't sure what to do, we just didn't want to waste it at the hotel though, so we went for a walk. We passed the Pompidou modern art gallery which happened to be free that night because of a sort of festival thing called Blanche Nuit. We didn't bother touring it though because we planned on buying the Paris Museum Pass which would allow us to visit it later when we had more time. We also passed by the Notre Dame Cathedral, The Louvre, and Place de la Concorde. The Place de la Concorde and it's fountains were all lit up blue as part of Blanche Nuit and a tribute to the artist Yves Klein.

In the morning we left our hotel and followed our noses to the bakery below us and got some breakfast. I had the most delicious, warm, flaky croissant ever. It was fantastic! Over the course of the week we went there every morning and tried a bunch of different things - chocolate bread, fruit tarts, apple struedels and raspberry cakes. mmMMmm! Then we made our way to the Louvre where we actually went inside this time and saw pieces like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The crowd around the Mona Lisa was ridiculous, and there were no pictures allowed. The guards were like hawks and yelled at anyone they saw with a camera taking pictures to put it away into their bag. We've become pretty good at taking pictures where pictures aren't allowed, and I was able to get a couple of ok ones. You just have to wait until the guard person is distracted yelling at someone else then you can discreetly click away.. muhahah! The Louvre is absolutely MASSIVE and there's no way you could see it all in a day. We had the museum pass though, so we only spent a couple of hours and would come back another time to finish it off. We did the Champs Elysees walk all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe where we climbed up for a good view of the city. We walked over to the Eiffel Tower and wanted to climb up for sunset, but didn't make it in time, so instead we headed to Trocadero Square where we had an awesome view of the tower itself and were able to get some good pictures. Every hour for 10 minutes, the tower would twinkle with tons of little blinking lights which was sooo cool!

The next day we saw the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral and were also going to climb up the tower (of Hunchback of Notre Dame fame), but the line was really long so we decided to do it another day. We followed one of Rick Steve's guided walking tours through historic Paris, to the Cluny Museum and the Conciergerie. We had lunch of french onion soup at a little cafe before heading back to the Pompidou to see if it was open yet. We had tried there first thing in the morning but there was some sort of strike action and the opening was delayed. Well, when we returned that afternoon (and every following day) it still wasn't open, and we regretted not just going in the first night when we had the chance! While at an internet cafe that evening We realized it was Thanksgiving when we saw some of our friends' MSN names, and were like awwww man, wishing for a nice big turkey dinning with mashed potatoes and stuffing. We got our dinner of sandwiches from the grocery store and that was pretty much it for us though! Oh well, we have a lot more to be thankful for over here, we can do without a turkey dinner! hehe..

Most of Paris' museums are closed on Tuesdays, so the next day we headed a bit out of town to the Palace of Versailles which was very impressive and extravagant! This is where the Treaty of Versailles (ending WWI) was signed, and where Kings Louis XIV - XVI lived, and spent half of Paris yearly income on initially building the palace. The King and Queen each had separate wings, and we toured those along with the Palace gardens. The King wanted to have orange trees, so they were specially grown in greenhouses, then wheeled out into the gardens on nice days when the King would go for walks. He also had romanesque ruins constructed and a venetian canal built on the grounds. The whole place was just totally over the top! We stopped at one of the ponds and fed these ducks and swans some of our bread. The swan wouldn actaully come over and stretch his neck up and eat the bread from my hand. Mike was taking a bunch of pictures and actaully captured the time where the swan got a little too eager and bit me! He didn't have any teeth though, it just felt weird, hahaha. When we got back to the city, we made it to the Eiffel Tower in time to go up for dusk. We took the elevator up to the very top level and it was incredible! It was a clear night and very windy, quite the experience.. The area below the tower is just FILLED with guys selling souvenirs, particularly these glow in the dark Eiffel Towers. It was really funny, with each group that came down, they would rush over to them, blinking towers in hand and try to sell what they could. It was pretty entertaining and we sat and watched in awe for a while, while shooing them away a couple of times ourselves.

The next day we did the Notre Dame tower climb, and saw the huge bell and the gargoyles. Then we went to Sainte Chapelle, which is a church that was built to house Jesus' Crown of Thorns. The church is mostly all stained glass with 1100 different scenes from the Bible, and King Louis IX spent three times as much on acquiring the Crown as he did on the actual construction of the church itself. Nowadays the crown is held in the Notre Dame treasury and only shown on Fridays during Lent. After that we toured the Orsay Museum, Rue Cler ( a neat little market street) and then went up to Montmarte (Paris' hill) where the Sacre Coeur Basillica is located. The Basillica was also very impressive, with a huge domed ceiling. We sat there for a while before continuing on another of Rick Steves' guided walking tours, seeing Picasso's studio, and Van Gogh's former house. We finished the tour at the Moulin Rouge, where we learned that dinner and a show cost like $150 and had to be booked in advance so we just headed home.

Up next was another guided walking tour which took us to the Picasso Museum, and the Carnavalet Museum. In the evening when we went to see if the Pompidou was open yet, we went into this restaurant called Flunch which was kind of like Uncle Willy's buffet style dining, where we could get a quarter chicken and vegetables "A volante" and a drink for $6. This is when we learned that A Volante meant unlimited! Things that fell under their vegetable category included french fries, potatoes, spaghetti, and of course vegetables. Amongst Paris' many expensive cafes with wierd hours we had found the sweet spot! Too bad we hadn't found it in time for Thanksgiving, hehehe. After Flunch we headed back to the Arc de Triomphe to go up for a night time view. All of these sights we had been seeing were included in our Museum Pass which was awesome.

In the morning we did yet another guided walking tour, this time of the Left Bank (Paris is divided by the River Seine). We started with the cafe Le Procope, which has been in business since the year 1686, and one of the places revolutionaries would sit and plot. We ordered a couple shots of espresso in the tiniest cups ever, and then continued on our way. We toured two more churches, St. Germain -des-Pres and St. Sulpice. At St. Germain the funniest thing happened, we were walking around, behind the altar looking at all the different little chapels and carvings, and there was only one other guy standing there, and he FARTED.. so loud I swear it echoed! he quickly looked at us, and Mike gave him this mixed look of shock/surprise/laughter and I tried not to look at him at all. He then scurried off in the other direction and left the church.. lol.. After that it was on to St. Sulpice, which is one of the churches mentioned in the Davinci Code. In one part of the church there is a sort of a sundial tower thing with a brass line running down it, and a stained glass window with the letters S&P intertwined. There is a sign posted there saying "Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this is not the vestige of an pagan temple, no such temple ever existed in this place... no mystical notation can be derived from this instrument of astronomy except to aknowledge that God the Creator is the master of time. Please also note that the letters P&S in the small round windows refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, and not and imaginary "Priory of Sion". Even at the Louvre (where the Mona Lisa is) there was a "Davinci Code" tour. Funny all the unecessary hype a fiction author can create.. After that we took a break in Luxembourg Gardens. The day before we were feeling inspired by all the museums we had been seeing, and we each bought a sketch pad and a box of pastels. We sat in the park and drew for a while. It was actually a lot of fun and very relaxing! haha.. I think we spent a little too long there though, because we really had to rush the other things we wanted to do that day - the Rodin museum, Napolean's Tomb and war museums, and when we tried to make it to the Pantheon it was closed already. We just headed back to Flunch again, and then to the Louvre to finish up anything we had missed the first time.

We had planned on spending our last day in Paris by actually taking a day trip north to Bayeux where the Normandy D-Day beaches are located. We woke up too late however, and because it was a Sunday the trains were more irregular and it wouldn't be worth it to go and only spend a couple of hours. Instead we watched some stuff on Mike's laptop that he had downloaded (like Lost!) and took it easy all day. We finished up any little things we had been wanting to do, and went back to the Orsay where Mike bought a poster that he wanted. We went to our usual internet cafe, then to Flunch for dinner again, we even got dessert this time!

I REALLY liked Paris. Once you get used to things randomly being closed on certain days or weird hours and all the dog crap on the sidewalks, it's a really cool place! We got by a lot easier than I thought we would in terms of communication too. Yea, some people would look at us like we were crazy when we asked if they spoke English, but on the most part we got by ok. I find I can understand French pretty good, and reading it is not too bad, I just can't speak it that great, haha.