After the Louvre, we went to the Rodin Museum. Rodin was a sculpture and he sculpted The Thinker and The Kiss. I really like his work so it was cool to be bale to see his original sculptures. Across the street from the Rodin Museum was this hospital that is ginormous and has really pretty architectural features. We took some pictures but didn't go inside. Instead we sat on the stairs outside and Dad and I ended up falling asleep for like 30 minutes. And of course I fell asleep with my mouth open and there were picture taken..how embarrassing.
After our nap, we walked to the Eiffel Tower. It really is an amazing monument. It's big and kind of crazy that it sort of accidental became such a famous monument. The Eiffel Tower is what people thing of when they thing of Paris and it wasn't even suppose to stay. It was built for a celebration or something and then it was going to be taken down once it was over. So anyways, as we were about to get in line to go up, I saw Scott, one of the guys in my study abroad group, so that was pretty cool. He wasn't going up the tower yet, so my parents and I got in line. We decided we couldn't do the very top. All of us have a little issue with heights (as your well aware from previous stories I've shared about myself) so we didn't think going to the very top would be a good idea. We went to the second level and it wasn't too bad to go up there. The view was cool and we got some really sweet pictures.
After we finished up at the Eiffel Tower we decided to walk to the Arc de Triomphe. Bad idea folks. The Arc is not really that close to the Eiffel Tower. It was quite the walk. We did stop for some dinner on the way though. We went to this Italian place that was pretty cool. The best part though was this Italian guy sitting at the table next to us. He kept talking to us and at the end of the meal, he offered to let us stay at his house if we ever made it to Rome. He gave my dad his contact info. It was pretty cool but also pretty strange. I don't think people in America would be quite as generous. Anyways, we finally got to the Arc and walked up to the top. The view was great and we could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. The bad news you ask. All three of our camera's were dead. So our pictures were basically none existent. This guy offered to take a picture of us up there and email it to us. We'll see if we ever get that e-mail...
Thursday we started out our day at Saint Chapelle. I was fairly certain my parents didn’t actually care if they saw this but I had heard it was really cool so I wanted to go in, even if just for a minute. But I’m pretty sure we all loved it. It is the most amazing chapel I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying a lot because we all know how many churches I’ve been to since being in England. The whole interior was elaborately painted in these rich colors. It was amazing. I’ve never seen another chapel like it. I can’t even describe how beautiful it was but really, it was. It was kind of strange at first though because we had to go through all this security and get our bags screened and stuff and we were like man, they take security here pretty seriously if this is just for a stinking chapel. But then it ended up being that the chapel is in the same courtyard dealy that the courthouse is in, so we had to be security checked for that purpose.
After that cool little adventure, we headed down the street to Notre Dame. We got in line to climb up the tower and ended up waiting about 45 minutes. But that’s ok, because just like the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower promised, it was going to have THE best view of the city. (Don’t ask me how they all have the best view. We still haven’t figured that one out). So we climb up all million stairs to the first real level (cuz there’s a mini level gift shop in between) and check out the city. They only let so many people up at a time so it wasn’t too crowded. And it really was a cool view, especially since we were able to see all the gargoyles right up close. I wasn’t quite as freaked out up there as I was St. Paul’s, way back in the day, because first of all there were no see through steps and second of all, there were walls I could slide along to make me feel like I wasn’t going to fall off and die. It was cool from the very top balcony as well, though not a ton different than the first stop. We assumed that once we climbed back down all the stairs we would be dumped back into the actual chapel part of Notre Dame. However, we were wrong and instead we got dumped outside facing another line. Luckily for us, or maybe just because we’re rude American tourists, this lady had a bunch of school kids standing in what looking like the almost front of the line, but right as we got down the stairs, everyone realized that they weren’t in line so there was a sort of mini havoc and we just kind of slipped in the building while everyone was trying to find the real line. It wasn’t really my favorite chapel though. It was super dark and just not really all that pretty. We didn’t spend that much time inside that part but that was ok with me. Really I just thought it was cool to be where good old Quasimodo once lived…
Once we finished there, we headed back to the Pantheon, now that we had real tickets that would get us in. I’m definitely glad we went back there because it was one of the more interesting buildings I thought. The architecture was amazing and there were some really cool people buried in the crypt, such as Victor Hugo and Mr. Braille. But what I thought was super interesting was how modern the sculptures were. They were all depicting stuff from the French Revolution, which was a while ago, but not at all very long when you compare it to a lot of the statues I feel like I’ve seen in other buildings, which come from ancient Greek people and stuff. Funny story though. When we first got there, we all needed to use the toilet so that was our first stop. The ladies line was a lot longer than the men’s line, as usual, and both doors were propped open. Girls kept walking into the guys because no one was using it, which I think is fine. Until a guy does decided to use it, then I think the door should be shut and girls should stop walking in because urinals aren’t the most private things ever. But no. The door was left propped open and girls kept using the stalls in the men’s bathroom while boys were using the urinals. And while standing in the girl’s line, we had a pretty direct view of the urinals because of the whole propped open door situation. Nothing was seen. At least not by me. But the awkward tension was almost unbearable…
Because of the whole camera situation on Wednesday, I made us all go back to the Arc to get a picture. We just hopped of the metro real fast, took a picture across the street and then hopped back onto the metro and headed to this cool church called Sainte Pierre de Montmartre. We had no prior intentions of going here, but we could see the building from ever ‘best view of the city’ we saw and so we were curious. It was a really cool building from the outside and the inside was pretty too. We weren’t supposed to take pictures, but my dad and I may have taken some illegal ones anyways. Woops. It was on top of a hill so the view was great as well. There was a church service going on at the same time so we got to listen to the choir while we walked around. When we got outside, there was this super buff guy doing all these sweet tricks with a soccer ball and Dad had my camera during that time, so I know have videos of super buff soccer ball trick man. Just a random tidbit of the adventure I thought I share with you.
On our way from the church, Dad accidentally smacked a Christmas ornament Mom had bought against a pole. It was one of those glass globe ornaments, so of course it broke. We figured we would have just enough time to get back to the gift shop and get her a new one, which we did. And then it was back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head to the train station. Unfortunately, once we got to the train station and couldn’t find our train, we realized that we had been mistaken on what time our train left and we had already missed our train. We ran to the helper people place to see if we could catch the next train in 30 minutes and encountered a very rude lady who informed us that we would have to pay full price to get onto the train and they would be 250 euros each. Then she want and talked to her boss and we were able to get on the train with no extra charge. But thanks for being rude anyways lady.
Your probably wondering about the title of this post at this point. While in Paris, basically all we ever ate was bread and sugar. We had so many eclairs, because they were absolutely amazing. And we found these fabulous donut like things but time 5 on the grease. It was not a healthy trip but it sure was tasty. We also encountered more people making out in public than I have ever seen in my whole life. It was disgusting...
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