Weekend in Paris
Doing and LJ cut like the good person I am...
After my Shakespeare class on Friday (where the teacher didn't show up, but we had to stay and watch a video), I hopped on the Eurostar to Paris with two of my flatmates (Blair and Stephanie) and two of the guys upstairs (Jeremy and Marcus). The train ride was smooth and easy. The scenery above ground was nice, for the most part, but not overly interesting. You only are actually underground in the chunnel for about 20 minutes. For some reason, I thought it was longer, but it's not. We met up with my roomate Patricia in the metro at the train station in Paris, then the six of us trekked over to our hostel in northern Paris, kind of near Sacre Coeur (the big white church on the hill). The hostel was just fine - not as good as the one my mom and I stayed at in Paris last time, but better than the London one Zoe and I stayed at. It wasn't super clean and didn't have anything extra, but it was just fine. That night we were all starving, so we looked around near our hostel to find a restaurant, but of course we were in a nice area, so all the restaurants were pretty expensive. We gave in and decided to have an authentic French dinner, price and all. And it was so worth it. €19 for appetizer, entree, and dessert. Yum.
Saturday was our major Paris sightseeing day. After our little breakfast at the hostel, we hopped on the metro to Notre Dame. We climed all 422 stairs up to the very top of the towers, and saw the gargoyles up close, and the bell that Quasimoto supposedly rang. The view was absolutely amazing and the stairs weren't as bad as I was afraid they'd be. We went inside, too, but I'd done that before. It was huge and amazing to think that people built it over 200 years. Then we followed Rick Steve's walking tour of that area, saw a couple smaller churches, the Latin Quarter, ate really yummy Gyros, and mosied on over to Sainte Chappelle. That church is so beautiful, I had no idea from the outside. It's all stained glass, all around the walls, and each panel shows a different part of the bible. I appreciated it for being beautiful, while a part of me wished that I was more religious so that it affected me in that way as well. And the crazy thing is that it was built in only like 5 years or something ridiculous like that.
Afterwards, we sort of split up and went to different museums. I went to Musee D'Orsay and mostly just looked at the Impressionism paintings, because those are my favorite. I absolutely love Monet's paintings. I have ever since reading Linea in Monet's garden when I was in elementary school. So beautiful. When I was leaving the museum, the sunny blue sky had turned gray, and it started to drizzle a bit. I started heading across the river to the Louvre when it suddenly started POURING rain. It was ridiculous. Luckily, I had my umbrella, but I (along with a dozen or so other people) ducked under a bus stop for more cover. The thing was that it was not just rainy, but reallly windy too, so I still got soaked. It was crazy, though. I was laughing, so I guess that's good. The Louvre, like everyone says, is gigantic. I headed over to see the Mona Lisa first, which was fine. Not too exciting. You can't get very close, it's all enclosed, and there were a lot of people there, shoving and stuff, so I didn't look too long. I picked out a couple other specific pieces to see (including the Venus de Milo), then browsed the bookshop, then met back up with my friends.
We had a little drama then about meeting up and stuff. And it was raining and we were all tired. I felt like the middle man, and had a little breakdown. Not good times. Got over it, and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, which felt a little silly since we were in Paris, but that's what everyone else wanted to do, so I went. The waitress/kitchen messed up my food, so I got a free meal. Sweet. Bought a bottle of wine at the little shop down the street from the hostel, sat outside and drank it and chatted. This drunk French guy started to talk to us about random stuff, and I made the mistake of speaking a bit of French, so he just kept talking to me, and left by touching my heart and kissing me on the forehead, which creeped me out a bit.
... Stay tuned for Sunday and our trip to Versailles!!!
After my Shakespeare class on Friday (where the teacher didn't show up, but we had to stay and watch a video), I hopped on the Eurostar to Paris with two of my flatmates (Blair and Stephanie) and two of the guys upstairs (Jeremy and Marcus). The train ride was smooth and easy. The scenery above ground was nice, for the most part, but not overly interesting. You only are actually underground in the chunnel for about 20 minutes. For some reason, I thought it was longer, but it's not. We met up with my roomate Patricia in the metro at the train station in Paris, then the six of us trekked over to our hostel in northern Paris, kind of near Sacre Coeur (the big white church on the hill). The hostel was just fine - not as good as the one my mom and I stayed at in Paris last time, but better than the London one Zoe and I stayed at. It wasn't super clean and didn't have anything extra, but it was just fine. That night we were all starving, so we looked around near our hostel to find a restaurant, but of course we were in a nice area, so all the restaurants were pretty expensive. We gave in and decided to have an authentic French dinner, price and all. And it was so worth it. €19 for appetizer, entree, and dessert. Yum.
Saturday was our major Paris sightseeing day. After our little breakfast at the hostel, we hopped on the metro to Notre Dame. We climed all 422 stairs up to the very top of the towers, and saw the gargoyles up close, and the bell that Quasimoto supposedly rang. The view was absolutely amazing and the stairs weren't as bad as I was afraid they'd be. We went inside, too, but I'd done that before. It was huge and amazing to think that people built it over 200 years. Then we followed Rick Steve's walking tour of that area, saw a couple smaller churches, the Latin Quarter, ate really yummy Gyros, and mosied on over to Sainte Chappelle. That church is so beautiful, I had no idea from the outside. It's all stained glass, all around the walls, and each panel shows a different part of the bible. I appreciated it for being beautiful, while a part of me wished that I was more religious so that it affected me in that way as well. And the crazy thing is that it was built in only like 5 years or something ridiculous like that.
Afterwards, we sort of split up and went to different museums. I went to Musee D'Orsay and mostly just looked at the Impressionism paintings, because those are my favorite. I absolutely love Monet's paintings. I have ever since reading Linea in Monet's garden when I was in elementary school. So beautiful. When I was leaving the museum, the sunny blue sky had turned gray, and it started to drizzle a bit. I started heading across the river to the Louvre when it suddenly started POURING rain. It was ridiculous. Luckily, I had my umbrella, but I (along with a dozen or so other people) ducked under a bus stop for more cover. The thing was that it was not just rainy, but reallly windy too, so I still got soaked. It was crazy, though. I was laughing, so I guess that's good. The Louvre, like everyone says, is gigantic. I headed over to see the Mona Lisa first, which was fine. Not too exciting. You can't get very close, it's all enclosed, and there were a lot of people there, shoving and stuff, so I didn't look too long. I picked out a couple other specific pieces to see (including the Venus de Milo), then browsed the bookshop, then met back up with my friends.
We had a little drama then about meeting up and stuff. And it was raining and we were all tired. I felt like the middle man, and had a little breakdown. Not good times. Got over it, and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, which felt a little silly since we were in Paris, but that's what everyone else wanted to do, so I went. The waitress/kitchen messed up my food, so I got a free meal. Sweet. Bought a bottle of wine at the little shop down the street from the hostel, sat outside and drank it and chatted. This drunk French guy started to talk to us about random stuff, and I made the mistake of speaking a bit of French, so he just kept talking to me, and left by touching my heart and kissing me on the forehead, which creeped me out a bit.
... Stay tuned for Sunday and our trip to Versailles!!!