August 15, 2011

PARIS

The first day in Paris (the same day of our flight) was good, however I was sooo tired! At this point we were well past 24 hours of being awake and were headed toward a full day of activities. I felt a little awkward at first, not knowing any French and not sure who to talk to. We started at the L’Orangerie(sp?) museum which houses Monet’s Waterlillies. It was really neat to see, but very crowded! Then we headed for the Louvre. My mom decided to get a wheelchair to go around in because her ankle hurt; this ended up being both awful and great at the same time. It was hard to move around in a wheelchair, however when we got to where the Mona Lisa is (where there were hoards of people surrounding it) we were able to go infront of the security ropes to get a better view(thanks to the wheelchair) where we didn’t have anyone to look over. Little did they know that my mom has no trouble standing. Haha. I didn’t make it very long at the Louvre, I felt like a zombie from lack of sleep. My mom, dad and I decided to go back to the hotel to take a nap before going out again that night. Later that night we saw the Arc d’Triumph and climbed to the top for a great view of the city.

Paris Day 2- We found the best way to get around Paris as a tourist is by bike. They have little Velib stations all over the city where you go and rent bikes. You can get a bike from any station and put it away at any station so it was a fun way to get around- we got to see the sights and have cheap transportation(the first 30 minutes are free each time). The only problem with the bike system is that sometimes you cannot find a bike station near your destination or it might be full, and being a foreigner, we were not exactly sure how their traffic customs worked, so this made for some dangerous bike trips! (I am pretty sure my mom almost died 5 times!) We went to Musee D’Orsay in the morning which turns out to be one of my favorite museums! It is in an old train station that had been converted into a museum and it houses many famous impressionist works. It was neat to see many of the paintings/works that I had studied in my art history class! After visiting the Musee d’Orsay, we headed over to Notre Dame. I have to say, Notre Dame was not as impressive as I thought it would be. It was big and had a lot of detail, however I thought it would be bigger, and be more inviting of a building. The Sacre Coure church that is in the same area as Notre Dame was almost more impressive to me on the inside of the building. It has floor to ceiling stained glass walls, giving it a more light and impressive feel than Notre Dame. However, the exterior of the building was nothing special. After lunch we headed up to Montemarte, which is the highest point in Paris. The Saint-Chapelle chapel sits on top of the hill and from here you can look out over paris, giving you a really neat view. The chapel here was more impressive than I thought it would be. It is a huge white building on the outside, and the inside is very open and am inviting place. After looking around the chapel, we went to the montemarte market which is full of local artists selling their works. My mom and I each picked out a watercolor painting that we liked- a scene of the Senne River, and a painting of Notre dame. That night for dinner, we went to a little brasserie near our hotel that was recommended by our hotel receptionist. It turned out to be the most entertaining and the best meal yet. We witnessed some Jypsy people steal a man’s tab off of his table before the waiter had a chance to pick it up. The next thing you know, a bunch of waitors and what seemed to be the manager or owner of the restaurant went running after this man. They caught him and called the police, and in the meantime they and a full-fledged argument in the middle of the street and almost started a fight. After that exciting dinner, we hopped on the velib bikes again and went back to the Eifel tower to spend some more time there. At ten o’clock that night, the tower lit up and had flashing lights all over it. This was pretty cool to see, and apparently they do this every night.