Thoughts.com Blogs

View Blog

Paris

I am very sorry for the lack of updates about my vacation that I promised quite awhile ago. Actually, I started writing this entry the night I got back, but didn't have the time and energy to finish it, so I saved a draft but I can't find it anywhere. I got a bit frustrated by the fact that I lost the draft, so avoided blogging all together for awhile. Plus things have been... well... they've been a lot of different adjectives. Let's just say the blog has not been on my priority list.

Ahh, Paris. My flight to Paris was delayed because the entire radar system of Dublin airport crashed the day before I flew out. By the time I actually got to Paris, my hostel had just closed so I couldn't get in. I got extremely lucky and met two locals at the metro station (which also closed at the same time as the hostel.) They showed me to a B&B where I could get a room just by putting my credit card into a machine outside. It was pretty spiffy. Next morning, I found my hostel. This hostel was an experience. It was a Korean hostel, and had mostly Korean people staying there. For breakfast I sat on the floor and ate Korean food... the only item I recognized was rice. But it was fascinating, and all of the Korean people were extremely nice. After checking into my hostel I headed out to the city! My first stop was Notre Dame where I checked out the cathedral and the famous rose windows. Under Notre Dame I saw the medieval crypt with the old city wall - it was really neat. Next I headed to the Conciergerie, which is a prison where many people were held during the Revolution - I saw a reconstructed cell like the one Marie Antoinette would have had in that building and there was also a nice section about Robespierre. I was very grateful to Mrs. Bucks during this visit, because knowing the French history she taught me definitely helped me to enjoy Paris more. The next stop was Musee D'Orsay, with it's many impressionistic pieces. One thing that was really cool about the art museums was that you could take pictures! So there are plenty of pictures on my website from these museums. For the afternoon I took a stroll up the Champs Elysees, and saw the L'arche de Triomphe. In the evening I headed to the Louvre and saw many masterpieces, my personal favorite was seeing one of Michelangelo's Slaves.

Next day! Whew... I started off the day with a trip to Versailles, where I toured the museum and took a bus tour of the gardens. In the museum you could see a lot of paintings and the different bedrooms and such, and of course the Hall of Mirrors. It was... huge. Seriously... I've been so used to the old stone castles from the middle ages that are all throughout Ireland, that I forgot about the grand Renaissance and Baroque dwellings. And the gardens were absolutely beautiful - I was really glad I got to see the flowers in bloom. Back in Paris I headed to the sewer museum! Another thing I had an appreciation for thanks to Mrs. Bucks - especially the way Victor Hugo used them in Les Miserables. It was definitely interesting... and smelly. But it was neat to see how they clean the sewers, and how they are labeled just like the streets they parallel, so you really could find your way around the city underground. Next up was the Pantheon - seeing the graves of famous Frenchmen, and climbing up a whole heck of a lot of stairs for a great 360* view of Paris. I headed back to the hostel intending to eat dinner there, but something came up and I wound up eating a sandwich in a park and getting hit on. Note... the men in French were much worse than the men in Italy, simply because they were so direct about asking you out. French men (more than once) walked up to me and asked if I wanted to go have coffee and told me I was beautiful and what not. Italian men made comments in passing, but you could just ignore them. It was much harder to ignore the persistent French man that really wanted to take you out on a date. Anyway, after shaking this guy I went to Notre Dame for a night film about the history of the cathedral, which was pretty cool.

Sunday I went to mass at Saint Sulpice which has pretty much the best organ I've ever heard. After mass the organist played a few pieces. Then I headed to the opera which I really enjoyed - it was very grandiose, and there were tons of statues of composers. To finish up my stay in Paris I went to Sacre Couer and looked around the church, and snapped a quick picture of Moulin Rouge. And of course, had a nice lunch complete with cafe au lait.

Paris was amazing... one of the guys in my hostel said that Paris is supposed to be a city for women, and I don't know if that is universally true, but I really liked the city. Oh, and all of the Parisians I met were very nice and helpful and willing to try to speak English with me, which was quite nice compared to some of the stereotypes I had heard.

More soon - I still have to tell you about Rome!

Paris pics - http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd114/luvstigger223/I%20love%20Paris%20in%20the%20summer%20when%20it%20sizzles/