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Published: February 25th 2007
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Wow, another amazing weekend of traveling is over! I went to Paris with Katie, Elise and Natasha. I loved Paris...it was such a beautiful city and there was just so much to do there! We did just the basics and it was exhausting!
Thursday night we got in pretty late and just went to the hostel and went to bed. Then Friday we woke up early and went to the Eiffel Tower. It was really huge and impressive, we took tons of pictures (it was nice since it was early and other people weren't trying to take pictures in the same place). We decided to walk up most of the way (it was cheaper and we can say we walked up the Eiffel Tower!) The climb wasn't that bad there are three floors to the Eiffel Tower so we got to stop to rest and look around. The last part you have to take the elevator, and it was freezing once we got up there! It was a gloomy day to begin with and we were soo high! So we took some pictures and then headed back down. I really liked the Eiffel Tower, it is really impressive when you
are actually there and see how big it is! After that we went to the Louvre! The Louvre is also extremely impressive...I loved the fact that it was a gorgeous old castle (it was probably my favorite part). Then there was the whole thing that it was filled to the brim with famous pieces of art! I saw the Mona Lisa, which I really like the painting, but it was annoying to see in person since you had to fight crowds to see it, then I felt bad being in the front, so only stayed for a few seconds. It is really small too. There were other Da Vinci's which I liked better. There was tons of Egyptian ruins and mummies and such, which was really impressive, especially with the detail work and engineering skills when it was such a long time ago! Hammurabi's Code was cool to see and there were some beautiful Greek, Roman, and Islamic pieces of art. I loved the Islamic mosaics, they were really pretty, and it was funny how no one was in that section. There were always tons of people in all the famous painting areas. I have realized that I like sculptures
better than paintings, so I spent a lot of time in the Greek, Italian and French Sculpture sections. I also loved seeing Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (really famous, I will post pictures). It was exciting to be able to take pictures of everything there (except most of the paintings). I also loved seeing Napoleon III's old state apartments, I took half of my pictures of the beautiful old building (with paintings on all the ceilings) and the other half of mostly sculptures. It was hard to see everything, we had 5 hours where we each split off and wandered at our own pace. This was really nice since it was so big you had to pick and choose where you would spend more time. I feel like I got to see most of it, but I walked through some sections very quickly.
After the Louvre we were exhausted and went back to the hostel to make some tuna sandwiches (really cheap dinner!) and then we hung out and rested for a bit then went out. But the area with our hostel was pretty dead and we came back very early.
The next morning,
I went to Versailles. The others did not want to go with me (they wanted to see more of Paris, and sleep in since we were so tired!). But I got up at 7 and was on my way around 8am, the train took a while since our hostel was in the north of Paris and Versailles is south of Paris. Anyway, I got there pretty early and had plenty of time to walk around and see the main buildings. Again, like the Louvre, the size of Versailles is unbelievable! It was like a small town, but extremely luxurious! I went to the main building first and saw the Opera House and the State Apartments. My favorite rooms were the Queen's Bedroom because that was where all the Queens' children were born (aka future kings!) and it was where Marie Antoinette fled when the Revolution of 1789 started! And the other favorite room was the Hall of Mirrors, which was where they signed the Treaty of Versailles! The whole palace was so amazing because all the rooms were so different and detailed, and all the paintings on the ceilings had different meanings specific to the purposes of the rooms. One
of the rooms, I forget which one now, actually had the world's biggest painting on the ceiling! It was massive and there were hundreds of characters painted on it. We had audioguides which came free with admission, so it was really helpful to listen to the information about the rooms and the historical events that occurred there. After the main state apartments and the crowned prince's apartments I walked through the gardens to get to Marie Antoinette's Estates. The journey took a half hour, and the gardens were pretty, but not too impressive in the winter. Then I came upon a whole other complex of palaces, which were scaled down a bit from the real Versailles, but they were still very pretty. I didn't spend much time there, they didn't have audioguides and I wanted to get back to Paris to see some more things there. After that, i walked back to the train station and headed back to Paris.
I went to Notre Dame and that was really cool. I like how I recognize that it was the epitome of Gothic Architecture (from my art history class). I am not a big fan of Churches, probably because I
don't know all the bible stories and saints depicted. But it was very elaborate and beautiful. Going inside was free, there were mobs of people and we were shuffled around like cattle in a specified route around the Cathedral. It was interesting, but I was happy to be back outside and away from the crowds. I decided to walk over to the Consergerie (the old prison which held Marie Antoinette among other famous people). Katie, Elise, and Natasha had gone there in the morning instead of Versailles and taken the tour, but I just took a picture from the outside. Then I walked a bit around the Seine River and got a crepe with nutella. I then went on the subway towards the Arc de Triomphe. I decided to get off the subway early and walk down the Champs de Elysees. This was the big boulevard with lots of shops and restaurants and fancy hotels. It was really pretty. I saw the Louis Vuitton building, which wasn't so interesting to me, but it was next to the big HSBC building, so I took a picture of them both. So I walked probably 45 minutes towards the Arc de Triumph, and
it looked so close the whole time! I took a bunch of pictures, which you have to do while standing in the middle of the street (it was kind of scary, but there were places designed for it). Then once I got to it, I had to walk around it to get to the tunnel that would take me to it...it was frustrating! But once I got there it was huge and I found my friends! I like traveling on my own because I get to do things at my own pace, but it was nice to have people to talk to again. After seeing the Arc de Triumph we went back to the hostel and rested for a bit. Then we made some more tuna sandwiches and headed out to see the Eiffel Tower at night. We were taking pictures and we saw these guys drawing portraits of people. Natasha decided to get one, and then they were trying to convince the rest of us to do it too. And so I decided to have my portrait drawn! It was really cool, yet awkward to be sitting there and have people stare at you. It actually started raining so
we had to relocate to a bus stop, not so picturesque as sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower, but oh well.
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Mom
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When Robin was just a wee one, we used to call her the Energizer Bunny!!! Not much has changed it seems.