Today we finally got our metro passes, which means we can get around a lot easier and more flexibly. Marc gave us a speech about how he had to wait in this line only to be told to go somewhere else, and no one knew what they were doing and it was all very slow, and he explained that as much as he loves France, French bureaucracy has its faults.
According to our itinerary we went to place des vosges, but it's probably not a good sign that I'm already starting to forget what was there. I'm pretty sure it was the building that was an old palace so we could see how fancy people used to live, with an orangerie (green house for oranges) and a fancy courtyard.
Next we went to the Conciergerie, the place that Marie Antoinette was imprisoned before being executed. I thought it was really interesting because I'm all about the French revolution, but it was kind of fun too because you could walk through the building and they had wax figures with little posts describing what happened. I just feel bad for Marie Antoinette; the whole thing is very dark. It put me in the mood for a Tale of Two Cities.
It was rainy and cold and miserable, but we were in Paris, so we pressed on. That's our cheerful thought every time something sucks; you may have had to carry your luggage down multiple flights of stairs and then back up again... But you did it in Paris!
We went to sainte chapelle, which is a church that holds the crown of thorns placed on Christ's head. They only show it every year or so, but if you go to the second floor it's this amazing hall of stain glass windows. It was SO pretty. If someone wanted to email me the mini bio of St. john's windows I would love that, so I could be thinking of it when I'm in ll these other places.
Next was Notre Dame, which is without a doubt, hands down, my all time favorite church of the trip. I almost didn't go, because I had already seen it at mass yesterday and I didn't feel like I needed to. I'm so glad I did though. I love how simple the rest of the church is, and it just lets the architecture and stained glass take over. It feels like a real place of worship, not just a museum; partly because the gothic architecture is so similar to my church at home, and probably partly because my first experience with it was just as a service.
We had already taken our luggage to the new hotel, which involved a lot of huffing and puffing and pulling suitcases through small turnstiles, so we just had to go back to get it and get settled into our rooms. This one isn't much bigger, but it's nice to have somewhere to belong for a little bit longer. A mini home. We got some free time to find a snack and take a nap, then we met back up for one last activity.
The Pompidou center is the modern art museum of France. It looks crazy, because the building is inside out; the heating and cooling and water and everything else is in colored pipes outside the building. You also went up the escalators on the side of the building...mind of like the water slide at splash lagoon, only less like a theme park and more like a sight seeing extravaganza. I really liked the museum, but I think contemporary and modern art is cool. Some people in our group liked the more traditional stuff, but I thought it was fun. They had signs up that said "warning: This exhibit my offend the public and hurt some small children's feelings" which I thought were funny. Some of the stuff was pretty risqué, others were more like a trippy colorful dream. But, fun.
We got our obligatory crepes on the way back (seriously. I can't go a day without one. Cinnamon and sugar and egg and cheese for the win),and then got back to the hotel. My new roommate Kristen and I watched silence of the lambs, but in French, so silencia de ageneux, or something similar. It was still just a creepy, but it made us feel like we weren't just sitting in our room ignoring the France around us. It's just so cold and rainy and out days are so busy, it's hard to want to go back out again.
I need to make a list of all the things I should do on my free days, so I don't feel like I'm wasting time. I'll start working on that now!
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