On another very early morning, we caught a bus to Paris. Our first encounter with a French person was not pleasant; I'm pretty sure she had something else bothering her and encountering a group of four young Americans was the last straw.
Once we finally made it to the sunlight level from the uber-efficient subway system, the first building we saw was this one. It is so characteristically French; it's grand, beautiful, symmetrical, and chateaux-like. As far as architecture was concerned, we were off to a great start.
Notre Dame. I studied this in my architecture class and it was really neat for me to recall all the information and terms learned and be able to see this for myself. This church's grand scale could not be captured in a picture; you must be standing next to it, looking up, to learn how small you are. It's fascinating that this exceptional church was built sans modern equipment and yet it's features are so precise. It was difficult to take it all in.
The interior of Notre Dame showing the beautiful stained glass windows in the clerestory, the tucked away windows of the gallery, and the ornate arches in the arcade. Took 200 years to build, but it truly is amazing.
The Rose Window. Beautiful.
The back of the cathedral where you can see the flying buttresses.
There was a "pigeon lady" in front of the cathedral with birdseed who was freely putting it in people's hands to feed the pigeons. She also, unbeknownst to me, put some in my hair and so I quickly became quite popular with the birds. I think the max amount of birds on me at any given time was 5 and let me tell you, it tickled like crazy!
This was our dinner a couple blocks from the Eiffel Tower before we went to the landmark. This was probably my favorite meal. I think it was melt-in-your-mouth lamb and potatoes in a wonderfully unique stew/sauce. Yum!
The meal again and our fast disappearing water. Water came in that wine bottle and it was expensive so we managed to share two bottles of water between the four of us by rationing, but we were still thirsty (and realizing how we take free refills for granted here).
To use Sarah's words, "Gotta have creme brulee in France!" It tasted just as good, if not better than it looked. It, like the water, disappeared very quickly.
The Eiffel Tower. One of the world's most famous landmarks. We came, we saw, we froze and were bothered by all the hagglers. I felt it was almost anti-climactic for me, but that could be because we weren't going up it, it was quite cold, or whatever, but I can say I saw it now. It is huge and a neat structure and it lights up in a sparkly fashion every hour, and that was pretty to witness.
This was St. Patrick's Day after all so we found an Irish pub after visiting the Tower and celebrated with everyone else in the crowded tiny pub.
On the way back to our hotel we met a group of friends on the train and struck up a conversation with them. One in particular, Olivier, lived just down the street from our hotel (so he was headed in the same direction on the subway as us). We got off the subway at our stop, but not wanting to end the night, we decided to go for a nightcap. We went in the nearest bar which was pretty empty compared to the last one. We enjoyed hearing his thoughts on Americans and Texans and we dispelled many wrong rumors for him, as he did for us. All in all, we enjoyed our French adventure.
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