Today we split up into two groups because some of us wanted to do different things. Everybody except for Anthony and I wanted to go to a little town on the outside of the city and tour this famous house that we study in architecture called Villa Savoye designed by Le Corbusier. I
mean, its a cool house, but definitely something I wanted to be wasting half a day on when there is so much more you can see in half a day staying in Paris. So, anthony and I woke up a little later than everybody else and skipped out on/woke up too late for the hostel breakfast. Instead, we just got ready and then headed back over to the St. Michel Place to eat crepes for breakfast! We got them from some little street vendor and walked around a little because it was cheaper and faster than sitting down at a cafe. They were really good though. It was my first crepe experience! The batter was my favorite part because it was like a sweet pancake except for it was really light and thin....so good. We both got ham and cheese in ours, and they put way too much cheese, but it was still good. When we finished those, we walked into a little coffee shop to get a drink before we started the day. I learned that in Paris "coffee with milk" is called cafe creme, where as i am so used to it in Spain being cafe con leche. Its funny because thats all i drink here and in the states i dont even know what thats called...i dont think you just order coffee with milk do you? Anyway, then we headed over to a church called St. Chapelle to check that out. The church is inside the "courtyard" of the government building I
was talking about on my last post, so to get into just the courtyard you have to go through all this security and stuff. Then you get in and you have to pay...which is normal except it says free for architecture students. Hey, that's me, but I have no way to prove it. All of our IDs are just student IDs and don't say what you are studying....so we had to pay 4.50. Oh, well, would have been nice. Inside the church is really cool, but very very small. The cool thing about it is that basically the walls are made out of stain glass. Normally, there are big pieces of stained glass, but this church it was like a column and then the glass, and then again, with no stone walls or anything. And all the stained glass was so intricate and different from each other. After that we went to the Luxemburg gardens and Palace. It was really pretty although I am sure it is prettier in the
summer when the trees are green. That was the weird thing...in Prague all the trees had yellow and orange leaves, in Paris, they had all already lost their leaves. The palace wasn't anything all that spectacular, but still pretty. It was funny though because there was a guard outside, but he was standing in an intense looking glass case. And he was real. Strange? From there, we headed to another church called St. German or something like that, and it was quite a let down. It wasn't pretty at all and it was really run down. We kept walking and walking and walking, making our way to the base of the Eiffel Tower. Along the way we saw this gorgeous looking church that wasn't on our map, so we went in. I have no clue why it was not marked like all the other churches because it was so pretty and it was huge too. By this point i had to pee really really bad, and we couldn't find anywhere to go. Finally we passed by this little cafe so we went in and I ordered some espresso just so i could use the bathroom...because of course you can't just use the bathroom. I got locked in and couldn't get the door to open for anything. It was awful and I was trying to figure outI what I should do, and then it just popped open...luckily. The coffee was awful too, but hey, i got to pee! We continued on our way
to the Eiffel tower and by the time we were getting close it was lunch time...perfect to have a picnic next to the tower! So we each stopped at different places and got food for our picnic. Anthony got chinese food...sick...and I stopped at a little bakery and got a ham and cheese croissant and a sugar crepe. We found a bench next to the lawn behind the Eiffel Tower and sat there and had our lunch. When we were finished we took turns taking pictures of each other in front of the Eiffel Tower...being normal and then goofy. We also took a lot of "artsy pics" and compared them. Mine were much better :) it turned into this big joke of who could take the best one, but sarcastically so we would take a ridiculously bad picture and be like, oh my gosh, look at this one, how artsy is that. We kept moving closer and closer to the base of the tower taking pictures all along the way. When we were pretty close, both of us held out our own cameras and took pictures of ourselves with the tower...being goofy, so its like a photo shoot of me and the tower, pointing, with my thumb up, etc. The base of the Eiffel tower is really cool. It is so much more amazing from the base than from all the other points of the city in my opinion because first you can see the details and also, you understand the scale of this thing. huge. I am
so glad I didn't go with the other group because they didn't ever go see the Eiffel tower up close and it is so cool. When we were done we were supposed to meet the other group to go to Notre Dame. It just so happened that the metro stop closest to where we were was under construction so they had a temporary one but it was 600 meters away...a long way. It was like going on a hike just to get on a metro. When we finally got to the meeting spot we caught up on each others days while we were walking to Notre Dame, and the people who went said that it was kind of a disappointment. Notre Dame was really cool, but in my opinion it was cooler on the outside than the inside. The outside has a huge rosette window with two towers on either side and then underneath all this all the way across the entire front of the facade are these statues of people one after the other. Also, flying buttresses surround the outside. Its just amazing the amount of detail there is in stone and everywhere on the building. The inside has double aisles and radiating chapels, and 3 huge rosette windows in the transept ends. Also, Notre Dame supposedly has the crown of thorns and a piece of the cross, but you have to pay to see it so we didn't. After we were done at Notre Dame we headed over to see the Pompidou
Center which is a very very modern building done by Renzo Piano that we have studied in architecture classes some. It is a very industrial, crazy looking building with a clear tube attached to the outside with escalators going up it. All of the normal mechanics of a building that are hidden, on this building are exposed and painted bright colors like blues and reds. Then we walked over to this mall that is part underground that was close to us that was an architectural failure although I am not sure why. If it hadn't been so deserted and run down, I think it would have been a pretty cool place. Also, near that was another church so we went over there to look at it. They were having mass but we just peeked in without being distracting. The inside was really pretty because it had some cool vaulting pattern on the ceiling different than just normal
vaulting. We had been invited to go eat at Edith's apartment for dinner and we were supposed to be there at a certain time and it was too early so we just sat around killing time, some people shopping, and some sitting in on church in french. I was really tired so i went to try and find some coffee. I found this little place that was like a bar/restaurant but i went in because i saw a coffee machine. Before I ordered I asked if I could take it to go, and the lady didn't speak very good english, but she was like yes, of course. So i ordered and she served it to me not in a to go glass. So i was like, can I get it to take out, and she was like no, here only. Well, crap. I needed to be back at the church asap and here I am with a cup of steaming hot coffee that i have to pay for so of course i am going to drink it. I just blew on it and started drinking. It took me about 10
minutes to finish and when i was done, my tounge was SO burned. It hurt so bad. I met back up with everyone and we got on the metro and rode it to the outskirts of the city where Edith lives. Her apartment is really cute but very small too. They have a dog named cookie who is a westie and VERY hyper. Edith made us dinner that was escargot, potatoes au gratin, and some meat and vegetable mixture thing. I was very nervous about the snails and really didn't even want to try them, but I did and they were surprisingly good, but very salty. The rest of the meal was very good too! After dinner we just sat around and talked for a couple of hours and then went back to the hostel and went to sleep because it was about midnight, and we had an early morning in front of us again...going to Versailles. The first picture is of the stained glass at st. chapelle, the second is of part of the luxembourg gardens, the third and forth are the eiffel tower, the fift and sixth are notre dame, and the seventh is the pompidou center and the last is me and a random statue.
mean, its a cool house, but definitely something I wanted to be wasting half a day on when there is so much more you can see in half a day staying in Paris. So, anthony and I woke up a little later than everybody else and skipped out on/woke up too late for the hostel breakfast. Instead, we just got ready and then headed back over to the St. Michel Place to eat crepes for breakfast! We got them from some little street vendor and walked around a little because it was cheaper and faster than sitting down at a cafe. They were really good though. It was my first crepe experience! The batter was my favorite part because it was like a sweet pancake except for it was really light and thin....so good. We both got ham and cheese in ours, and they put way too much cheese, but it was still good. When we finished those, we walked into a little coffee shop to get a drink before we started the day. I learned that in Paris "coffee with milk" is called cafe creme, where as i am so used to it in Spain being cafe con leche. Its funny because thats all i drink here and in the states i dont even know what thats called...i dont think you just order coffee with milk do you? Anyway, then we headed over to a church called St. Chapelle to check that out. The church is inside the "courtyard" of the government building I
was talking about on my last post, so to get into just the courtyard you have to go through all this security and stuff. Then you get in and you have to pay...which is normal except it says free for architecture students. Hey, that's me, but I have no way to prove it. All of our IDs are just student IDs and don't say what you are studying....so we had to pay 4.50. Oh, well, would have been nice. Inside the church is really cool, but very very small. The cool thing about it is that basically the walls are made out of stain glass. Normally, there are big pieces of stained glass, but this church it was like a column and then the glass, and then again, with no stone walls or anything. And all the stained glass was so intricate and different from each other. After that we went to the Luxemburg gardens and Palace. It was really pretty although I am sure it is prettier in the
summer when the trees are green. That was the weird thing...in Prague all the trees had yellow and orange leaves, in Paris, they had all already lost their leaves. The palace wasn't anything all that spectacular, but still pretty. It was funny though because there was a guard outside, but he was standing in an intense looking glass case. And he was real. Strange? From there, we headed to another church called St. German or something like that, and it was quite a let down. It wasn't pretty at all and it was really run down. We kept walking and walking and walking, making our way to the base of the Eiffel Tower. Along the way we saw this gorgeous looking church that wasn't on our map, so we went in. I have no clue why it was not marked like all the other churches because it was so pretty and it was huge too. By this point i had to pee really really bad, and we couldn't find anywhere to go. Finally we passed by this little cafe so we went in and I ordered some espresso just so i could use the bathroom...because of course you can't just use the bathroom. I got locked in and couldn't get the door to open for anything. It was awful and I was trying to figure outI what I should do, and then it just popped open...luckily. The coffee was awful too, but hey, i got to pee! We continued on our way
to the Eiffel tower and by the time we were getting close it was lunch time...perfect to have a picnic next to the tower! So we each stopped at different places and got food for our picnic. Anthony got chinese food...sick...and I stopped at a little bakery and got a ham and cheese croissant and a sugar crepe. We found a bench next to the lawn behind the Eiffel Tower and sat there and had our lunch. When we were finished we took turns taking pictures of each other in front of the Eiffel Tower...being normal and then goofy. We also took a lot of "artsy pics" and compared them. Mine were much better :) it turned into this big joke of who could take the best one, but sarcastically so we would take a ridiculously bad picture and be like, oh my gosh, look at this one, how artsy is that. We kept moving closer and closer to the base of the tower taking pictures all along the way. When we were pretty close, both of us held out our own cameras and took pictures of ourselves with the tower...being goofy, so its like a photo shoot of me and the tower, pointing, with my thumb up, etc. The base of the Eiffel tower is really cool. It is so much more amazing from the base than from all the other points of the city in my opinion because first you can see the details and also, you understand the scale of this thing. huge. I am
so glad I didn't go with the other group because they didn't ever go see the Eiffel tower up close and it is so cool. When we were done we were supposed to meet the other group to go to Notre Dame. It just so happened that the metro stop closest to where we were was under construction so they had a temporary one but it was 600 meters away...a long way. It was like going on a hike just to get on a metro. When we finally got to the meeting spot we caught up on each others days while we were walking to Notre Dame, and the people who went said that it was kind of a disappointment. Notre Dame was really cool, but in my opinion it was cooler on the outside than the inside. The outside has a huge rosette window with two towers on either side and then underneath all this all the way across the entire front of the facade are these statues of people one after the other. Also, flying buttresses surround the outside. Its just amazing the amount of detail there is in stone and everywhere on the building. The inside has double aisles and radiating chapels, and 3 huge rosette windows in the transept ends. Also, Notre Dame supposedly has the crown of thorns and a piece of the cross, but you have to pay to see it so we didn't. After we were done at Notre Dame we headed over to see the Pompidou
Center which is a very very modern building done by Renzo Piano that we have studied in architecture classes some. It is a very industrial, crazy looking building with a clear tube attached to the outside with escalators going up it. All of the normal mechanics of a building that are hidden, on this building are exposed and painted bright colors like blues and reds. Then we walked over to this mall that is part underground that was close to us that was an architectural failure although I am not sure why. If it hadn't been so deserted and run down, I think it would have been a pretty cool place. Also, near that was another church so we went over there to look at it. They were having mass but we just peeked in without being distracting. The inside was really pretty because it had some cool vaulting pattern on the ceiling different than just normal
vaulting. We had been invited to go eat at Edith's apartment for dinner and we were supposed to be there at a certain time and it was too early so we just sat around killing time, some people shopping, and some sitting in on church in french. I was really tired so i went to try and find some coffee. I found this little place that was like a bar/restaurant but i went in because i saw a coffee machine. Before I ordered I asked if I could take it to go, and the lady didn't speak very good english, but she was like yes, of course. So i ordered and she served it to me not in a to go glass. So i was like, can I get it to take out, and she was like no, here only. Well, crap. I needed to be back at the church asap and here I am with a cup of steaming hot coffee that i have to pay for so of course i am going to drink it. I just blew on it and started drinking. It took me about 10
minutes to finish and when i was done, my tounge was SO burned. It hurt so bad. I met back up with everyone and we got on the metro and rode it to the outskirts of the city where Edith lives. Her apartment is really cute but very small too. They have a dog named cookie who is a westie and VERY hyper. Edith made us dinner that was escargot, potatoes au gratin, and some meat and vegetable mixture thing. I was very nervous about the snails and really didn't even want to try them, but I did and they were surprisingly good, but very salty. The rest of the meal was very good too! After dinner we just sat around and talked for a couple of hours and then went back to the hostel and went to sleep because it was about midnight, and we had an early morning in front of us again...going to Versailles. The first picture is of the stained glass at st. chapelle, the second is of part of the luxembourg gardens, the third and forth are the eiffel tower, the fift and sixth are notre dame, and the seventh is the pompidou center and the last is me and a random statue.
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