Paris, France
Today we got up early (but not as early as planned because our alarm didn't go off). We dropped off our bags in the hotel lobby and set off to do some sight seeing in Paris. We first went to a church called Saint Chappelle. It had the most beautiful stained glass windows I have ever seen. The whole length and height of the walls were colorful windows. Most of them were upstairs after a walk up a narrow, winding staircase. Once we got to the top and entered the room, it quite literally took my breath away.
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| Outside St. Chappelle |
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| Gorgeous! Inside St. Chappelle |
After this church, we decided to walk to Notre Dame. Along the way, we just had to stop here for breakfast:
Crepes in Paris on a Sunday morning... Does it get any better?
I have been to Notre Dame before, but today as we walked inside (it's free!) they were just starting mass - yes, it was Sunday. I have never seen mass before so it was interesting to see at least part of it. We walked around the perimeter while mass was going on in the middle. How strange and interesting to go to church while tourists are walking around your chapel.
If you haven't seen mass before, you can see about 60 seconds of the beginning here until my camera died...
After Notre Dame, we split up. Angela and I went to find a mall while Heidi and Betsy went to do some more sight seeing. Angela and I soon found out that no clothing shops are open on Sunday (here I thought that happened only in Provo!) Sad. It was the thing Angela really wanted to do on our trip. I was just looking for a new pair of jeans since two of the three pairs I packed now had holes in them (after 4 days? How much walking have we done?) So we went to look around elsewhere. We walked along the Seine, went to the Louvre. We didn't go inside, just sat out by the pyramid for a while. Then we got some food and walked to a nearby park and ate. It was so nice today - at least mid 70's.
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| Angela was mourning the fact that H&M was closed |
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| Angela looking cute on the Seine |
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| Contemplation on the Seine |
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| A beautiful day at the Louvre. I wonder if Tom Hanks is searching for the Holy Grail nearby... |
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| I will triomphe!! Ironically, just minutes later we triumphed and found an H&M that was open! |
Once we found the H&M (on the Champs Elysees) Angela was in shopping mode. By this time we had half an hour to get back to the hotel and meet with Heidi and Besty to get our bags, and take a taxi to our car. Angela was not ready to go so I left to go meet Heidi and Betsy at the hotel and Angela would just take the metro out to the parking lot we our car was. Only I could not find the hotel once I got off the metro. I walked around for about 45 minutes. By this time I was over an hour late. It was a little bit scary, not being able to contact anyone to let them know where I was or try to find my way to them. It helped a lot that I can speak some French, but no one seemed to know the street our hotel was on, let alone the hotel itself. I finally got a taxi that got me there and then we took another taxi to meet Angela at the parking lot. Quite an ordeal and I was a little scared for a while but thankfully we all got where we needed to be. Once we were in our car we drove for about 4 hours (lots of traffic getting out of Paris) and made it safely to our hotel in Trier at about 9:30. Cool hotel! Our room is like a little suite and we had no problems finding it at all. A few minor hiccups/scares aside, another fantastic day. We have been really lucky with the weather and hope it continues. As they say in German "gut fahrt" (good drive). I am a little sad to leave France. It was fun to be able to use my French. It came in very handy several times. None of us speak any German, could be very interesting...
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