La Dolce Vita

Oh hey, by the way, I'm Genevieve. Alyssa's buddy and translator while in France.

So, the last day in Paris.

We, of course, had to attend mass at Notre Dame and so we awoke early, packed everything up. Merryn and her mum joined us for mass as well. It was such an awesome experience. Just walking into the church evokes the knowledge that the space is holy. That it was made for the veneration of something greater. The ceiling seems to reach to the heavens. There are so many unique and exquisitely beuatiful chapels off to the sides. Everything seems to lead to the altar - the focal point of the church. It's gorgeous. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Before mass began the organ played a prelude. It was breathtaking. And maybe I am able to get more out of music because I'm a music major, but I'm pretty sure you could not have been unmoved by the awesomeness of this sound permeating this cathedral. Looking at the organ is quite breathtaking as well. Basically, they do not make churches like they used to. Mass began and it was an interesting experience. First, because I don't really remember my French so I really didn't understand everything that was being said. But I knew what was going on. Second, the mass was Gregorian Chant. So even the music, while completely beautiful, was foreign. Neither of these facts necessarily detracted from the experience though. It was just great to be able to enjoy mass in such an awesome space.

Afterward, we walked around the church, took pictures and marveled at the beauty of such a building. When we left the church we did some souvenir shopping on the rue outside of Notre Dame. I purchased a scarf, as did Alyssa. Then it was off to Versailles!

The metro ride to Versailles was uneventful. We walk a bit to actually reach Versailles. And when you first see it you're kind of taken aback by it's, well, hugeness. You walk up to it and are immediately aware that this palace is slightly decadent. I mean, who needs gold gates? Apparently Louis did. I loved how, according to the building, it was built 'a toutes les gloires de la france', for all the glories of France. I think it's quite appropriate. We just kept walking and walking through and the hallways never seemed to end. At the beginning of the tour we saw the chapel which was just as beautiful in its own right. It was much brighter than Notre Dame. Then we walked through some of the private rooms. It seems that they had a different one for each day of the week or something. And that was just in one wing on one floor for one person. No joke. Then we get to the hall of mirrors.

The Hall of Mirrors was beautiful. But I'm not gonna lie, I think I expected more. I mean, everyone is always like Versailles, Versailles, Versailles. Ever since it was built everyone has been trying to build something to equal it. Well, frankly, maybe it's not my style or whatever, but I think he could have done better. And I understand that I am looking at it from the 21st century and things were built differently and the style was definitely different back in the day. Don't get me wrong, the frescoes are beautiful and each one is different and I truly appreciated them. I wish someone would paint a couple in my house. But every room looked kind of the same and it was like just one room after another. And some of the rooms aren't even the original rooms. It looked, at some points, that they could have done better to upkeep the history. But I digress, back to the Hall of Mirrors. It was beautiful. And the view out of the windows on to the grounds was fantastic. And it was cool how you could get to the rooms behind the Hall of Mirrors through the mirrors themselves. And it also gives you an idea about how expansive Versailles truly is.

After the Hall of Mirrors we walked into more rooms. We saw the bedrooms of the king and queen. And then we made our way downstairs and saw the apartments of the dauphin and then another queen, unfortunately I forget her name. But she had great taste because she had this organ thing (yay music! the dauphin also had a piano!) and a library (nothing like the Beast's in Beauty and the Beast however, they need to step it up a notch). After we saw those rooms we went outside to the grounds.

The grounds are impressive, even in January when practically everything is dead. They are very expansive and you can just imagine what it would be like to have a huge party there. They must be beautiful in the summer. I guess we'll have to go back. Then when you turn around and see Versailles from the back, that's when I was taken away. I guess it's just more aligned with my style of architecture, but it was beautiful. It was simple, graceful, and magnificent. Yes, the back of Versailles was the most impressive part of Versailles.

While we were marveling at Versailles we lost our friends. Thankfully, after lunch, Alyssa and I found them again and we headed back to Paris. We then discovered that we really had nothing to do because like everything closes. So Alyssa called her friend Brittany and we went to have dinner with her. She lives outside of Paris so we decided to say goodbye to Paris because we knew that we would see it again, unless you count the metro. So, we took the metro outside the city to meet her for dinner. Sidenote: we dominated the metro. Team Paris - 1, Metropolitan - 0. Anyway, we saw her cute little house where she was staying and then we walked around a bit and found a little cafe. The food was great and the wine was DELICIOUS! I was so excited to be eating in a French cafe drinking fantastic French wine with friends! It was perfect!

We then headed back to our hostel for a quick sleep and then up way early to catch our flight. Needless to say it was an adventure. I LOVED every minute of it. And if anyone would like to pay for my plane ticket to Paris, I'll go with them. Legit. But life here in Rome continues and it's wonderful. But I do believe that I left part of my heart in Paris. Vous me manquez! Hopefully I will go back. But for now, au revoir Paris!

Okay ragazzi--

Hope you enjoyed Genevieve's post! I travel a lot with her so I thought it would be cool if I added her as another author on the blog. This means you get to enjoy not just one, but TWO perspectives of our travels together!

Disclaimer for the post you are about to read:If you don't like learning history, skip this post...and the next one.

I'm hoping to give you a little taste of my on-site Ancient Rome class while also help myself study and remember the important sites we visit. My professor suggested that we do this in order to recall information for our midterm. Lucky for you, this means you get to see cool pictures of ruins learn a bit about Roman history, how exciting!

Alrighty, on the 1st day of class our focus was Rome under the Kings and the Early Republic. We met at the Palatine Hill; for those of you who don't know, the story goes that Rome was built on 7 hills. The legend is that the original founder of Rome, Romulus, made his home on the Palatine. Romans are very, very, proud of their heritage. This is why they pinpoint the exact date that Romulus founded Rome, 753 BC, and they believe they have marked the very spot where he lived. The myth goes that Romulus, and his brother, Remus, were sons of the God of War, Mars, and a mortal woman who was a Vestal Virgin (more on that later). There was some kind of family trouble, and R&R's mom got executed! Their evil uncle set them adrift on the Tiber River (sounds kinda like Moses doesn't it?), and they floated down the river until they reached the Palatine Hill. Eventually, a shepherd discovered the two baby boys in a cave on the hill being suckled by a mother wolf. The shepherd took them home and raised them. When they were older, Romulus killed his brother Remus and built a square wall on the top of the hill, which was the 1st structure that marked the founding of Rome. (Romulus...Rome, ah, so that's where the name's from!)

This is basically the "official" city image of Romulus & Remus. If you walk around Rome you'll see it everywhere!

Anyway, Romulus built some huts, the outlines of which you can still kinda sorta see in the grass/mud on the Palatine Hill. So the question is, why did Romulus choose the Palatine Hill over all the other nice hills to found Rome on? Besides the fact that he just ended up there, it's also centrally located among the other hills, and has a GREAT view of the river, which was important for watching out for sly attackers, trade, etc... Also, the top of the Palatine Hill is where the old Imperial Palace used to be. The Imperial Palace is where the Emperors used to get to live...the best real estate because of the fabulous views! The Emperors lived there for a whole 3 centuries, and if you walked around up there amongst the rubble, you would get an idea of how expansive the palace must have been (abt. 150,000 sq. ft.)!

In the valley between the Palatine Hill and the Aventine Hill is the Circus Maximus. Now it looks like a big oblong bowl with grass on it. But in its hey-day, it was the Chariot-Racing Track! If you want a visual, watch the movie Ben-Hur, it was filmed here! These weren't just some piddly races, they attracted huge crowds from all over Italy. The stadium was so big it could hold 250,000 people (...and I thought the Notre Dame Stadium was big!). It's been said that once Romulus held a chariot race as a decoy, while he and his henchmen stole all the women for themselves: they had to populate Rome somehow? Basically, you can associate Romulus with the "rape and pillage" mentality. Romans like to think of it instead as the "heroic and spectacular" mentality.

From the Palatine Hill we walked down in the Roman Forum. Once Rome started growing and expanding, the people needed somewhere to congregate, and this was the Forum. The Forum is located in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline hill, which like Chicago, used to be pretty much a swamp, until some smart Tarquin Kings came along and built a drain to make the land usable. The Tarquin Kings, who were Etruscan (from Tuscany), not Roman, built most of what was in the Forum.

Our 1st stop in the Forum was the Temple of Vesta.

Vesta was the hearth goddess of the Roman State. She was symbolized by a flame, so there was a constant fire kept up in the temple tended to by the Vestal Virgins. Since Vesta is the goddess of the hearth, she also symbolized the home, and therefore also the Roman state. (It's starting to make sense why Italians have such an emphasis on family...it runs centuries deep!) You can get an idea from the picture that the temple used to have a circular shape. This shape is reminiscent of the round huts of Romulus that founded Rome. King Numa (the guy after Romulus) founded the cult of Vesta and built the Temple. Over the years, the Temple was renovated and rebuilt. This shows the Romans' sense of continuity through preservation. It was important to them to revere their roots, so they kept maintaining the temple. The Temple is situated at the foot of the Palatine (a throwback to Rome's origins), and at the edge of the Forum, so that the goddess of hearth and home had a presence over the Forum and could watch over the Romans. The women who maintained the Temple were the Vestal Virgins. Their job was to make sure the flame didn't extinguish. There were 6 women, who were chosen/offered by their families between the ages of 6 and 10. They had to serve for 30 years, after which they were allowed to finally marry (if they lived that long!) Although the sacrifice was great, the Virgins had some great job perks including special box seats at the Colosseum for gladiator fights. These women were highly respected in Roman society and symbolized renewal, purity, and conservation.

The next thing pointed out to us was what is called the Regia. The Regia means Royal Palace, but it was actually a Temple. King Numa built it to house a shrine of Mars, the war god and Romulus' dad. The Romans kept their spears and shields in there, hoping it would give them some extra might on the battle field (and considering they Romans created a powerful empire...they might have been right!).

The Regia- seems like it could've been impressive once???

After the Regia, we walked past what is left of the piazza and some ruins that used to be shops lining the forum square. The piazza is the most important part of the Roman Forum because it was an open space where people could meet and greet, where funeral services were held, great speeches were made, etc...

You can kind of see the cobblestones in the grass which were the original floor of the piazza.

If you look behind the marble stones on the grass, you'll see the wall. On the right hand side is what you can tell used to be a little-room. There used to be a bunch of these shops all around the square.

The next building on our tour is the Roman Curia, or Senate Building.

The building you are looking at is actually from Julius Caesar's time, but it stands on the same spot as the 1st Senate building. This spot is important because it symbolizes Rome's political identity. In 509 BC, the Romans threw out those dirty, old Tarquin Kings(! They were really really excited about that...)and they established the infamous Roman Republic in their stead. The new system had 2 consuls (division of power), and annual elections!

The next site is the Temple of Saturn.

This Temple is unique because 1. it's Rome's oldest temple (497 BC), and 2. it has fancy gray marble columns. We know that the marble was imported from abroad because the only marble found in Italy is of a creamy white color and called Luna. The Temple of Saturn is symbolic of crop growing because Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture and harvest. It's very opportunely located at the Forum because the Forum was also a marketplace where you bought your fruits and veggies. It's important to Rome the State because Rome was based on an agrarian economy, so this temple is where they also decided to keep their money! It was a temple and a treasury.

The last and most important building in the Roman Forum you can't see because it's no longer standing. There is one wall left, which Rome built an entire museum around (but you can see the view from where it used to stand in my picture looking over the forum taken from the museum window).

This would have been the view from the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. This Temple was situated at the top of the Capitoline Hill. The Capitoline Hill was used for religious purposes because its height made it useful for augury: the practice of reading omens from the flight patterns of birds. The Temple of Jupiter was the status symbol of Rome. It was the biggest and most magnificent temple of its kind in all of Italy. Jupiter the Roman god was the big guy; he was like the Roman version of Zeus. For this reason, he was the official God of the Roman State. This Temple would have been SUPER important to the Romans back in the day. In fact, I'll probably be referring back to it a lot in the coming weeks.

Overall, what we learned about the Roman Forum was that it is a symbolic space. The forum represented "who we are & how we survive" for the Romans. Since it was open to everyone, it represented the political aspect of Rome as a Republic and it was also a display space for Romans to celebrate victories, festivals, etc...

That's all for Art History Class #! Feel lucky because you got to sit in
your nice warm house and read this while I was outside in the cold, pouring rain juggling my umbrella notebook and camera for 2.5 hours!

Ciao!

Ciao ciao!

Well, our final day in Paris was a Sunday, so we decided that it would be a fantastic idea to go to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. Our Aussie friends were also planning on visiting Notre Dame that day, so they decided to join us for mass. After our final free breakfast and saying goodbye to our new friends from Barcelona, Spain, and Belfast, Ireland, we once again grabbed the metro into the city center. We arrived to the cathedral just in time for the Gregorian Chant mass. Now, I was already apprehensive about mass in French, but this mass took my confusion to a whole new level! The entire mass except for the homily was said in Latin! The music was wonderful though! It was actually incredible. It was amazing to see mass done as it was meant to be done in that cathedral when it was built. The organ just blew us away. I'll post the video, but it doesn't do it any justice.

Once again, sorry about the sideways perspective. I'll fix that next time, I promise!

After mass, we gave ourselves a tour of the sanctuary. It was gorgeous.

It sort of felt like home to be at Notre Dame for the day, even if it was only the name that's in common with our university. But as I was leaving another person coming in to mass was wearing a University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish sweatshirt. It put a big smile on my face!

After mass and touring the Cathedral we headed off with our Aussie friends, Merryn, and her Mom, Mrs. Young, on a special train out to the Château de Versailles. The palace is large, but what is more impressive is the grounds. They are HUGE! I would love to go back in the summer when everything is in bloom; it must be beautiful! The palace has been gutted and restored several times because it was used as a residence, a museum, a residence again...etc...which is why in my opinion it wasn't quite as impressive as I expected it to be. The Napoleon III apartments at the Louvre are a much better example of the extravagance of French power. The famous Hall of Mirrors was pretty awesome though. Unfortunately, at about this point my camera battery finally died after taking zillions of pictures and videos all weekend long. So I don't have much to show for Sunday. :-(

While exploring Versailles we had lost track of our friends, and had just resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd have to leave without saying goodbye, when we ran into them at the exit! It was like a grand reunion and we were all happy to have run back into each other. It was a really blustery day so we stopped in at the Versailles Starbucks for some afternoon tea on the way back to the train. This was the nicest Starbucks I've seen so far. It was set up just like an authentic French café! After the train ride, we parted ways with our Aussie friends, but not before Merryn invited us to come stay with her when we traveled to London. So we're going to visit Merryn in April on a weekend trip to England!

We had plans to make a few last-minute stops at museums our new friends had suggested to us before closing time on Sunday, but unfortunately, by the time we reached the museums they were closed. My friend from home, Brittany, who is also studying abroad (in Paris!) had intended to come meet up with us in the city center for dinner, but since we finished up sight-seeing early we headed out to the suburbs on the metro to meet her in her neighborhood. It was so nice to see a friend from home! She met us at the metro stop and gave us a tour of her neighborhood, taking us past her host family's house. The family she is staying with has such a nice house! She is really living the life of Parisian luxury out there! Brittany took us to a cute little authentic French café, complete with deep purple walls, chandeliers made of strands of pearls, candle-light, etc... The entire menu was in French, and this wasn't a touristy area, so no English-speaking people around to help me! Luckily, Brittany is fluent in French, so she wowed us with her speaking skills. We chatted and caught up for a few hours while munching on salad, salmon, chocolate mousse, and sipping white wine. It was divine! After a wonderful night, we said goodbye and promised to show Brittany the town when she comes to visit Rome sometime this spring.

We hopped on the metro and headed back to the hostel for a quick night's rest before we caught our plane the next morning to go back home to Roma.

That's all about Paris folks, hope you enjoyed!

Ciao tutti!

I'm back again after a few days swamped with schoolwork. I was working on my research grant proposal to go to Spain for a couple weeks after Rome. I just finally sent it off to my professor for a look-over...cross your fingers that she likes it!

So Saturday morning in Paris, we woke up early in order to catch the art museums just as they were opening. I went to take a shower...campground style...there was a button you had to push to keep the water running, and you had to push it every 2 minutes or the water would suddenly just disappear! We headed downstairs to Belushi's Bar for our continental breakfast, and they put out such a spread! There were cocoa krispies, a welcome surprise because we haven't seen american cereal in a while! (someday I'll show you the kind of cereal they make here...bird food.) They also had personal-sized french baguettes with all kinds of spreads to choose from. My Aussie and Irish roommates told me I HAD to try the Vegemite spread. Apparently it is to them what peanut butter is to us, but unfortunately they didn't have it that morning. Instead, they had Nutella! Even though we were in France, there was no escaping Italy! They also had real coffee, not espresso, and orange juice. As you can tell from my detailed description, us poor students stuffed ourselves like kings because we knew we wouldn't be spending much money on food that day! haha.
After our wonderful breakfast, we headed out to the metro to get to the museum. We zipped along the railway system and were there in a few blinks of an eye!

The Musée du Louvre used to be the main French Royal Palace for centuries until the famous Louis XIV decided to move out to the Palace of Versailles (2 Kings later would be the famous Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette). Louis XIV decided he was going to display most of his art collection in the empty Palace, and after the French Revolution, the French people decided it would stay that way: opening the palace as a museum. Except for one wing; the Richelieu wing of the Louvre originally housed the apartments and offices of the minister of state. It was a construction project called for by Napoleon shortly after he became emperor in 1852. The wing was only reopened after renovation in 1993, marking the museum's 200th anniversary! This is why you can see the grandeur of Napoleon III's apartments as they really were at the Louvre today.

Anyway, there is so so much to see at the Louvre; it is impossible to see it all in one day! The palace covers over 652,300 square feet!

Here a few photos of my favorite places and pieces.

The Grand Galerie

The Mona Lisa

After spending half the day at the Louvre, we headed over to the Musée d'Orsay. This museum houses most of the most famous Impressionist artworks. Basically, I was in heaven for 3.5 hours of my life! Genevieve and I kept walking from room to room squealing with delight as we encountered our favorite paintings. It's hard to choose, but here a few that I like the best.

Monet

I could have spent all day at the Musée d'Orsay alone, but unfortunately that's not possible when you have only 3 days to see all of Paris! I suppose it's just a reason for me to come back some day!

A picture just couldn't capture how pretty it was that night, so I took a video instead!

After a full day of museum-going, Genevieve and I were starving! We decided to hunt down this inexpensive café that was listed on our Paris guide from the Hostel company. It was called Café Panis, and was situated looking out at the Notre Dame Cathedral! It was everything you would imagine a little French café to be. Our waiter, who luckily for me spoke English, was amused by our insistent attempts to order in French, and helped us improve our French a bit. This was our first real meal of the weekend, so we decided to go all out. Genevieve ordered French Onion Soup, and the Quiche of the day, and I ordered the Croque Monsieur with Pommes Frites and Salade. At the end, we ordered the deluxe crepe with chocolate sauce, special vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream to share for dessert! Everyone must have stereotyped us as gluttonous Americans, but we didn't care!

In French Cafés, inside and outside, they situate the tables with the chairs on the same side so that you can sit and people watch. It's a phenomenon I've never seen before!
Through the window you can see the side of the Notre Dame Cathedral!

After dinner it was getting pretty late so we took some pictures of Notre Dame at night and hopped back on the Metro to go to the hostel. Once there, we talked for a few hours and bonded with our fellow roommates from around the world! That's all for Saturday...until next time!

Buon giorno ragazzi!

It's only taken me a whole week, but I finally have managed to upload all the cool pictures and videos I took in Paris last weekend...so now I can write about it! Just FYI: This will probably take a few posts because there are so many things I want to show you all!

I went to Paris for the weekend with my new friend and roommate Genevieve! She studied French in high school, and was indispensable for getting us around town throughout the weekend, because je ne parl pas français!

We left early Friday morning for our flight to Paris. We have a Metro stop conveniently located just down the street that takes us out near the airport. Once at the end of the line we made friends with a crazy old Italian lady at the bus stop, hopped on the airport shuttle, and made our way to Ciampino airport (where all the discount airlines fly out of!) This airport was TINY, there was just one little seating area for all the gates; we even took a bus out to the tarmac to get on our plane. I've never done that before, so it was kind of exciting because I've only seen it happen on TV with rock stars and presidents! Once on the plane, I passed out from fatigue (we spent all night after class packing!), but before I fell asleep I watched the Italian scenery pass by as we took off. I couldn't believe how close we were to the ocean! It's only about an hour drive away. Our flight attendants spoke in French, so Genevieve and I started to get really excited for our Parisian adventure!

When the plane landed we had to figure out our way from the airport to the hostel. It seemed to be a daunting task because we were all the way across the city from where we needed to be, but luckily, Genevieve with her amazing French memory was able to ask for directions and we figured out the Metro system. The Metro is AMAZING in Paris. It covers the ENTIRE city, and it's super simple to negotiate. Everything is well-marked, and you can basically get anywhere you need to go with a few line-transfers. We used the Metro all weekend, it was great!

The Metro dropped us off just around the corner from our hostel. Which was kind of in the Montmartre area which as the Moulin Rouge at one end, and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the other. We were in a decent residential area, right next to a canal and a park. Paris is divided into 20 different neighborhoods called arrondissements. Arrondissements are named according to their number. Montmartre is arrondissement 18, and most of our time was spent sightseeing in arrondissement 1. This was my first hostelling experience, and I couldn't have picked a better place to stay. The Hostel, called St. Christopher's, was really just like a hip hotel for young people.

I've figured out that hostelling is kind of like living in a dorm, or even indoor camping. We stayed in a 8-bed dorm room on an all-women's floor, and there is a shared bathroom/shower-room on the floor.

It was so nice! We got a towel, sheets, a down blanket, and a roll-out locker under the bed to store our stuff. Our hostel included a bar, an internet cafe, several lounges, a sauna, free live-music on weekends, free breakfast, free wireless internet...and the list goes on.

When we got in no-one was home, so we dropped off our stuff and went to explore the neighborhood. We stopped at a Euro store (dollar store) and picked up measuring cups! I was so excited! For some reason, they just don't sell measuring cups in Italy, even in IKEA. When we got back to the hostel we met our first rooommate, Alba. Alba is a medical student from Argentina that is working on her residency in gynecology in Barcelona, Spain. Just like us, she decided to stop into Paris for the weekend to do some sight-seeing.

Genevieve and I headed back to the Metro to spend the rest of our afternoon sight-seeing. We didn't really have a plan, but chose the Notre Dame Cathedral as our starting point. As you walk up from the Metro Station, Notre Dame just kind of rises up in front of you.

It was a pretty incredible experience. It finally hit me that we were in Paris, France! Genevieve was so in awe she started tearing up! It was so meaningful to her to finally see the places that she spent so much time learning about in school. It's one thing to look at pictures in a textbook, but a completely different experience to see the real thing in front of your very eyes!

After taking LOTS of pictures at Notre Dame, we just decided to wander around the city and let it introduce itself to us.

Turn up your volume to hear the accordion!

We crossed some bridges, and ran into this huge, exquisite building which we found out was Paris City Hall (known as Hôtel de Ville - much to my surprise, hotel doesn't only mean hotel as we know it in America!). We continued our walk and bumped into this very modern looking building that seemed not to fit in with the rest of the cityscape at all. We found out that that building was in fact the Modern Art museum, the Pompidou Centre. As we walked, we spotted a McDonald's, and I had to get some FRENCH fries, because I was in FRANCE! I also saw my first Starbucks in Europe. Italians are very serious about their espresso, so perhaps they're outlawed in Italy? It's a mystery... We kept walking, walking, walking, past the Louvre, les Tuileries, and down the famed shopping street, Avenue des Champs-Élysées. At the end of the Champs-Élysées is the Paris landmark the Arc de Triomphe!

The Arc de Triomphe is actually in the middle of the biggest road-circle I've ever seen: 12 streets converge there! It's life-threatening to try to reach the Arc from street-level, so we used a tunnel to get across to the monument itself. After enjoying the views, we decided it was time to find some dinner and head over to the Eiffel Tower.

Reaching the Eiffel Tower was a feat in itself. We didn't use a map, and just started walking in the general direction we saw the tower, hoping we would run into it! We left the Champs-Élysées around 7:30pm, cut across to the River Seine on Franklin D. Roosevelt street (imagine that!), and saw the Eiffel in the distance do its light-show at 8pm. After crossing the river, we were in more of a residential area, and hoped we would find a supermarché to get some food. Everything was closed!!! We had almost run out of hope, walking cold and hungry toward our destination, we saw the lights of an open supermarché across the street! I swear it was the last supermarché open in Paris, but not for long! As we were buying our provisions, they started turning of lights on us, and dropped the curtains on Genevieve as she was trying to choose the brie, so we got no cheese! I've never been so rushed out of a grocery store in my life! Luckily, we made off with a couple baguettes, some French Bordeaux wine, and some pears. Next thing we knew we passed a building and the Eiffel Tower was right in front of us. After seeing pictures of the Eiffel Tower for so many years and basically identifying Paris with that singular landmark, actually being there was kind of surreal. It was HUGE and beautiful! I couldn't take enough pictures (especially while batting off crowds of foreign men trying to sell me Eiffel Tower keychains...creeeepy!)!

Genevieve and I staked out a bench in the Parc du Champ du Mars, huddled under our picnic blanket (It's COLD in Paris in January, who would've guessed), and enjoyed our wine, baguettes, and pears while observing the splendor of the Eiffel Tower. At 9 o'clock on the dot, the Eiffel lit up in a spectacular sparkling light show!

Sorry it's sideways...unfortunately I didn't realize my camera doesn't automatically fix this until AFTER I got home and uploaded the video. Just crane your neck to the side and hopefully you'll get the idea!

After 10-minutes, we were exhausted, cold, and in pain from covering all of Paris in one day! We found the nearest metro stop and headed back to the hostel. We were enjoying the thought of snuggling up under our warm down comforters when we walked into a room full of people- our roommates! So we spent another 2 hours or so getting to know everybody and exchanging Paris stories, life stories, etc... Some of the new people we met included Jordan, a student from Denver, CO who is a freshman at a uinversity in Belfast, Ireland, and Merryn Young and her mom Mrs. Young, who were from Australia and traveling all over Europe.

Finally, we got to bed! And that's all I have time to write about for now...more to come later! (Perhaps I shouldn't write a book for each day!) Check out the photo gallery for all the photos from the weekend!