I'm out and about

So, I've been to both Paris and London on my last trip to Europe. But, my trip to London was really weird, and my trip to London this time is going to be weird in a different way. So in my head, Paris is my only repeat place.
And it was amazing. I know I say that every trip, but I had very high expectations for Paris and it still managed to surpass them.
This trip was like the direct opposite of my trip to Scotland. I did practically nothing except touristy things. But it was a great trip, and it was fun to be with a group of people.

So we all caught the night train to Paris. The plan was to get in at 10:30am, where we would go to the hostel and meet Heather and Nick. Unfortunately, something went wrong, and at 6:30am we had to get off at Strasburg, wait for the next train, and then take that to Paris. And that one didn't get in untill 12:00. And we had no way of getting ahold of Nick and Heather. I was pretty mad. Anyway, we finally get in, a little late, and manage to stand in the longest line ever for Metro tickets. Finally we get to the subway stop where we have to find our hostel, so now I'm worrying about trying to find the hostel with no map as fast as possible, and hoping that Nick and Heather are still around. Then the luckiest thing ever, Nick is standing at the metro entrence!! Yay!! Apparently they got tired of waiting and were just now heading out. Talk about good timing. Also, apparently Jo got into the hostel the night before, so she is there too!! Yay!!
Anyway, they walk us back to the hostel, which is in a wonderful location, up this rambly hill in the middle of a tiny sqaure. The hostel has free crossaints for us. Then, we decide to go to the Catacombs. Reasons why I love Nick: apparently they had wanted to go to the catacombs but Nick wouldn't go without me because he knew how much I wanted to go. Anyway, we decide to go to the catacombs now.
The catacombs were great, even though we had to climb down (and later up) a never-ending spiral staircase. And I got to take pictures!! This might be a good time to mention that me and Nick both love to take lots of pictures, but his camera was currently being fixed, so he had no camera. So we shared a camera. At any point during the weekend, he would take my camera from me and take pics. And we took turns carrying it around. Anyway, me and Nick got really far behind the rest of the group because we were taking pictures. Luckily, Jo had the Paris pages of her Rick Steve book with her, so she entertained everyone by reading about the Catacombs untill we caught up. So the catacombs were long, very long, and creepy, and wet, and dark. It was really fun.
The whole point of going to Thanksgiving was that all the Webster people were going to meet up. That way we'd be spending Thanksgiving weekend together. Us in the catacombs were all in the same Hostel together. Me and Michelle and also Alli and Melinda fromVienna, Nick and Heather from London, Jo, who actually graduated last year. But she's an actor, and they're not allowed to study abroad for a semester, so Jo waited untill she graduated, and is now traveling Europe. In the other hostel was Zena and Miranda, and Phil, who's also in London. Anyway, we were all supposed to meet up at the Eiffel Tower at 4pm. So next we make our way there.
I made the mistake of telling Nick that you could walk up the Tower. So of course he wants to, and I agree to walk with him. I thought that everyone else would just take the elevator up, but they decided to walk with us too. It was much better that way. Walking up is half the price, plus it's more fun if everyone is together. And no standing in long lines for elevators.
We picked a great time to go up. It was twillight/sunset/evening. So we got to see all the lights come on, it was really cool.
We got done with that sometime after 5, and started walking towards the Louvre. The Louvre is free on Fri from 6-9:45 for people under 26. On the walk there, we split off into people who wanted to go to dinner first and people who didn't. Me and Nick opted to not go to dinner, wanting to get there with enough time to look around. We did stop and buy a delicious loaf of this sweet-fruity bread. Mmmmm. Anyway, we got the the Louvre, and since I've already been there before and seen everything I really wanted to see I stuck with Nick and we wandered about for awhile. We saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus De Milo, Raft of Medusa, Cupid and Pyche, Liberty Leading the People and of course a whole lot of stuff in between. I actually was surprised at how often I was drawn to some Raphael painting. Me and Nick were talking about what paintings we would like if we didn't know anything about them, so it was cool that I really did like all the Raphael paintings, even never having seen pictures of them before.
Anyway, the Louvre is cool, but after seeing the things we really wanted to see, the time periods it covers are really neither of ours favorite. So eventually we realized we were sitting in the middle of the room trying to see how far we could quote Alladin. That's when we decided to leave.
We went back the hostel that night. And I'm going to skip over most of tomorrow and go onto Sat night.
So Sat me and Nick get home, and everyone else is already at the hostel. We all exchange stories of our day, then me, Nick, Michelle and Jo decide to go out and see the Arc de Triomphe and the Sacre Couer at night.
The Arc de Triomphe was pretty cool. I love all the crowded streets around it. Plus, it's so much bigger than it looks. It's really huge. Also, the spotlights pointed at it were underground with plexiglass on top- giant lightboxes!! So we all had a lot of fun playing on those. Then onto the Sacre Couer. We actually just went back to the hostel and walked from there, since it's really close by. We got to walk up to it from a side-back street, which was cool. The Sacre Couer is weird, it has a wonderful fantastic view of the city from it's front steps, which are just full of people playing music, drinking, hanging out with friends. It's weird. Anyway, beside the beautiful view, and the party on the steps, and the beautiful church, (not to mention the artist area of the city is just aroudn the corner) if you walk a little down the street you also get a view of the Eiffel tower. So we decide to stick around 20 mins or so till the next hour when the Eiffel tower will start sparkling again. And that's when we met the snottiest women ever. This is how we met her.
Me: Oh look, it's the Arc de Triumph
Her, loudly: It's pronunced TREE-UMPH. God, don't insult people ears.
Wow, you can already tell she's a wonderful person. First off, she's from Australia, so it's not like it's a French person yelling at me. Second, hi- do you know me? Because although my accent may not be perfect I actually do try to speak in whatever language of the country I'm in. And I do a much better job in France than in most places. So thanks for yelling at a total stranger.
She kept talking to us, and would ask us what we had done, then immediately shoot it down. "Oh, you went to the top of the Eiffel Tower? It's not that great, just a hunk of metal. And anyway the view is nothing if you don't know the layout of the city." "You went to the Louvre? Well, today I went to the best museum I've ever been to. It was the best 8 euros I've ever spent. But did you know that there's shopping underneath the Louvre?"
Also, she wasn't that smart, despite trying to sound condescending to us. She didn't believe us that it was the Arc that would could see, even asking "Well, have you ever BEEN to the Arc de Triomphe?" Umm, yah, 10 mins ago. She was obviously looking at the wrong thing, or just really dumb. And when we finally escaped from her, we could hear her talking to some other people, trying to figure out what hotel they were in, and then, I promise this happened, after finally determining that they were in a 3 star hotel and not a 4 star loudly said to the guy she was with "Oh, I thought they were staying in a GOOD hotel."
Anyway, after that we headed home and away from the snotty lady.
The next morning we all got up. Alli and Melinda took the morning train home. The rest of us headed to Notre Dame for mass. Of course, it was all in French, but it was worth it because it was so beautiful. We got to sit in the part that's normally marked off, and they had incense, and the music was great. They had Gregorian chant, but it was women doing it, which was unexpected but really awesome. And they played this crazsy organ music. I think Jo summed it up best by saying it was a mix between Phantom of the Opera and Zelda.
After leaving we walked around the park by Notre Dame for a little while, and then headed to the Orsay. We did lose Jo though, who had to go to the train station to see when she could get a train to her next stop.
Oh, the Orsay. I want to live there. We were not there long enough. I could have stayed there so much longer. I went straight to the impressionism floor first, where I had to tear myself away at long last. Every room I went into it was hard to leave, but once I got into the next room it was just as amazing. The last hour I had to make a no camera rule and I just got to look at all the paintings. I really don't know what else to say about everything other than it was AMAZING!!! Best museum EVER!!! The building itself was beautiful too. And there were sculptures, and although I didn't have enough time to really look at them they were beautiful too. I had to walk through them to get to all the rooms. I got to look at Monet's Japanese Gardens side by side for 20 mins, just comparing them. I got to stand in rooms full of nothing but Degas and Van Goth and Monet. I got to see so many paintings in real life that I've only seen in books, not to mention amazing paintings by crazy good artists that I've never seen before. I was so sad to have to leave!
After the Orsay we walked through another park, and bought some crepes for lunch. You could see the Louvre in one direction, and the Arc in another, and the Eiffel tower in another. You can't move in this city without seeing 5 different landmarks. Then, sadly, it was time to go. We got on the metro, made it to the train station, and said goodbye to Nick and Heather. And made it home with little trouble, although we almost missed the point where we had to switch trains because neither the ticket nor the schedule told us we had to switch trains. Luckily the conductor/ticket guy told us.

Finally- catacombs I can take pictures in!

Yes, those are real bones behind me. Lots of them.

Do you see the heart?

Nick is pretty tall. The bones are higher than him.

Ok, so you can't really get a sense of height from this picture, but the ceiling goes up really high. Probably 25-30 ft at least.

The Eiffel Tower!!

Michelle's mom sent her wax lips, so we decided to put them to good use.

Our group shot. I probably shouldn't have given the guy my camera. People can't figure out my camera. First off, if someone ever figures out they have to use the viewfinder with out me telling them it will be a miracle. No, I don't use the LCD screen, it's not that crazy. There is a viewfinder. Second, people can't tell when it takes, even though it beeps and a picture shows up on the LCD screen, which should be bright and in your eye if you're using the viewfinder. Third, people can't seem to push the button all the way down to actually take the picture. It's really weird. I'm only saying this because we took two pictures, and this is the only one that actually took, and the guy obviously thought it took when it didn't since Nick is walking away and everyone else is no longer looking at the camera. Still, it's a funny picture.

While waiting for the others that we were meeting up with we ate two boxes of candy cigarettes. I really think the sugar helped up climb to the top.

It's hard to get a good picture with the fence.

View from the first level.

Level 1- Restaurants and stores.

There was this giant plastic bubble...

668!! The last step to the middle of the eiffel tower!! Of course, that's not counting all the steps to the observation decks.

We can stick our heads through the fence! Awesome!

Why does my camera think this picture should be sideways?

The elevator ride up. I think he took this picture himself, which makes it all the more funny.

The arc de Triomphe is HUGE!!

Going down the elevator

It was REALLY windy up top.

Up top, looking up.

The first floor.

Walking to the Louvre

Sparkles!!! The tower starts sparkling for about 5 mins on the hour at night. I tried to use different settings on my camera to take the pictures, because I wasn't sure which I would like the best.

I think I like this one the best. Slow shutter speed.

Yes, there were 6 other people around who could have easily taken our picture.

Watching the tower

This picture is so awesome!

Paris at night.

Jazz hands- to indicate "sparkle!"

Winged Victory

The Orsay at night.

Nick and the Venus de Milo

Ok, bad lighting, but look at how dirty my shoes are!! It's no ruined towels in a bathtub- but still! Good to know the streets of Paris are still dirty.