Paris and Versailles

Bear with me, I don't remember exactly what we did each day. But I'll give it the old college try.

We left after seminar on the 11th of November. We took a train down to London and hopped on the Eurostar. I do NOT envy Phil Taylor, he had to lead us all over the place and make sure he didn't lose anyone. Poor guy. Anyway, we got to Paris pretty late in the day, so that night we just went to a restaurant, had a great meal and wine, and went to bed fairly early so we would be energized for the morning.

[SIDE NOTE: WE DID NOT HAVE A SHOWER. We had a bathtub with one of those spray things, so in order to bathe I had to squat in the tub and awkwardly spray myself clean. Needless to say, it was a chore. But kind of funny in retrospect, especially when I tried to do it drunk and sprayed the floor.]

The next day we just did a walking tour to see the sights. It was awesome! I mean, seeing the Eiffel Tower in real life and not in a Pepe LePew cartoon was surreal.

We kept walking and saw Arc du Triomph, went to the Rodin Museum, and Notre Dame, and just admired the general splendor. It was awesome! That night we went out to get pizza, and it was delicious, although everyone in the restaurant knew we were American and kept staring us down. Oh well.

The next day, we took a train to Versailles to see the palace. It was gorgeous and insane. I've seen some pretty ridiculous houses/castles/palaces, but nothing could rival this. I can't believe anyone actually lived there. The only thing at Versailles is the palace, so after we saw it we ate lunch and got back on the train. We stopped back at Notre Dame to climb to the top -- like I mentioned before, my ass is in wonderful shape from all the cathedrals/basilicas/castles I've climbed to the top of. The view of Paris was unbelievable.

After Notre Dame we headed over to the Louvre. It was awesome seeing the Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks, Venus de Milo, etc. but all the explanations were in French and we didn't feel like paying for the audio guide. I think we were more excited about the glass pyramid and its connection to the Da Vinci Code. Ahh, twentysomethings.

That night we watched the Eiffel Tower light show in the park with bread, cheese and bottles of wine. It was fantastic!

The next day, we just did some shopping around, more general sightseeing. We ate dinner at the BEST crepe place, the guys absolutely loved us and talked to us for about a half hour.

All in all Paris was amazing and I'm so glad I got the chance to go there!