Paris the first time

The Grand Arch

Versaille

Paris is beautiful! I honestly was not so sure that I would like it at first because I heard bad things about the city and the French in general, but I loved it. This trip was with the school, so it was a little bit different than all of my other trips because we had a planned schedule for a lot of the time. Friday we went to see the Grand Arch which is a giganitc building that was built in honor of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. It was very impressive. We also went to see the church that houses Napleon's tomb, also very impressive. The chuch is there almost solely for the purpose of housing Napoleon and a handful of other famous French dead people. The tomb was the inspiration to Grant's tomb in the US. We saw other various places during the day and ended in a museum before we got free time. The museum we finished at was near the Eiffel Tower so after taking 100 pictures of it, we went up in it. I was slightly scared of the height and the elevator made me a little nervous. First you stop at the second level, which gives you a nice view and has a cafe and stores on it, then you go up to the top. There are signs around the top that tell you in what directions different countries are and how far. I thought that was kinda cool. It was really windy at the top. I was hoping to see a couple get engaged, but that did not happen. Regardless, it was a really beautiful view and a really neat experience. Once we got back to the ground we went for dinner, which was good except my steak ended up being so raw it was practically still mooing. After dinner we went back over and sat on the stairs by the Eiffel Tower. It was beautiful, but really cold.

Saturday we went to the Latin Quarter of the city where many of the universities and college students are found. We walked over to Notre Dame which was really pretty and cool to see, even if there was no hunchback. The trip guides took us for ice cream, which is supposedly the best ice cream in Paris and it just might be. The sun was shining this day and it was so nice out. After walking through Notre Dame we walked over to the Louvre which was also pretty cool. The museum is gigantic and we spent an hour and a half in it and only saw a few of the painting and sculptures, one of them being of course the Mona Lisa. Maybe I just don't understand art, but I don't see what the big deal about that painting is. We walked around and did some shopping and then again went to the Eiffel Tower once it got dark. It's so beautiful, I just couldn't get enough of it. We sat there for hours and talked.

Pompidiu Center

Jim Morrison's Grave

Sunday we got to see a few more random places as well as the the Pere Lachaise which is a big cemetary with a lot of famous dead people it it. It was huge and slightly creepy. We also saw the pompidiu center which is a very interesting modern building and a big tourist attraction. Paris was amazing and I am looking forward to going again this weekend to go to Euro Disney!