Paris, Day 1

Since I did a lot on Paris before, I'll just do the new stuff this time. I knew better what Paris traffic was like this time, so I chose a hotel on the side of the city on which we would come in. It was easy as pie. There was one turn that didn't actually look like a road, so I missed it, but it was easy to get back right again. Parking was right underneath, so that was a big plus! (You may remember the parking pain we had the first time). We got checked in and started on our way! The metro was just a few minutes' walk.

Today was Versailles. But first, we were hungry. I remembered lots of cafes near the Eiffel Tower, so we came up to the surface there. You can't see the Tower from the station, it's still a little walk. We spotted a cafe that looked good, and we started towards it. All of the sudden, as we crossed a street, there it was! We took a few pictures, but we would come back later for better ones. We had an OK lunch and headed back to the metro.

Em in David's glasses

Not too much longer, and we were at Versailles. We got in line for tickets, and as we were standing there, a guy came out and asked if we spoke English. I said yes. He said there were ticket machines inside with no line at all, just go in the exit. Woo hoo! So, I left the others in line, just in case, and went in the back. Sure enough, I just walked up to a ticket machine and got the tickets. I came out and we went in the palace. It was really crowded. But, that's to be expected. It was also really toasty, though thank goodness the day was mild, because it would have been miserable if the outside had been hot, as well. The only thing that was different was the "art." There was a very strange art installation there right then.

Heels made out of pots and lids

The one thing we liked

This was supposed to be the Dauphin and Dauphine

The King & Queen, of course

?

I thought this looked like something that kids at a children's museum would make

Whatever

When we got back to the metro, our passes wouldn't work to get us on the platform. That's when I remembered that we had to buy supplemental tickets for Versailles. Our passes worked for the inner districts, not as far as Versailles. So, we waited in a painful line to get tickets. It wouldn't take the credit cards, and there was no slot for bills. Luckily, I had enough change in my change purse to get them all, or we would have had to wait in another horrible line to actually see a person for tickets. But, we were finally successful, we got on the train and back to the hotel. We were lucky that nobody smelled bad at all the whole train ride.

Le Restaurant Tex-Mex

One of the places I really wanted to see was Notre Dame. When we were here last time, it was closed the whole time we were here. I had seen the outside, but never the inside. I had read on their website that they were having a special show tonight. David had a migraine, and Em was tires, so we left them in the hotel while Jen & I went to see it. They had a tulle screen pulled across the nave, and they projected images of art and sculptures depicting Jesus and Mary while an Ave Maria played. It wasn't actually an Ave Maria, but it was an hour-long sacred song about Mary, and I don't know what else to call it.

There were a couple of funny bits, though. Since the screen is tulle, you can still mostly see through it to the altar. Well, there are windows behind the altar that have tops that look rather like creatures with big eyes and mustaches. At one point, the projection of a Baby Jesus showed up in just the right spot that he had big eyes and a mustache. It was awesome. They also translated "God" as "Gog" almost every time in the subtitles. But, as we were sitting behind three nuns, I didn't dare even snicker.

I was so glad that we went, it was really lovely. I got to see the inside of Notre Dame in a way that people don't normally get to see it, since the cathedral is closed to anybody not there for the show.

On the train back, Jen got to smell what a real Parisian metro can smell like. It was awesome.

Emma says - We had seen Versailles before, but the art was interesting. I thought it was mostly really ugly, and I don't understand why it was there. But, there was a giant teapot in the garden that looked like it was made of wrought iron lace that I thought was pretty. I'm glad that I'm old enough to stay in the hotel when Mom goes out to things. I was really tired. Mom told me about googly-eyed Jesus. That was funny.