Thursday, March 1, 2012

Paris tres

WellI know that by now you´re probably tired of hearing about Paris, so we´re going to take a little day trip to Versaille!

Here's a link to the homepage, to anyone interested in learning about what I learned and saw. :)
http://en.chateauversailles.fr/homepage

Sunday morning Hollie and I woke up at about 9 or so and hit up breakfast.  We looked in my handy dadny guide book for how to get to Versaille from Paris.  It was quite easy, all we had to do was take the metro down there.  Versaille is very close so it´s good that we didn´t have to take a bus or anything like that.  However, this metro system wasn't as easy as it sounds.  It splits off and we had to get off to get back on the same line but going in a different direction.  We got there, but it took about an hour.  We arrived at Versaille and the Palace at around 12, which was fine because, again, there weren´t as many people there as there would have been if it wasn´t tourist lunch time. lol.  Also, we had a lovely surprise/our thoughts were correct.  The Palace was also free!!  All we had to do was show our student Visas and voila!  We were in.  So once again we got a lovely free excursion, besides the cost of the metro.  We also got free audio guides, which was nice because I didn´t really want to wander around not knowing that I was looking at.


Then I got to see the Chapel, where everyone would gawk at Louis XIV.  The Chapel was actually really pretty, but there were tons of people surrounding it so it was hard to see everything.  I saw...some ball rooms, oh! and I saw his bed.  There must have been short people during that time or something, because the bed seemed awefully small to me.  It could have just been the wierd proportions of the room and how they set things up though too.  But it was very well decorated, and when I saw well I really mean that there was just a ton of stuff!!  There´s not space in these palaces where something is not decorated or doesn´t have a floral print, or some sort of print on it.  It´s quite overwhelming actually.  But I saw this bed/his bedroom.

I also saw Marie Antionette's room.  Her room is fullll of floral printed things.  On the walls surround the room are small oval scultpures/pieces of the godesses I think.  And she also has pictures of all her children.  Then there's a bust of her on the mantle and I saw the door she used to escape from during the Revolution when people stormed the Palace.  I saw the huge guard's room and there was a huuuge painting of the coronation of someone.

Oh yea, and how could I forget...I saw the famed Hall of Mirrors!  Yup, someone had an ego.  This hall is full of mirrors all the way down one side of the hall way.  And there are a million chandeliers and windows all over the place.  I can only imagine this hall when it´s full of people dancing in their full gowns and listening to the music.  It sounds like it would actully be a really pretty sight to see.  You see, the thing with the palaces is that they just seem so over done and out of place in today´s world.  You have to set yourself back in that time to appreciate them and realize that they would have been a really pretty sight to see in that time.  Personally, I hate all the floral print and stuff, haha, but if I were a lady in court then, I probably would have loved it.  It´s all about the lavish things.  So of course I took a picture in the Hall of Mirrors and listed to the audio guide telling me all about it, basically saying "imagine this place full of people!"  The view to the gardens was really pretty too from the hall.

After we took our tour through the Palace we ended up grabbing something to eat.  I didn´t really want a whole sandwhich, I wasn´t that hungry.  So I got this Malacon, which is basically just a big Macaron.  How do I describe a Macaron...it´s a cookie, and on the inside is a sort of thick cream, kind of like an oreo.  But it´s flavored, so I had a pistachio flavored one and it was amazing!! Granted it was a bit pricey, but it was yummmy!!!

Then it was off to the gardens! We wandered around the gardens for a good hour.  It´s about 3 acres of land that they own, I don´t remember how many kilometres it said, but it´s nuts how much land this is.  I can understand why they had horses to travel around their gardens, and chateu's were certainly out of the way, even though they were still technically on the same property.  You had a spectacular view of the land before you, of trees and just nothing but land.  It was a sight for sore eyes.  I miss seeing just land, and not city, after city, after city.  I love the art and eveything else that comes with a city, but coming from sone who grew up with the woods in their backyard, I have a special place for woods and just vegitation.  So I really enjoyed just being in the gardens and looking at nothing.  We walked down towards the main area where there was an ice foutain/lake thing and sat down.  There were big swans and ducks, Hollie fed them the rest of her sandwhich.  Disclaimer: swans are big and scary.  I knew that already, I think they're pretty from afar, but up close...no thanks!  So I let Hollie do all the feeding, I stayed away and just took pictures of her being scared of feeding them.  We looked around at the acres of land that surrounded us and just relaxed, it was really nice.

By then it was around 3 and we were getting kind of tired.  Walking around a huge palace and fighting tourists is not easy job, let me tell you.  So we decided to walk back to the metro and head back to the city and take a nap in our hostel.  We wandered down and saw some more really pretty parts of the garden, I can only imagine it during the spring and summer when everything is in bloom.  Then we happened upon Marie Antionette´s house!! I kind of wanted to go in, but I was tired and wanted to head back into Paris so we could do a few more things before the day was out.  We walked towards it and saw a little bit of the inside.  I took a picture outside of Marie Antionette's house! Then we continued on our way and took a different route back to the metro.  We walked outside the palace grounds and meandered around Versaille, which is actually a cute little town and reminded me of home.  After about 30-40 min on the various metro systems we took to get back to the hostel we finally got back and passed out for a good hour.  We have turned into siesta-er's. :P So we finally met our fourth roommate, we just called him awkward boy from thence on because he was awkward and didn't say a word to us.  I'm not even sure he slept there.  But we got to nap and finally headed back out at around 7.



We then decided to go to THE ARC D'TRIOMPH.  So I'm going to admit I didn't actually know a lot about the Arc before Paris.  I actually didn't know a lot about Paris in general, or what there was to do there.  I really relied on my guidebook, which thankfully was very very informative as far as that goes.  So we took the metro to the Arc D'Triomph and when we walked out I was like "woah!"  It's really cool.  We also were really smart and because we were there after all the tourists so there weren't as many people there.  The Arc is really cool to see at night.

 Everything is pretty at night when it's all lit up.  So we took our pretty pictures in front of the arc and made our way to it so we could climb it.  So the Arc is actually across like a huuuge round-a-bout so there's a cool tunnel that goes underneath it.  Also, apparently the Arc is the only place that insurance will not cover you, because so many people try to cross the round-a-bout or do something really stupid on it.  So it was pretty funny knowing that if something traumatic happened we wouldn't be covered.  But we made our way there and got reduced tickets to go up it.  We literally climbed up it, yup, up tons and tons of stairs.  A nice big spiral staircase, but there was no one behind is so we were able to take some breathers.  They even have like made to resting nooks on the way up where you can walk off the stairs and take a breather without interrupting the flow of traffic.  But we were there at night so we were fine.  Let's just say the view is amazing.  The view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up is sooo cool!! It was night time so the rest of the view was mostly just lights and stuff, but it was really cool to see.  The picture opportunities up there are awesome.


So we took the opportunity to take photos while no one was around and have tons of fun at the top of the Arc D' Triomph.  We really wanted to see it sparkle from afar, but we missed it by like 5 minutes.  We were sad.  But after that we decided to headed down and go back to the Eiffel Tower.  We wanted another quiet night and relax and enjoy our last night in Paris.  So we went down and bought a crepe and popcorn.  Now let me tell you, popcorn here is NOT the same as popcorn at home.  It's like they don't sell real popcorn.  So I was craving some good popcorn and bought some at the vendor.  It was an excellent decision.

And that was pretty much my day.  I went up the Arc D'Triomph, we decided that the Eiffel Tower wasn't worth the wait because the view from the Arc was better.  So we just hung around the Eiffel Tower and I gawked at the fact that I was actually there.  Basically all night I was like "I'm in Paris, I'm in France, I'm studying abroad, omg"

OMG I almost forgot to post about the wonderful people on the metro that night that made my night.  So of course there are always people on the metro singing, playing the accordian, just over all looking for money.  Well, my heart was so happy that night that I couldn't help but give the change I had in my pocket to guy that had two kids with him on the subway.  His kid was playing the tambourine and the music was making me feel happy.  Then we switched onto another metro line where I wish I had had a record label.  This guy was really good.  Granted, maybe it was the really good American songs he was playing, but I'm tell you he had an excellent voice.  Unfortunately I didn't record him while he was playing the good stuff.  He played Aretha Frankling Respect and did a fun rendition of it and tried to get me and Hollie to sing along with him.  The rest of the people on the train were looking at us like we were nuts, but we loved! the music.  Basically that ride home melted our hearts and I kind of fell in love with Paris right there. There certainly is no place like Paris.
And that was my night.
One more post!

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