Vive la France! Part 4: Paris

  Okay. I'm going to summarize my whole time in Paris in one post. Here we go...

















  So then we drove into Paris. I had been to Paris before so I knew what to expect, but it was still really cool driving into the city and past the bridges over the Seine, with the Eiffel Tower peeking around the buildings in the distance. We arrived at our hotel, which was very small and old and pleasant. And, most notably, right next to an awesome chocolate shop.

   It was fairly late in the afternoon and we were given the rest of the day to explore on our own. I ended up going with some people to see the Eiffel Tower. I didn't really want to go because it's one of the most touristy places on the planet, and I had had gone there the last time I was in France. But I decided to go anyway, because I didn't really have anything better to do. There was no way I was wandering around Paris by myself.

They regularly change the color of the lights on the Eiffel Tower. The last time I was in Paris it was blue. Yellow isn't quite as interesting, in my opinion.

The lines weren't nearly as bad as I had imagined they would be, and we ended up deciding to pay the extra few euros and go all the way up to the top. I was nervous because I had never been to the top before, but I decided to go anyway.

It was really freaky. The highest I had been up until then had been the second level, and that's already pretty darn high. To go to the top you have to switch elevators at the second level. The one going to the top was much smaller, and it just seemed to keep going up and up and up. I don't think I've ever had as much vertigo inside an enclosed space before.

Going up to the top in the little glass elevator.












We finally got to the top and stumbled out. I was feeling very uncomfortable with being so freaking high up, but I forced myself to go outside into the wind to get a look at the view. It was certainly impressive.

The next day we went around Paris as a class and visited a few key places, including this building, which is called Des Invalides. I may be remembering this wrong, but I'm pretty sure it used to be some kind of hospital. However, nowadays it is a military museum.

And no military museum would be complete without a statue of everyone's favorite tiny French leader (no, not Sarkozy).

In fact, Invalides has more than just the statue. This is the building that houses Napoleon's tomb. While we didn't have time to go into the military museum, we did get to go in here.

Napoleon's tomb.

The unsurprisingly opulent ceiling.

Then we went over to see another Napoleon-related monument. This trip involved going through a tunnel under a street. Which was a much better way of going about it than way I did it the last time I was in Paris, which involved sprinting across one of the busiest roundabouts in the city.

This is the Arc de Triomphe, the most famous of the Roman-style triumphal arches that Napoleon commissioned to show the world how awesome he was.
There are all sorts of grand friezes and things on it, and along the inside are lists of his most distinguished generals and of the cities he conquered.

Underneat the arch is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with its flame that (apparently) never goes out. It is a memorial for all of the soldiers who died during World War I whose bodies were never found or identified. The inscription says:

"Here lies a French soldier [who] died for the fatherland".

We passed this building while driving through the city. It is the opera house where "The Phantom of the Opera" takes place.

Here is another of Napoleon's triumphal arches, which is situated near the Louvre.

... and this was the pork and beans that I had for lunch.

And this is the Louvre which, for those of you who have lived in caves all your lives, was previously an imperial palace and is now a MASSIVE museum of awesomeness.

The Winged Victory

One of my favorite rooms.

The Venus de Milo.

We didn't have enough time in the Louvre to seek out all of the really famous things, which was too bad. One of the items we were hoping to find was the painting "The Raft of the Medusa". We didn't find the actual painting, but we did find this little version of it.

The next day we walked through the city instead of taking the tour bus, which was nice. There were bridges.

I don't remember who this is. I just liked the picture.

The place we were heading for was the Allée des Justes ("Alley of the Just") which is where the Memorial of the Shoah is located. It is in the primarily Jewish section of the city.

It says "In homage to the just [people] who saved Jews during the occupation"

The Memorial of the Shoah is part Holocaust memorial and part Holocaust museum. (Actually, in Europe they tend to prefer the term "Shoah"- which means something like "disaster" in Hebrew- to "Holocaust", which has slightly unpleasant, religious sacrifice-related connotations).

Outside the museum were rows of these walls, which had the names of all of the French citizens who were victims of the Shoah, as well as the names of the people who helped to hide Jews from the police.

There are plaques like this all over the city, particularly in the primarily  Jewish areas. It says: 

"165 Jewish children from this school were deported to Germany during the second World War. They were exterminated in the Nazi camps. 

                          Don't forget."

Then we made a brief stop at Notre Dame cathedral, which wasn't nearly as crowded inside as I had expected. We didn't have time to wait in line to go up to the top and see the gargoyles, though. 

One of Notre Dame's famous rose windows. Again, my camera wasn't able to do it justice.

These guys were walking around behind the cathedral. I'm not sure I want to know why.

This is what remains of an ancient Roman arena. It's not very impressive-looking, but it was pretty cool. I especially like the fact that people still use it. While we were there, a bunch of kids were running around playing football in it. 

This is the Pantheon. It's basically a giant tomb that holds the bodies of people who have been considered great. Every once in a while they decide that someone's not so great after all and take them out. Again, we didn't have time to go inside, which was really sad.

That night we went on a really fancy dinner boat ride along the Seine. It was one of the most posh things I have ever done. 

This is the inside of the boat, by the way. We even had pillows to lean on! That's posh, that is.

And, of course, no fancy dinner tour would be complete without foie gras. I had never had it before, and I didn't like it very much. But it was interesting to at least try it. 

And of course we sailed past all the really cool Paris monuments.

We ended up in New York City. I'm not sure how. 

The next day we went to a section of Paris called Belleville. It has always been a very immigrant-rich area, and it was a really interesting contrast with the rest of Paris.

There was a lot of really cool graffiti and street art in Belleville. This street was actually designated by the city as a place where people could draw graffiti. 

There was a really big multi-ethnic market that we got to walk through. It was a bit too crowded for my comfort, but it was still an interesting experience. And the food looked really good. 

Finally, we went to Pére Lachaise cemetery, which is a huge cemetery that houses the bodies of many famous people. You could spend days wandering around in there, and I wish we had had time to. Even the graves of non-famous people were really cool.

Apparently, the zombie isn't home.

In the cemetery there were a lot of memorials, particularly from World War II. This is a memorial for the victims of one of the concentration camps. 

This is a plaque commemorating the people who died during the Commune, which was a socialist uprising that took place in Paris in 1871. The uprising was put down, and the rebels were lined up against this wall and shot. 

Then, to celebrate, the city built Sacre Coeur.

Speaking of which...

This is Sacre Coeur ("Sacred Heart") Cathedral. It's one of the biggest tourists traps in Paris. The view is nice, though.

And that was it. We went back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and got on the bus to go back to Copenhagen. I just had time to go into the chocolate shop and get some of these. There are macarons. I had heard about them, and was determined to try some while I was in France. They're really good. I'm not entirely sure what they're made of and why they're such weird colors, but they taste good and that's all that matters.

We had another 15-hour bus ride back to Copenhagen. Again, I surprised myself by sleeping quite well. And my bladder didn't explode, despite the fact that due to some poor planning, I didn't use the bathroom for over 24 hours. Overall, it was a great trip. I got to speak a bit of French, I saw some really cool things and I good some much-needed vitamin... whatever the vitamin is that you get from the sun.

I really, really want to tell you what I've been doing in Copenhagen since this trip, but I don't have time. I have had a ton of schoolwork for the past few weeks that has gotten in the way of my blog-writing abilities. So the Copenhagen stuff will have to wait... maybe for a while, because I'M GOING TO RUSSIA TOMORROW! Whooo-hooo!

   Sorry. I'm really excited. In case you didn't know, I'm obsessed with Russia and I never imagined that I would actually get the chance to go there. Hopefully my posts about Russia won't be in all capital letters, but I'm not making any promises.

   So you'll be hearing... quite a lot about Russia in a week-or-so, and then you will hear about Greece, and then I will tell you everything I haven't told you yet about Copenhagen.

Oh, and one final thing from my trip to France.

I found Waldo!

Salut!