Paris - Part II

Nichole at the Louvre Friday night

Saturday December 8th

By Nichole

Jeff - Jardin des Tuileries

We couldn’t fall asleep last night until 2 a.m., but we managed to crawl out of bed at 8:15. Thank goodness we learned how to ride the subway because it was pouring when we woke up. We went to the Jardin des Tuileries metro entrance and figured out that we needed to ride the 1 train for two stops to the Chatelet station. Then we connected to the 4 train for one stop to the Cite station. This brought us directly in front of the Palais de Justice, the St. Chapelle and the Conciergerie. It was extremely cold, so I was thankful we had the metro. We decided to tour the St. Chapelle since Sally said it had beautiful stained glass. We had to go through security checks and metal detectors first and then cross outside to the church. The first level was very warm on a very cold day. We had to go up some very tight spiral stairs to get to the main floor where the stained glass and many candelabras were. There were laminated description cards to read about the church, but all the English ones were gone. We took a bunch of pictures and Jeff managed to get a French woman to take our picture.

Together in St. Chapelle

From the church we then exited through the front of the Palais de Justice and walked a very short distance to the Conciergerie. When we went in we had no idea what the place was. There was a bunch of modern pictures that looked like they were from Africa, but everything was in French and we could only read every other word of the descriptions, so we didn’t understand much. There were no pictures allowed in this area. When we walked to the back and through the bookstore, then we got to the area where prisoners used to be held. They did have plaques in English in this area, so we were able to understand that prisoners could pay to be held in better cells. Famous prisoners were kept in larger/nicer cells and we were able to see the cell where Marie Antoinette was held. There was a list of all of the prisoners posted on the walls in one room. Most of them were in for treason. We checked, but didn’t see any names we knew. They were mostly French, so that probably explains that. After seeing all the cells and some of the displays we exited the Conciergerie and checked out a map to see where we were.

Jeff has an unbelievable sense of direction which is a trait that I am lacking, so he was able to get us over to the Notre Dame fairy quickly. The line was very long to enter the lower level, but moved quickly since there isn‘t an entry fee. The alter was very ornate. We took as many pictures as we could, but it was very crowded. There was more stained glass which was (again) very intricate. We saw a sign that said to go up to the towers you have to go outside to the right. When outside, we were discouraged to see the extremely long line. While standing in line Jeff had this extremely strong urge to go buy a hot dog that cost 5 Euros. We split it since it was almost noon and we hadn’t eaten. We had no idea that it would take 45 minutes just to get to the entrance. As we entered I saw a disturbing sign that said we were about to climb 422 steps! The steps were in spiral staircases which was making me really dizzy for some reason. My American thighs aren’t built to climb 422 stairs. I couldn’t breathe when we got to the landing. I thought we were at the top, but this was only the second level. We went up to the bell tower and looked for the Hunchback, but we couldn’t see him. Jeff got a Korean man to take our picture (Jeff says he is fluent in Korean but I think he is just fluent in international sign language) on this level and prepared to climb again. The second set of stairs was even more narrow than the first. When we got to the top it was raining pretty hard. We tried to take some pictures of the Eiffel Tower, St. Chapelle, and the Seine, but we were freezing, so we didn‘t stay long. The descent had my head spinning. I have to wonder how many circles we actually went in.

Notre Dame

We decided to walk in the rain to the Musee d’Orsay because we wanted to save our subway tickets to go to the Arc de Triomphe later. We stopped on the Pont Neuf because Jeff said we had to kiss on that bridge. He didn’t know why, but that’s okay. We were probably on the wrong bridge but he wanted to kiss me anyway. The umbrella was having a weak moment or two, but we managed to make it. We were both really tired while in the Musee d’Orsay and we didn’t like many of the paintings. I was happy when we finally found Vincent Van Gough, Whistler, and Monet. Other than that, we weren’t too thrilled. There were more security guards and even though the sign said no flash photos, one lady told me in French that I couldn’t take any pictures, so the entire time we were there, I didn’t want to take pictures because I thought someone was going to yell at me. We took the subway back to the Jardin near the hotel so we could dry off. I saw the most disgusting man on the subway. He didn’t have shoes, barely had a shirt, and was holding a filthy sleeping bag. I’ve seen homeless in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, but this guy takes the cake. I’ll never forget how gross that was. When we got back to the hotel I ended up falling asleep for 2 hours. It stopped raining long enough for us to grab dinner. This sounds strange, but we both wanted Chinese food for dinner. We grabbed it to go and went back to the hotel. Jeff was so thirsty and this was the first coke that was 1.5 euros. I think he was surprised to learn that a 15 Euro coke doesn’t taste any better than an 1.5 Euro coke. We are watching CNN world news right now because it is the only channel in English. They keep repeating their stories too and I think I could report the stories verbatim by now. We had planned on seeing the Arc de Triomphe tonight but the rain hasn’t let up. I guess we’ll hit the Arc tomorrow and maybe the Opera Garnier.

Nichole at Musee d'Orsay

Sunday December 9th

We watched the weather last night and thought it was going to rain all day today. We decided to sleep in and not rush anything since it wasn’t going to be too nice out. I woke up at 10 and realized that it was beautiful outside. We hurried up to get ready and decided to walk to the opera Garnier. Our museum pass didn’t cover this one so we paid 4 Euros to get in. It was beautiful. We took pictures all over the place. There was a group practicing inside, so I guess it is still used for practical purposes and not just a tourist attraction. It only took 45 minutes to an hour to see that and I was really hot, so we went back to the hotel so I could change and get my museum pass. Jeff went to the Chinese restaurant down the street to get us a snack (coke and spring rolls).


We took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe since that is pretty far to walk. It still wasn’t raining, but being in France for 5 days now, we realized that could change at any moment, so we wanted to get to the top as quickly as possible to take some pictures. We showed our museum pass and climbed the spiral stairs again. There was a middle level with some information and a mini model, but we hurried to the second set of stairs to get to the top. It was incredibly windy and our hair was blowing everywhere. We took pictures of the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur, etc., but even with the camera zoomed in the whole way, it was hard to see. By the time we got to the bottom it was raining. We timed that one pretty well. Even though it was raining, we decided to take the metro to the Tomb of Notre Dame since we forgot to go there yesterday. This place is basically a display of foundations some of the old buildings in the area. We couldn’t read some of the signs so Jeff made up a story to go along with each stop. By the end we decided that the tiny little doors in the foundation must have been for the cats and dogs. We exited the tomb and decided to go walk around on the Ile St Louis (another island beyond Notre Dame). We both decided that we liked this island better. It had tiny little shops and little cafes and it was much quieter than any place we had been so far in Paris. We went in one church that had its doors open. It was fairly large and had gold designs on the ceiling and at the alter. We went into one shop and Jeff ordered a Chicken Pizza and I got a jambon du fromage baugette. I went into a supermarche and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that a liter of coke was only 1.65 Euros!!! I had to buy it! The cheapest we had seen was 1.5 Euros for a 12oz can! Jeff was pretty upset to learn that we could’ve paid less all this time! Oh well, too late.

It was still raining, but we knew that we were close to the Centre de Pompidou (modern art museum), so we thought we would go there and get out of the rain for a while. That museum is actually open till 8pm and most of them close at 6 on Sundays. We stood in a line on the one side of the building for a few minutes before we realized that it couldn’t possibly be the line to get into the museum since it wasn’t moving. It turns out that it was the line to get into the Bibliotheque portion of the Pompidou and the actual entrance was on the other side of the building. Anyway, we made it into the museum and went into the 4th level (museum level). We knew we wouldn’t like this art, but it was pretty funny to listen to Jeff describe it. There was a room full of inflatable furniture and we weren’t really sure why that was considered art. Just to mention a few of the strange things we didn’t understand: a huge red rhino in the middle of a room, a bunch of gloves painted red and glued together in a weird shape, a dark room with a book on a chair and an video playing on the book of a man reading the book, a huge airplane made out of sticks with scissors and knives sticking out of it, what appeared to be children’s art, pictures of really ugly/old naked people, a papier-mâché looking bride, and a crocodile glued to the wall. It didn’t take long for Jeff to say “I can’t take any more of this.” When we left the museum it was raining so we had to buy another metro pass to get back to the hotel without getting drenched. We went to the front desk and reserved a taxi for 9:15am tomorrow. Our flight leaves at 1:15 so hopefully that is enough time. I miss my doggie so bad right now. There are dogs everywhere and actually a ton of doggies like her. I’m sure she has been well taken care of, but I miss her so much. Especially at night since she always sleeps with me.

Overall I liked Paris, but I miss people speaking in English. I think we saw everything that we wanted to see and our stay was definitely long enough. I think we would enjoy Paris more in the summertime when the gardens are in full bloom and its not so cold and rainy. Thank goodness for Jeff. I would have starved and walked everywhere without him here to help me do everything. Jeff did a pretty good job trying to speak French but I don’t think we will come back unless Sally is with us to speak to everyone for us! I don’t like trying to speak French. I always think I’m going to say the wrong thing.

Other pics to come. I'm tired right now and we will try to post more this weekend. For now we made the pictures smaller so we can post them quicker; we'll work on posting the original higher quality photos sometime soon.