Paris

Friday after school, I left straight away to go to Paris with Jo and Allison.  Let me start off this entry by saying neither myself nor Allison were very happy with Paris. 

Saturday

Our first day in Paris, we went walking around and saw these nifty Kangaroos!  There were lots of them, big ones, little ones, medium sized ones.  They were pretty cool.  The one in front that is sort of white has yellow cartoon characters, the one in back that is red and white is made out of Campbell’s soup labels, and the one in the back corner with black hands is Coca Cola cans.

We went to Sacre Coeur Basilica.  It was beautiful and up a big hill.

Very cool upside down hearts on the stairs.

I couldn’t get a good picture of the top of the church ceiling but this is what it looked like.  It was gorgeous.

We decided to climb up to the dome of the Basilica.

 

Almost made it to the top.

THE TOP!

The blurry shape is the Eiffel Tower.

When we got down, we went into a souvenir shop and the guy couldn’t make change for a £10 note and handed Allison her wrapped stuff back.  She left it on a shelf because she didn’t know what he was saying.  So we left.  The guy followed us halfway down the street and then grabbed her arm.  Another guy grabbed the shop keeper and then a heated conversation happened in rapid French and we ran away.  Apparently, the shop keeper was mad that she didn’t put everything back where it was supposed to be.  The random guy was saying don’t you ever grab anyone like that! I’ll call the police- you never touch anyone like that! 

 

Notre Dame! 

This was my second attempt at taking this picture, the first time, someone walked in front of my camera so I brought it down and got a picture of the floor.  Some bum thought I was taking a picture of him and jumped up to grab Allison’s camera strap and started yelling at her in French.  We finally got away.

Unfortunately, because Jo had already been to Notre Dame, we didn’t go in that day.

 

We went to the Tuileries Palace and Gardens instead.

Me and Allison

Me, Allison and Jo in the gardens

Tuileries Palace

Coolest playground ever!!!

France had some weird statues!

This fountain had some interesting turtles.

This one was a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Me in front of Notre Dame, no bums this time!

 

Notre Dame

Chain bridges seem to be very popular in Paris.  It was pretty cool.

Notre Dame looks bigger from the back.

Sunday

We went to Versailles on Sunday! Best part of France.  It was so pretty there!  We had a double decker train.

On our way there, we passed the Eiffel Tower, it was our first time seeing it!

When we got to Versailles, we had to stand in line for an hour to get tickets and then another hour to get in.  It was insanity!

Me in front of Versailles.

The gate to Versailles.

An up close shot of the fence.

Versailles Palace

All the following pictures come from in the inside of the Versailles Palace. 

The couches are huge!

Beautiful chandelier.

The chapel upstairs and downstairs.  This is where Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette were married.

The most amazing part of the palace.  The hall of mirrors! It was much smaller than I thought it would be.

Me in Versailles.

Allison and I in the hall of mirrors.

The king’s bed.  Massive!

The royal dining room.

Silly picture of the mirrors.

Allison and I

The gardens were huge!  This is just the front of the gardens, it stretches out for miles.

 

Me in the garden of Versailles

Again, they have the weirdest statues!

Versailles from the back.

Me and Allison in front of the fountain.

We went to the way back and side of the gardens and found this pond full of fish.  It was amazing.

The Eiffel Tower.

Me and the Eiffel Tower

Monday

We got up nice and early and went to the Louvre.  We got there at 10 am and there were no lines for anything! It was great! 

A statue of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom

 

As the Louvre started out as a Palace, it had some very beautiful ceilings! 

The Venus de Milo.  She did have arms at one point apparently.

They had a model castle in the basement.  The walls were the foundations of a castle.

Me and a sphinx.

The mummy room was great!

France’s crown jewels.  I had an amazingly good picture of them!

Ancient Minoan statues.

Allison unfortunately got her head eaten by a lion.

The pyramids in front of the Louvre.

Me in front of the Louvre.

Me and Allison spent the next three hours in the gardens reading in the sun.  It was wonderful.

Much, much later, we got gelato that was made to look like roses.  It was delicious!

 

FDR was the man!

I want to have this job.  Where you just bike people around cities all day. 

Arc de Triomphe, we tried to find out the metro and ended up going down the stairs that lead you under the Arc.  Oops! :)

We found the Eiffel Tower at night time!

And it lit up! Every hour starting at 9 for 5 minutes.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we took the Eurostar back to London.  It was pretty nifty.