So on Tuesday we went to Versailles where the most recent French Palace is. From what I've heard this fancy palace, with a solid gold fence, was built during a time of economic crisis in France. The only reason I could really see for it being built was so the King could show how great he thought he was, and the Palace reflected that. There were pictures after pictures of kings and other royalty. There were so many fancy things and architecture that really seemed to reflect the Kings haughtiness. It didn't seem to have any other value whatsoever.
The gardens around it were also amazing, and it just went on forever. We only go to explore a fraction of them.
We actually started the day off in the gardens, and we ate lunch there. Then the group split up to do whatever they wanted. My teacher took me and two others over to see the LDS temple that's being built not far from the palace. There was only a cement outline of the first floor, but it was neat to see.
After we got back to the palace, our teacher left us, and we went to go to the palace. One of the girls I was with decided she was too tired to go through though, so she just went back to Paris. It turns out that most of my classmates went back to Paris without even seeing the inside of the palace. My friend Klarissa and I weren't sticks in the mud though and went through.
One interesting fact about the Versailles Palace is that the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was signed there. I walked through the hall it was signed in.
After we went back to Paris. Upon getting back we text everyone to see what they were doing, and they were all at the hotel and didn't want to leave until later. Klarissa and I were astonished that they were in Paris and just wanted to stay in the hotel.
We decided we were going to make the most of the day, and went over to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to go to the top, but a worker told us they weren't letting anyone go to the very top that day. We didn't want to pay to not be able to go all the way up, so we decided to try to find something else to do.
We looked up some of the museums and found one that was open that late. We tried to get there using the Metro, which was difficult. Most of the time here, we just follow our teacher around, so it took us a little while to figure it out. Eventually we got it and got to where we wanted to go.
We got back above ground and asked an old man how to get to the museum. He told us and as we started to go he told us that it was closed that day because it was Tuesday. Looking back at our museum paper I realized it said that, but I didn't read that far down.
We walk around that part of town a bit, looking for a snack or something so that our trip wasn't a waste. We found a cool monument called Le Tour de Saint -Jacques. At least it wasn't a waste.
After that we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower because we wanted to see it light up. We were going to met some of our classmates there too, but they didn't make it in time. It was neat seeing the tower light up, and and 10 it started to sparkle. It only sparkled for about 5 minutes though.
While we were waiting we had 10 different street vendors come up to us with wine, which was really annoying. However we asked one of them if the tower would sparkle again. He said it would at 11. We text our classmates that they could still see it at 11 then tried to make our way home. We didn't make it home though because we ran into our classmates, and they really wanted us to go with them to watch the tower sparkle, so we did.
In the end we didn't get back until after midnight, and I was exhausted.
The next day we went to l'Arc de Triomphe. It was neat to see. It commemorated the people lost in the wars France participated in, and had a tomb for the Unknown Soldier.
Afterwards we went to the Louvre, and let me tell you, you could spend days in that museum and still have things to see. That's were the original Mona Lisa is, and yes I got see it. It was neat to see it, but it looks just like it does in pictures.
Afterwards, the group splintered off because they all wanted to see different things. I went with two other classmates. Each of us didn't really have an idea of what was there so we just wandered to what seemed interesting. After a little while one of them ditched us, and my friend McKenzie and I wandered through the archaeological part of the museum. We saw things from ancient Greece, Egypt and Iran. I thought the stuff from ancient Iran was the most interesting, because it was the one I knew the least amount. It's kind of funny that the middle east had so many great, ancient civilizations, but we never learn about them in school. I figure it's because they didn't have much influence on our culture.
We also went down to the basement were the still had parts of the original foundation of the building, which was build in the 12th century. It was really neat to see.
McKenzie also wanted to see a sculpture called Venus de Milo, but we had no idea where it was. We ended up asking several workers, who told us where it was, be we had to travel clear across the museum to find it. It's funny because the French really do treat you much nicer if you speak French. They'll fall all over themselves to help you. One worker I asked answered in English though, and her coworker got after her. He said if I was speaking French, she should speak French to me; I appreciated it.
I liked these last two days just wondering around with Klarissa and McKenzie because I got a lot of opportunities to speak French as we tried to find our way around.
Our classmates told us that they wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower that night, and that we should all meet up there. We could've very easily spent all day at the Louvre, but McKenzie wanted to change out of shorts before we went to the Eiffel tower, so we went back to the hotel.
We ate dinner at the hotel, then McKenzie decided that she didn't want to go that night to the Eiffel Tower, so I starting making my way there by myself (it's a good thing I figured out the metro the day before). I wasn't sure which stop the Eiffel Tower was though, but I just started heading in that general direction. While I was on the train I was standing next to an English Family, who had the most stereotypical English accents. It felt like I was watch Harry Potter. Listening to them I realized that they were going to the Eiffel Tower, so I asked them which stop it was. They were very friendly and not only told me the stop, but took me to the Tower. While walking, the dad asked me where I was from, and I told him the United States, Utah. He told me that he had just gone to Utah a little while before to write something about the races on the Salt-Flats. Small world right.
In the end only me and three other classmates actually went to the Eiffel Tower (sticks in the mud). It was really neat. I'm glad we did it at night because we got to see all of the city lights. I'm very glad I got to do it, but if I had to choose, I think watching the tower sparkle was more cool.
We also got back after mid-night that night, and I was again exhausted.
Today we went to Napoleon's Tomb (which also had a World War I&II museum), Le Musée Rodin and Le Musée d’Orsay. Le Musée Rodin was closed, but we still got to walk around the garden and see some of the sculptures out there. He did the Thinker Sculpture. I also saw some of his stuff in a museum by Nice.
Le Musée d'Orsay was also another big museum of art, and I'm not sure we got through it all before we were all to tired to keep going. So I went back to the hotel to rest a little. I don't feel like a stick in the mud though, because of how much I did the other days. Also I needed to do things like laundry and write this. It's kind of like I'm taking a P-day, which is an inspired thing.
I don't have many pictures because I didn't have batteries in my camera for much of these last few days. Some of my classmates have sent me pictures, and some of them still need to send me some, but this is what I have right now.
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