On Saturday we went to the Sacre Coeur in the morning. We were able to avoid the con men who tie string to your fingers or wrists and then hold the end of the string and won't let go until you pay them. Luckily we knew about this in advance (thanks to the unfortunate experience of one of the people on my study abroad) and were able to avoid it by keeping our hands firmly in our pockets. Scooter also pretended like he could only speak Portuguese, and they gave up on us after a couple minutes of arguing. We climbed the long staircases (the Sacre Coeur is on a large hill – one of the highest points in the city) up to the basilica and made sure to turn around and look at the spectacular view of Paris frequently. We unfortunately don't have any pictures of the inside of the basilica because taking pictures was forbidden. It was, however, a lovely building.
We then went to the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Elysees. The monument is in the center of a large round-about that has 10 wide avenues branching off of it. As you can imagine, the traffic on this main intersection is quite incredible, and it was fun to even just stand and watch all the cars fight for a place on the round-about and then fight for a way to exit the round-about at the appropriate street. We climbed to the top of the monument and had a great view of the surrounding city. The Arc de Triomphe is the middle arch in a set of a three large arches that are in Paris. They are all on the same street but five miles apart. The street runs from the Louvre, where the first arch (Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel) is, down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, and then to La Defense – the business district of Paris, where the Grande Arche is. It was neat to be able to see this feature of the city from it best vantage point.
We approached our next site by walking down the Champs-Elysees and through the Christmas market again. We were getting pretty hungry, and the food on that street is really expensive, so I was confused when Scooter was very insistent on our route. When he paused at a food booth that looked like this all my questions were answered.
Yes, that is a giant pan full of mass quantities of ham, potatoes and cheese. Those round things covering it all are big cheeses that were slowly melting into a delicious gooey mess, which we happily ate for lunch. Then we walked across the Seine River toward the Hotel des Invalides. Many of the bridges in Paris are beautiful and this was no exception. Our next stop was the Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb resides. There are also military museums and military offices in the complex.
It was here that I noticed that our camera battery icon had changed from showing 2/3 to only 1/3 full. As we planned to go up the Eiffel Tower later that night I decided that we couldn't risk it and that we had to find a way to charge the battery. We had forgotten our charger (I know, I know – how does that happen!) so we began our quest. We stopped at numerous camera stores, but none of them sold new batteries, or chargers. Out of frustration we stopped in an internet café and found that there was one Nikon dealer in Paris. It was really far away, but when we got there someone spoke English and they were kind enough to just charge our battery for us for free! We wandered around the neighborhood for an hour while it was charging.
Then we went to the Eiffel Tower (yes, again! I'm telling you- there was something mesmerizing about that structure). We wanted to go up in time for sundown so that we could see the view both in daylight and at night. The lines were so long that we decided to try and come back another night, so we left (but not before we took more pictures, of course!)
The previous night we had not realized that the tower was decorated to look like the European Union flag because we had been unable to see the circle of yellow stars because we were viewing the tower from the opposite side.
On Saturday we went to the Sacre Coeur in the morning. We were able to avoid the con men who tie string to your fingers or wrists and then hold the end of the string and won't let go until you pay them. Luckily we knew about this in advance (thanks to the unfortunate experience of one of the people on my study abroad) and were able to avoid it by keeping our hands firmly in our pockets. Scooter also pretended like he could only speak Portuguese, and they gave up on us after a couple minutes of arguing. We climbed the long staircases (the Sacre Coeur is on a large hill – one of the highest points in the city) up to the basilica and made sure to turn around and look at the spectacular view of Paris frequently. We unfortunately don't have any pictures of the inside of the basilica because taking pictures was forbidden. It was, however, a lovely building. 
We then went to the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Elysees. The monument is in the center of a large round-about that has 10 wide avenues branching off of it. As you can imagine, the traffic on this main intersection is quite incredible, and it was fun to even just stand and watch all the cars fight for a place on the round-about and then fight for a way to exit the round-about at the appropriate street. We climbed to the top of the monument and had a great view of the surrounding city. The Arc de Triomphe is the middle arch in a set of a three large arches that are in Paris. They are all on the same street but five miles apart. The street runs from the Louvre, where the first arch (Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel) is, down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, and then to La Defense – the business district of Paris, where the Grande Arche is. It was neat to be able to see this feature of the city from it best vantage point. 
We approached our next site by walking down the Champs-Elysees and through the Christmas market again. We were getting pretty hungry, and the food on that street is really expensive, so I was confused when Scooter was very insistent on our route. When he paused at a food booth that looked like this all my questions were answered. 
Yes, that is a giant pan full of mass quantities of ham, potatoes and cheese. Those round things covering it all are big cheeses that were slowly melting into a delicious gooey mess, which we happily ate for lunch. Then we walked across the Seine River toward the Hotel des Invalides. Many of the bridges in Paris are beautiful and this was no exception. Our next stop was the Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb resides. There are also military museums and military offices in the complex. 
It was here that I noticed that our camera battery icon had changed from showing 2/3 to only 1/3 full. As we planned to go up the Eiffel Tower later that night I decided that we couldn't risk it and that we had to find a way to charge the battery. We had forgotten our charger (I know, I know – how does that happen!) so we began our quest. We stopped at numerous camera stores, but none of them sold new batteries, or chargers. Out of frustration we stopped in an internet café and found that there was one Nikon dealer in Paris. It was really far away, but when we got there someone spoke English and they were kind enough to just charge our battery for us for free! We wandered around the neighborhood for an hour while it was charging. 
Then we went to the Eiffel Tower (yes, again! I'm telling you- there was something mesmerizing about that structure). We wanted to go up in time for sundown so that we could see the view both in daylight and at night. The lines were so long that we decided to try and come back another night, so we left (but not before we took more pictures, of course!) 
The previous night we had not realized that the tower was decorated to look like the European Union flag because we had been unable to see the circle of yellow stars because we were viewing the tower from the opposite side.
1 comments:
Along with everyone else who reads your blog, we are loving everything you post and envious of everything you are doing. Have a great Christmas break and keep up the posts. Can't wait to see what you guys get to do on your tour.
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