All Saint's Week - Paris and Versailles

I know, I know, an update has been overdue...

So two Sundays ago, bright and early in the morning (well actually not so bright, it was cold and still dark), I headed to the train station. The train was right on time and smooth all the way through to Paris. As soon as I got off the train I headed out quickly, dodging the people through the gigantic Montparnasse station, eager to see Paris again. I stepped outside and breathed in the chilly air as if I was smelling a freshly fabric softened sweater. Then I headed into the underground serpent that would slither my way to the Pyramides stop. Since I was really excited for this trip, I had memorized the directions to the hotel, which was near the Louvre. But then... Ray and Virg weren't at the hotel yet as expected. An hour had passed and they still hadn't arrived. I was afraid that they maybe weren't getting there that night. Another hour later the hotel staff rang me up and let me know that Ray and Virg were still at the airport, claiming their lost luggage. I hadn't eaten anything yet so to kill the time I went to a little sandwicherie nearby and then I took a little walk around the Louvre. I came back and took a nap... suddenly the phone rang loudly and the hotel staff told me that my friends had finally arrived. I jumped up and headed down to the lobby to greet them. I was so happy that they made it that day, but I didn't feel so happy that their bags hadn't made it along with them. They were informed though that they would be getting their bags the next day... so we still had a great time that day.

We didn't have a strict itinerary but we had planned to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower on the first day of the trip... Virg had asked me earlier, "hey Alex the first time that you came to Paris didn't you think that the Eiffel Tower was smaller than you had imagined?" I actually thought it was pretty tall and funny enough as we were on the second elevator that goes all the way up to the top Virg kept repeating "oh man this is really high, so high..." The wind was really strong up there too so it definitely felt high.

The next day we went to the Louvre, where Mona Lisa followed us as we saw Egyptian scupltures and mummy tombs, Picasso paintings, a dungeon, Greek sculptures and a million other amazing masterpieces... the Louvre is enormous and 'til this day we're still trying to find the exit! At night we went to see the Château de Vincennes... we knew that it was already closed but I still hadn't seen a castle yet so for that we still went to see it. I'll never forget that visit because as we started to encircle the castle it suddenly started to rain so hard that we had to hug this giant tree for some sort of protection. We hugged that tree for over half an hour, thinking that that rain was never going to stop pouring.

Day three: Versailles. We were all still a little overwhelmed by the Louvre so we decided to skip the main palace and head over to the domain of Marie Antoinette. So much for toning the sensory overload down a bit: it took us about half an hour to get there walking through Versailles' infinite gardens. Versailles really is an extraordinary place...

The following morning we took a taxi to the Paris-Orly airport...

Next post: Rome and the Vatican.