Y'all don't know how lucky you are to be getting a post from me tonight. I have been exhausted most of the day, but it really hit me around 5 o'clock. Now that I've eaten dinner and had a shower, though, I have a bit of adrenaline to post a brief summary of yesterday...and it's going to have to be brief again. Disappointing even for me...I want to be able to reread this blog later too.
Okay, so we had a free day yesterday in Paris before our official tour started at 6pm with the tour guide and other tourists. We got up early and left the hotel after breakfast to go find Metro 4 to take us to Sacre-Coeur Basillica in Monmartre (Sacred Heart Basilica in the northern part of Paris called Montmartre.) Montmartre is famous because of the photographs of its staircases. We thought the stairs lead to Sacre-Coeur, but the ones we saw didn't look like the photos.
Anyway, we made it to the first metro alright, got on, and got off at the correct stop. Everything was good...except Mom had a homeless guy who wanted her water bottle. She said 'no'.
That reminds me: I didn't tell you, but the day before in Amiens, we ran into several homeless that wanted to talk to us. You can just tell...mostly because no one else will walk up to strangers to start talking to them. And just say 'no' a lot. In Amiens and going to Sacre-Coeur, it was Mom saying 'no'. At Sacre-Coeur and for the rest of the day in Paris, it was me who had to say 'no.'
There were a lot of steps up to the top of the hill to Sacre-Coeur...oh my goodness. My calf still hurts from yesterday. And Mom's feet hurt. But we're alive.
We also planned to go to Sacre-Coeur yesterday because it was Sunday and we wanted to go to Mass. The other church we wanted to go to in Paris, the Sainte-Chapelle, does not have Mass, so Sacre-Coeur it was. Once we made it up the stairs...and it is a lot farther than it looks in the picture, we sat down in the pews. What is interesting to me is that this church actually has pews with kneelers (but they were wooden and hurt my knees). Most of the churches I've been to in France just have chairs. This one is the only one I've been to with actual pews.
So, we had Mass, which was entirely in French. I could keep up with most of it. They handed out a folded paper to everyone that had all the songs, readings, most of the responses, and the readings on the back in English and Spanish. After Mass, I explained to Mom what the homily was about.
Then we took the time to just take pictures and walk around this basilica. Some of my pictures are below (but again, I'm not posting all of them for the sake of time.
After spending quite a while in the Basilica, we decided to go to the bakery that inspired the creators of "Miraculous: The Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir"...a famous kids' show that I really like and have gotten my niece and nephew to watch with me. Unfortunately, we got terribly lost and could not find Marinette's house anywhere. I'm pretty disappointed, but I was so hot and frustrated. Ladybug just needs to come save me while I'm here in France. Or Chat Noir. I'm not picky...and Plagg is my favorite character anyway.
Before we went on our search of Marinette's bakery, we saw a guy on the street playing La Vien Rose. I had to sneak a picture of him.
We also saw signs for the public resterooms, but they cost 1 euro and 50 cents. We didn't have to go that badly. That's another reason to carry euros and not your credit card: public bathrooms are not free. The one at Amiens' train station was only 50 cents (that's euro cents, not US dollars), so we felt like the one near Sacre-Coeur was too expensive. We could hold it.
So, then, giving up on seeing Marinette, we searched for the correct metro to go to Sainte-Chapelle (Metro 2). And we got terribly lost. This was when I got several homeless guys coming up to me and asking me for something. Every time, I said no before they could say more than "Bonjour Madame!" Really, I was hot and frustrated and anxious and lost that by the time the last homeless guy came up to me, I didn't even respond to him. He greeted me again and I turned to look at him, waved my hand fast and furious at him, and glared. I must have had my B*tch face on, because it actually worked. I had never been so angry with so many homeless coming up to me. The good thing was that he was the last one of the day. Maybe he spread the word to avoid that crazy American girl. She's scary, man.
Finally, after looking at several maps, I found Metro 2 (by the way, the Metro is what they call the subway system in Paris). Walking down, I asked the information guy to make sure we were headed to Notre Dame. Yes, Notre Dame. While Notre Dame is not open to the public, we wanted to go to Sainte-Chapelle. So, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was for the commoners. Sainte-Chappelle was for the King and Queen and their servants. We're too good for Notre Dame (no we aren't. Please fix the roof soon and let me in someday).
Here are a few pictures of Sainte-Chappelle (totally worth it to go visit. It is SO beautiful).
The outside:
The lower floor chapel (for the servants):
The upper floor (for the king and queen):
Then we had to go back to our hotel to meet our tour guide. Unfortunetly, we got lost again. After looking at several bus maps and going down into the wrong Metro on purpose to look at a better map, we found Metro 1.
We got back to the hotel at exactly 6. Talk about perfect timing.
And that's pretty much it.
Hopefully, I'll have more time to write tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment