The list of sites I saw: Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, San Chapelle, Museé de Louvre, and Museé d'Orsay
This is sort of a failed jumping photo, but we tried... also, we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and it was so amazing! You can see the whole city and the Seine running through. Also, the elevator ride up is kind of like an amusement park ride! And actually much more frightening -- glass door elevator hurdling through some metal crosses -- than actually being at the top.
The Notre Dame was INCREDIBLE. It was so beautiful! All the stained glass was so fabulous and bright. I was very impressed. I am actually constantly astounded by the architecture and handicraft of the old building in Europe because they seem like they would be incredible feats today and almost unimaginably hard to build during the centuries during which they were built. Hats off to you, ancient builders, you were pretty visionary.
LOOK AT THE COLORS! That is not photoshop. That is real.
The Louvre! Ahhh here is one debacle: we bought tickets that morning to see the Louvre and had to pick them up at a chain store (FNAC). We struggled for quite some time trying to find the one closest to us, which, once we found, turned out to be under construction! After taking a taxi (this is 11 hours into our day and we had just spent 45 minutes finding a store we couldn't go to), getting the tickets (finally), and walking to the Louvre, we present our tickets, only to be told, to our delight, that the Louvre was free that day for people under 26 years of age. We showed our passports and got in for free. FOR FREE! I still have my unused ticket... Seriously, it is a good thing the Louvre is such an outstanding museum or I would have been considerably more upset over this. Side note: I love the pyramids. It's an interesting contrast with the old, beautiful building of the Louvre.
Last photo: The desserts were so delicious! Especially the éclairs...I'm afraid I have no photos of the Museé d'Orsay because they didn't allow cameras, but it was by far my favorite museum in the world. I have been to quite a few for my (relatively) young age, but I could have stayed there forever. Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Degas, and van Gogh, among others! Ahhh, tt was so incredible and I'm not even an art fanatic by any means. My one complaint: everything was in French! I wanted to read the titles, but I was a little lost. But I guess we were in France, so I'll forgive that...
My friends and I also went out to dinner with my grandparents who live in Paris for roughly half the year and that was incredible. We had drinks at their apartment: champagne with elderberry liqueur in it that they had brought back from Germany -- it was delicious! Sweet and light. We then went a bistro they knew extremely well and had lots of wonderful French food. Seriously, French food is out of this world. It was really great to see them and my friends were, of course, were delighted to go to an authentic French bistro! My last misadventure was getting lost running and ending up at the Moulin Rouge somehow, but it's a fairly tame sight at 8am -- I was actually surprised it was on such a huge, main road. Anyway, Sunday morning we finished off our trip with fruit tarts and cappuccinos and now I'm back in Granada for only 3 more weeks!
5 more weeks of Spain. 3 weeks left in Granada. 2 weeks of class. 1 week of finals. 1 more friend visiting. A lot more tapas (but never enough) and no more trips outside of Spain! Endings are always bittersweet.
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