First Day in PARIS!!!!

Ok so I have decided that I am much too far behind to catch you up on what I've done, so I'm just going to start fresh from here. If I have any spare time in the next couple days I'll try to add in things I've missed...

So this morning we packed up the bus and left Sainte-Malo and headed to Paris! On the way there we made a stop at the Chartres Cathedral, to look at it and have lunch near by. Apparently this particular Cathedral is on some list of the top 1000 things to see in the world before you die. I don't know what else is on that list, but this cathedral was amazing! It definitely out did any other cathedral I've seen yet! The outside made it look huge, but it's size really didn't strike me until I walked inside. The inside was dark and mostly only lit by candles. There was a long entry way and chairs laid out for a service. I don't even know how to describe the ceiling. It seemed like it never ended! There was beautiful stain glass surrounding the entire upper part of the cathedral. As I walked further in you could see confession booths that looked like antiques. The carving on the wood was so intricate. Around the alter was a "screen" made from the 16th to 18th c. It was an extremely detailed stone that circled around the back part of the alter. It was made up of 41 different scenes all following the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It was breathtaking! Just looking at the stone and seeing the details that hand carved was amazing. I bought a book for 7 euros explaining the cathedral and the meanings of all the statues, carvings, and stain glass so that I could show everyone back home how incredible this place was! So don't worry mom, you'll have plenty to read about! :)

After we went through the cathedral we got back on the bus and headed on to Paris. We arrived later in the afternoon around 3:30ish. After Alex and I got our room keys we headed up stairs to get settled, shower, and then head back to the lobby to meet everyone at 530. We decided as a group to walk around for a bit before dinner. Lucky for us we're only about 10 mins walking distance from the Eiffel Tower! I have to say I felt EXACTLY like Meg Ryan in "French Kiss" when I saw it. It was still unbelievable even with it standing right in front of me. It may not be the nicest looking architecture in the world, but it still can take your breath away. After we took a few pictures we headed down towards these little shop areas where we had dinner at "Le Champ de Mars" (at least I think that's what I remember it was called). I had veal in a mushroom sauce, it was delicious!

After dinner our group split up. Some headed back to the hotel, while Alex, Alan, Michael, Kaitlyn, Allison, Stephanie and I decided to look for this old book store called "Shakespeare and Company". It supposedly is a well known book store that has original copies of some really famous novels. Unfortunately for us, the store was about 40 mins of a walking distance from dinner, but we made the trip anyways (yes, I was very tired and didn't feel like walking haha). It was really cool to walk though because we stayed right next to the Seine River, so we were able to see a bunch of different things as we walked by. However, there was only one thing that made my heart jump, and that was Notre Dame. Seeing it in person was just amazing! I was completely drawn into it (and wondering why we were going to a book store instead of the incredible cathedral to our left?!!?). But we went to the book store instead, which sadly was a huge let down. I took some pictures, and it was definitely "neat," but not walking half across town worthy....Unfortunately we were supposed to meet back up with the group for a night cruise so we didn't have time to walk across the street to Notre Dame. But mark my words, I will see that beautiful cathedral again!

So we all got in a Taxi and raced back to the Eiffel Tower to meet the rest of the group. Well once we got down to the area to buy tickets for the night cruise, there was an accident involving a bus falling into the river and sinking. So they closed the cruises for the night. Hopefully we'll get to go tomorrow because it sounded really cool! Well after that we all realized how tired we were, and how much we all had planned the next day, so we just headed back home. Tomorrow we have our group walking tour (yay oh yay, by the way I am so jealous of the people with Seg Way's all over the city) at 10am then afterwards we're let loose. Alex, Chris, Kyle and I plan to see the MOULIN ROUGE!!!! Which if anyone who is reading this knows that this is probably the one place I want to see in Paris!!!! So I am super excited for tomorrow and can't wait to tell everyone about it on here afterwards!! Sorry for not posting for so long, we have a little longer before we start back up with classes, so hopefully the blogs will continue as usual. Love and miss everybody!! And thank you everyone following me on here and taking the time to read my blogs!