Rose Loves Paris...and our great Sunday!

We had a good day today!

Before I talk about today, though, i have to say that my sister is obsessed with Paris. I mentioned Wednesday when she took off running toward the Eiffel Tower as soon as we were close, right after we arrived.

Well, Wednesday night, we climbed the Arc D'Triumph (for the second time) to see the tower at night. It was beautiful. We took pictures, enjoyed the view, and then decided to try to get to it in time to see it light up. Rose thought that it lit up at 8 minutes after the hour, and we had about 25 minutes to get there. WE took off, found the metro station, and made our way to the tower. When we got off the train and exited the station, we started walking toward the tower. In a minute, Rose spotted the reflection of the sparkles in the river, and yelled, "It's sparkling!" She then proceeded to run toward the bridge where we would have a good view. It was raining again, there was traffic, and there went my sister, blindly running for a view of the tower. I could barely see where I was going, with my poncho over my head. I followed her, though, and we were able to watch the tower sparkle for about 10 minutes. It really was beautiful. It just made me a little nervous to see Rose darting through traffic to get to it! I think the tower is a magnet, and Rose is the opposite pole. haha

The other thing about Paris that Rose is in love with is crepes. I think she has had three chocolate crepes so far. When she gets one, she just starts giggling. I now know what to do anytime she is mad about something...buy her a chocolate crepe!

Anyway, today was a great day. We went to Notre Dame this morning for the 10:00 mass. It was beautiful. They had the liturgy printed in various languages, including English, so we could follow pretty well. It was also a Gregorian mass, with the mass sung in latin. They had it printed in Latin and in French, so between the two, we could understand a lot of it. It was neat. After mass, we climbed to the top of the bell tower. We had a beautiful view of Paris, and could see a lot of detail in the cathedral itself. We were face to face with some pretty creepy gargoyles. In fact, creepy was the word of the day for me. I commented that the organ music before mass was creepy (it was), and then I commented that the gargoyles were creepy. Rose looked at me like I was crazy, and said "you think everything is creepy!" Oh well. I enjoyed it anyway. We'll post some gargoyle pictures and you can decide for yourself if they are creepy. One of them in particular was devouring a dead rabbit! The poor rabbit was hanging out of its mouth. That's creepy.

After Notre Dame, we went to San Chappelle, a chapel that is very close to Notre Dame. It is gorgeous! The main chapel is almost completely made of stained glass windows. There is about 1600 square feet of stained glass, depicting the stories of Christianity from Genesis through the Apocalypse. The sun was shining, so the windows were particularly beautiful. Hopefully those pictures turned out well also, and Rose can post them later.

After the two churches, we went to the Orsay Museum, which is art from the 1800's and early 1900's. It contains a lot of impressionistic art, which I love. We spent about 3 hours there, enjoying many painting by Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Cassatt, Pissaro, etc. We had a great time in the museum. They had some more modern stuff that we don't particularly care for, but that's okay. It was a nice change from the ancient art of Italy.

Tonight, we found a great restaurant for dinner!!!! We are really excited about it. It is called "Breakfast in America" and is a diner owned by Americans. It was so good. We both had omelets, fried potatoes, and toast. I had great coffee, and Rose had...a Dr. Pepper!!! It is the first Dr. Pepper we have seen here. She ordered water first, and then someone else mentioned Dr. Pepper. She quickly flagged down the waitress, and said "Did I hear you say you have Dr. Pepper?" "Yes, we sure do!" replied the waitress. Tears of joy welled up in Rose's eyes as she grinned and said, "Can I please have one?" It was classic. Our breakfasts for almost a month have consisted of breads. It is getting a little old. We have been buying fruit and yogurt, but it was so nice to have eggs. I am feeling protein deprived! By the way, it is a good thing that Rose enjoyed her Dr. Pepper, and that she didn't ask how much it cost before she ordered it. It ended up being over $4 for one can!!! Beverages are so expensive here.

Now I am blogging, and I lost Rose. She is probably headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. She just took off and said she was going to look for something, and I haven't seen her since. Oh well. She knows where the hotel is! I'm sure she'll show up before Thursday.

Everything is going well! We are having a great time, despite the rain. We are really hoping that we have at least one clear night to explore Paris at night. WE were going to out last night at night. We were in our room at 7:30 and decided to wait a couple hours, since it doesn't get dark until after 10. We both fell asleep, and when we woke up at 9:45, we decided we were too tired to go out. Instead, we took showers, got ready for bed, and went to sleep. We'll probably go to bed early tonight, too, since we have a big day at the Louvre tomorrow!

Have a great week!!!

Katie