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| The Tower Sparkling |
France. Well, it was an adventure. I arrived in Paris and made my way to the apartment where I was supposed to be staying with my two friends, Lizbeth and Erica, who had “arrived” that morning. When there was no answer at the door I figured that their flight had been delayed so I made my way to an internet café to find that not only was it delayed, but that they would not be arriving until the next day, New Year’s Eve. I followed the instructions to get the key and there was no great catastrophe. Lizbeth and Erica arrived the next day, exhausted from days (literally) of traveling.
That night we headed to the Eiffel Tower to wait for it to sparkle on the hour, marking the change from 2010 to 2011. Bonne Annee! The fireworks that we were hoping for were not seen, but hey, we were in Paris and it was the New Year!
The days to come were filled with sight after sight that we wanted to see. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (just the outside), The Arch of Triumph, The Alexander Bridge, Notre Dame, The Latin Quarter, Champs Elysee and probably more that I am forgetting. We all learned that it is
extremely hard to vacation in the dead of winter. We were constantly looking for a place to
go instead of just being able to go sit in a park for a few hours and read a book or play cards, or take a snooze. It was so cold that if we sat outside for even the shortest period of time to simply eat a sandwich our toes and fingers would scream with painful numbness.
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| Notre Dame was beautiful at dusk! |
On Sunday we went to Hillsong Paris, a church that is all over the world. Although the teaching wasn’t anything groundbreaking, it was so neat to see a service that was completely bilingual. It really made me wish there was a church like that here in Florence. It was so refreshing to spend two weeks being spiritually refreshed by the people I was around though. God knew I needed some recharging even though I didn’t realize it.
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| The Latin Quarter |
That night we went to the Latin Quarter. I had no idea that this even existed in Paris! We wandered around looking for this area for quite a while, but there is no missing it once you stumble upon it. The Latin Quarter was so different from the rest of the city that it felt like we weren’t even in Paris anymore. There were bright colored balloons, lights, shouting people trying to pull you in to their restaurant for dinner…it felt more like Italy than Paris.
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| The Gardens of Versailles |
On Tuesday we went to The Palace of Versailles outside of Paris. And believe it or not, it was even colder there than in Paris! It was definitely not the ideal time to see the gardens, but I am glad we were able to go. The statues were covered and the fountains were all off and frozen over. I can’t even imagine living in a building that big...a castle. It is basically having a small town inside one building. I don’t even know how many people lived there.
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| The view from the first terrace of the Eiffel Tower |
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| Speculoos! Cinnamon Teddy Grams in a jar! |
While in France Erica, Lizbeth and I experienced our fair share of cafés, shopping, bakeries, frustrations, joy, French stereotypes, Speculoos, Lizbeth’s iPod Touch, movie quoting and lots of laughter. What a special time this was to get to know my friends even better in a country completely foreign to all of us.
France. Well, it was an adventure. I arrived in Paris and made my way to the apartment where I was supposed to be staying with my two friends, Lizbeth and Erica, who had “arrived” that morning. When there was no answer at the door I figured that their flight had been delayed so I made my way to an internet café to find that not only was it delayed, but that they would not be arriving until the next day, New Year’s Eve. I followed the instructions to get the key and there was no great catastrophe. Lizbeth and Erica arrived the next day, exhausted from days (literally) of traveling.
The days to come were filled with sight after sight that we wanted to see. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (just the outside), The Arch of Triumph, The Alexander Bridge, Notre Dame, The Latin Quarter, Champs Elysee and probably more that I am forgetting. We all learned that it is extremely hard to vacation in the dead of winter. We were constantly looking for a place to go instead of just being able to go sit in a park for a few hours and read a book or play cards, or take a snooze. It was so cold that if we sat outside for even the shortest period of time to simply eat a sandwich our toes and fingers would scream with painful numbness.
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