I was able to spend today with Mike. It was wonderful! Much more fun to be with him than alone. Our first stop was Notre Dame. We took the Metro around today and it was so nice not to walk everywhere. My feet were still sore by the end of the day though.
Stephanie by the Seine River
We went in the church first. It was so beautiful! I can't believe they had the patience to spend 200 years building the church. Crazy! It was really pretty inside. Fun to be here with Mike. He makes everything fun.
Mike's selfie
Turned out better than the picture I tried to take of him.
Stephanie
Below are statues of the Kings of Judah. During the French Revolution the citizens mistook them for French kinds and chopped all their heads off. A schoolteacher collected the heads and buried them in their backyard for safe keeping. They were found in 1977. By then the statues had been repaired, although they were headless for decades.
Inside Notre Dame
This window still has the original medieval glass.
Statue of Joan of Arc
We waited in line so we could climb the towers of Notre Dame. I was glad it wasn't raining because this is what we were waiting under!
We took a lot of pictures of gargoyles, because they are just that cool. The view is not bad also.
Stephanie being the bored gargoyle
Mike
What a view! I walked to the top of that hill . . . then got lost . . .
The most photographed gargoyle. The bored one.
There is a guy climbing that tower! Crazy!
The front of Notre Dame. Carvings showing judgement day. An angel and a demon weigh the souls in the balance. The demon is cheating by pushing down on the scale. The good guys are looking up to people. The bad guys are bound in chains. The book that we were looking at said they were being led to a six hour tour of the Louvre! Haha!
This is my favorite. It is by the front door. It is of the beheaded bishop of Paris named Denis. He was beheaded by the Romans when Christianity started to get a lot of converts. After he was beheaded Denis got up, put his head under his arm and walked north. He stopped at a fountain to wash his head off, then he continued on his way.
Stephanie in front of a headless Denis
Point Zero. I am standing on the exact center of France.
We stopped and got yummy crepes and Mike got some spaghetti. The crepes were much better! Then again, I'm not a fan of spaghetti, but I'm a big fan of crepes! Mike and I tried to make our way to the Deportation Museum. We crossed a bridge that has a ton of locks on it. Weird. When we finally found the Museum it was closed for renovation. Boo!
We went to the Paris Archaeological Crypt. It is interesting how they built the city over itself. Reminded us of Seattle. Next we headed to Sainte-Chapelle. My friends all told me how much they loved it. We waited, and waited, and waited to get in. There was a line, but it was barely moving. We waited for at least 45 minutes, then all of a sudden the entire line was let in. I was so close to giving up. That would have been really annoying if that had happened as soon as we stepped out of line! We had to go through security before we could go in because it is next to the Palace of Justice. We think the security guards went to lunch. It was weird. The church was cool and all, but definitely not worth a 45 minute wait! Plus, 1/3 of the windows were in the process of being restored, including the rose window. That was disappointing.
Still really pretty though. The windows show different scenes from the bible. You read them left to right and bottom to top. It is pretty hard to figure them out though.
The ceiling is beautiful!
This is the altar where the 'crown of thorns' is displayed
The crown of thorns is the reason this church was built
Our next stop was the Conciergerie. This is where people waited until they were beheaded.2,780 people. Including Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI. They had a recreation of Marie-Antoinette's jail cell. It was pretty nice compared to where the other people had to stay.
We took the metro to the Orsay Museum. The paintings by Van Gogh were my favorite. I'm surprised how much I liked them in person. We actually whipped through this museum pretty fast. After we spent about an hour in it we realized how late it was getting. We really wanted to get tickets to walk up the Eiffel Tower. We hurried and caught the metro. The tickets are good for 90 minutes. We just made it so we didn't need to buy new ones! I ran to the metro station, then hurried through the subway and ran from the next metro station to the tower. It felt so good to run! Mike was teasing me saying I only had two speeds. Super fast and really slow. That's true. I am usually very, very slow. We were able to get tickets to walk up. It is so much cheeper and we didn't have to wait in the gigantic line! I counted about 350 steps to the 1st level, then about 350 to the 2nd level. I forget numbers so easily. Stockton would not have forgotten how many steps. Especially since it was just a few hours ago!
Stephanie - 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower
On a side note, the light makes me look really weird!
Mike
Mike - he did not want to get this picture taken
He said, "Can you see the terror inside?"
Stephanie - at the top!
Mike
At the bottom we rewarded ourselves with crepes. Mike had orange sugar and I had chocolate banana. Yummy!
We shared a dinner of roast chicken when we got back to the hotel. I was super thirsty though and refused to pay 7 euros for water. I almost had Mike run up to our room and grab a water bottle I had stashed, but I did not. I asked for tap water hoping I would get free water, but they just didn't bring me anything. I'm thirsty again just thinking about it!
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