After a little under two weeks in the States (and having just FINALLY adjusted to U.S. time on the third-to-last day of my stay, of course) I'm now back in France--starting off the New Year right with two days in Paris!
My flight took off at just after 6pm on January 1st, and I arrived in Paris at just before 7am on January 2nd. On a side note, that is a silly time for a flight: no one is tired enough to fall asleep on the plane for more than an hour or two, and by the time you land (after six hours), it's morning in Europe and you've skipped an entire night's rest! Needless to say, as soon as arrived, I made a beeline for my hotel and took a three-hour nap. Sure, it was probably the wrong thing to do if I wanted to combat jet lag, but I was honestly too tired to care.
After waking up a little less tired, I planned the rest of my day while trying to get in contact with a few of my friends who I knew were also in Paris. Then I set off: straight to Pere Lachaise. It's the largest (and most famous) cemetery in Paris, and hundreds of famous people are buried here. Specifically I wanted to pay my respects to the famous French singer Edith Piaf, but I never looked at the map of where celebrity's graves are located, so I managed to wander around the cemetery for a while without ever finding her tomb.
Oddly enough, the graveyard had hundreds of other people strolling through as well. Many were tourists, of course, but many others were Parisian couples taking a walk. It is a pretty place, Pere Lachaise, not creepy or morbid like one would think a huge cemetery would be, but it's not exactly the first place I would think of for a walk through Paris! Now that I think about it, Parisian tourist attractions tend towards the morbid... on my first visit to Paris , I took the walk through the underground crypts and now a cemetery...
I headed towards Notre Dame de Paris afterwards, the grand cathedral being one of the few things that I missed the first time I was in Paris. Impressions? ...It was nice, I guess. Much smaller than Strasbourg's cathedral. To be honest, I'm a little bit spoiled with my Notre Dame de Strasbourg--that cathedral towers above the whole city, and its façade is so beautifully and so intricately carved that Paris's Notre Dame didn't stand a chance. So while it was good to visit for myself... everyone should come see Strasbourg's Notre Dame cathedral instead!!
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| At least Notre Dame de Paris had a Christmas Tree, although it was also smaller than Strasbourg's tree. |
Next, I met up with Kat, her friend Alexis, and Lorena (a HC friend who is abroad in Italy this year) at la Musee d'Orsay. Originally a train station, Orsay is one of the more famous museums in Paris (along with the Louvre and le Centre Pompidou), and holds mostly impressionist works (think Monet, Manet, Degas, Pissarro, and Cezanne) although many other artists and sculptures have their works displayed as well. Luckily, the museum was open late on Thursday for some reason, because the line was so long! We stayed there until Orsay closed at 9:30pm.
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| I really liked this Pissarro, so I snuck a picture of it |
My internal clock still messed up, I split off from Kat, Lorena, and Alexis after Orsay to head back to my hotel for some dinner and sleep. However, I had one last day in Paris before heading back to Strasbourg Friday night. I asked my friends what they were doing, and they said that they were planning to visit Versailles! Obviously, I jumped at the opportunity to see the golden Versailles! But those photos will just have to wait for another post, coming soon, I promise.
Also, sidenote: I barely saw the Eiffel Tower this visit to Paris--and by that I mean once, from far, far away on the river, I glimpsed it all lit up at night (can you spot it in one of these photos?) but that was it!
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