PontifiKate

Day 9: Wed. Sept. 21st -- PARIS (through Th. morning)

Paris photos with titles and some captions

Paris photos in slideshow format

We arrived in Paris and grabbed breakfast. (We narrowly missed “ending up” at McDonald’s. Who wants to go to McDo’s when they’re in Europe??)

We started by going to Notre Dame, passing Pont Neuf on the way. The church was beautiful, of course. Next we headed over to the Saint Chapelle, which has excellent stained glass art (though it’s small and kind of difficult to see).



We then went to the Musée D’Orsay, discovering on the way that we’d have to cut it very short if we wanted to make the train to Giverny. We saw a good part of it (wow!) and promptly left.

We booked it to the train station only to find that our information was incomplete and we had actually missed the last train to Giverny. Shoot. Plan B: going up the Eiffel Tower. (I love how that was our Plan B!)

The Eiffel Tower was neat. It truly is an architectural masterpiece, and the view is pretty fantastic. [For any who plan to go, my advice would be to save money and give the very top a miss, because the second (of three) levels was better in both my and Elissa’s opinions… but it depends on what you want.]

We had time before Elissa’s train to Madrid, so we went over to the Arche de Triomphe and walked down the Champs Élysées a ways. (Singing the whole time in my head, “Oh, Champs Élysées! Oh, Champs Élysées…”)

We retrieved Elissa’s luggage (no extra charge!) and she got on her train for Madrid. (deep breath) Okay, onward!

I then got on the metro and found my hostel, which wasn’t too difficult. I liked my room, which was good, because I had paid a chunk extra to have one to myself (with its own shower, etc.). I relaxed. I slept. Ahh.

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I dreamt about home again (something I did just about every night -- like I had to give it and the people there an appointed share of brain activity).

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I left pretty directly in the morning and spent way too much time trying to find an Internet café. Way to much time. I wanted to check for a response from Patrice (my host dad) to ensure that they were, indeed, expecting me to show up on their doorstep that afternoon, courtesy of my school principal, who’d get me from the train station in Avignon to Cavaillon, and my new home. Anyway, no luck.

I retrieved my luggage, and had to pay a sum for it (which I had expected until Elissa got off the hook). Managing my luggage was comparatively easy this time. :o)

I got on the train to Avignon, and a new adventure began.

posted by Kate @ 5:43 AM