Paris
Bienvenue à Paris!
The city of every teenage girls dreams where they think a cute french man is gonna come and sweep them of their feet. I wish I could say the same out the women here. Haha. They have this air of authority around them, intimidating if you ask me. Anyway, Paris is a beautiful city as always. A plethora of art and culture all around this city. We got put up in this wonderful hotel called the Oceania. It was outside the city, but the hotel room made up for its location. It was definitely the best shower I have seen till date and the room was equipped with a plasma tv and speakers. We spent most of our days touring the city. There is a lot to see here. Most of all we did was in the center of Paris.
Our first day was spent going to a service at Notre Dame. At this point I was about done seeing cathedrals. It all seemed too redundant too me.It was the music that got me this time. The choir was absolutely incredible and being in the cathedral with so many people chanting is definitely something people visiting Paris should definitely do . On a side note, check this rendering of Notre Dame https://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaiseaguerayarcasdemos_photosynth.html
The following day we visited the Louvre; saw the Mona Lisa pretty close up. One word, Overrated! I liked Raft of the Medusa better. Saw a few mummies, fairly creepy. It took me about 4 hours to see one wing of the Louvre and I rest the left of it for my visit sometime in the near future. As part of my tour we also went to the D'Orsey Museum which was sadly under renovation but the grand clock in the museum reminds you of how it was an old railway station that was later converted to a museum. Our next visit later next day was at the Pompidou which was fascianting. I learned that a pink string in a 600 sq ft room can qualify as modern art. So can vultures sitting around eating intestines coming out of a statue of Buddha.. Scary stuff.
The next day we visited the house of Rodin, which was in the heart of the city and had a gorgeous view from its lush gardens. Rodin was the sculptor of the well known figure of the thinker and the gates of hell depiction. The rest of the day was dedicated to climbing the Eiffel Tower which was a bad idea.
Since we didn't buy tickets the whole way we had to make it to the second level to use the elevator. That was a fairly tiring experience. The view from the top was well worth it. Plus it gives me bragging rights since a great wonder of the world. We then walked to L'arc de Triomphe and decided to climb that too. It definitely turned out to be a lot worse than the Eiffel Tower since the stairs were too skinny to hold my big feet. and there were about 300 of them. Again the view of the city from the center of Paris is something words cannot do justice to.
Food in Paris is something that takes getting used to. They play with a few flavors and really to exxagerate the effect of those flavors in the dish. I finally tried escargo on a pizza. It was delicious. Our last day there, one of our professors who loves Indian food took us out to dinner to an Indian restaurant. It was actually really good. Overall, I had a great trip in Paris, much better than what I expected and definitely one of the best cities I have been to on this tour.
Au revoir for now, I'm losing my stolen wi-fi connection from the park here.. Seems to be a trend with my blog posts:)
Check out more photos on Flickr