Paris day 2

-tour Eiffel

-Reginald 

-arc du triomphe 

-champs élysées 

- place de la Concorde

- opera house 

- saint chapelle

- sacre couer

-Montmartre

 The next morning was a hard one. We were up early and I felt like I hardly got any sleep. We headed out to the Eiffel Tower in attempt to beat the lines and the rain, neither of which we accomplished, but the ride up was well worth the wait. We went up to the very tippy top, and enjoyed the view of a city that goes on forever. 

  After we met up with Reginald, who Garrett taught on his mission. He spoke a little English, but I spent most of lunch trying to figure out their French conversation. I think Reginald probably thinks I'm quite dumb, because halfway through the meal I mistook my water glass for the Parmesan and poured almost my entire glass of water into my Carbonara. It was a disaster. In my defense the Parmesan was the same size, shape, glass, and weight, sitting right by my water, and I poured it in distractedly while trying to listen to their conversation. Luckily the French are very gracious servers, and they brought me a whole new plate for free, which I kind of regretted because I only could eat a little before I was full. Oh well. I'll win some other time.

   After lunch we headed off to climb the Arc du Triomphe, and stroll down the Champs Élysées.

View from the Arc du Triomphe We shopped a little but I didn't buy anything. When we got to Place de la Concorde we took the litt
le public folding chairs and set them overlooking the square while we sat in the sun and imagined what it must've been like during the revolution that centered there where the guillotines used to stand. The obelisk and surrounding buildings don't seem very much to be excited about but sitting there in the moment it seemed like an adventure to me.       After that we found time to hit the opera house from Phantom of the Opera. We walked up the grand staircase hand in hand, just like the 17th century Parisians in their fancy outfits, and explored the hall with rows of incredible chandeliers all bright gold.

We had a hard time getting a good shot because the gold of the ceiling didn't give much contrast for the detail on the chandeliers, but it looked awesome in real life. The poor theater itself was destroyed by what looks like a 90s tacky piece of "modern art" on the ceiling that I deplored and couldn't even look at. It makes me ill to think such a spectacular room could be killed by such poor choice of ceiling painting. I hate modern art normally, but modern art elbowing it's way into the place of real art is even more disgusting. 

   As it neared closing time we thought about how it was our last night and we hadn't seen Saint Chapelle. We'd avoided it earlier because the lines were ridiculous, but we decided to make a last ditch effort to go at least see what it looked like. We got there after it had closed and they were only letting people that already had tickets in. We had a museum pass so they let us in! Best play of the day- no line at all and we got to see the whole thing. The stained glass was really a memorable sight, and it's amazing to think they took the whole thing down, piece by piece, during WWII to make sure they didn't get blasted out. The chapel was under construction so I couldn't really tell, but it seemed rather small to me.

   Reginald told us we had to see Sacre Coeur at night when the city was lit, so we headed over and ate dinner on Montmartre at Chez Eugene where jolly Russians sang a loud chorus together for some celebration- or maybe they were just drunk. Montmartre was so picturesque so we walked the streets at twilight and saw the Eiffel Tower glitter on the hour when night fell. Sacre Coeur was more modern than I expected, and I love the weird shape of the dome, especially from a distance.

Sneek peek to Hall of Mirrors, Versailles