Friday, July 10: We got up REALLY early, loaded our luggage into the bus, ate breakfast, and then left beautiful, wonderful, awesome London for the next leg of the journey. We headed south to Dover (of the White Cliff fame) to catch a ferry across the English Channel. I originally pictured some kind of flat-top boat that fit about 10 vehicles and where all the passengers just kind of hung out by their vehicle and wandered the deck while crossing the channel. I pictured a quaint little shop. I was a little surprised to see how HUGE the ferry was. I guess it makes sense--tons of people cross the channel. So much that they even have the Chunnel. Silly Idaho girl. We pulled into Dover (also not the quaint town I had pictured in my head from reading 18th and 19th century novels) and got a little peek at this quaint little castle up on top of the cliffs:
(I took this picture from the ferry). We had to go through a little security check and then lined up to go onto the ferry. While we were waiting for departure, we headed into a little gift shop and restroom area. There, we picked up a few things for the kids since we never really got a chance to shop much in London. We spent the last of our British pounds and then ran back to the bus to go onto the ferry. Once the bus loaded onto the ferry, we climbed several flights of stairs to the deck so we could get a better look at the cliffs, and then we were off!
After taking way too many pictures trying to capture the amazingness of these famous white cliffs, we headed below, heading down two flights of stairs to the dining area. We grabbed some brunch and then chatted in the dining room until it was time to head back down to the buses. I will confess, I started feeling a little sick. I wish that boats and I got along better. Don't they know how much I love the water?! So, along with exhaustion and sea-sickness, the rest of the day was a little rough. We arrived in Calais (which also looked nothing like I had long imagined), and began our drive across France to Paris. We stopped at a couple of rest areas and grabbed more food (I feel like all we did on some of those days was eat and drive). I was surprised how much French I remembered from my one semester in 8th grade. I also was surprised by how much I thought that if I just said things in a French accent that I could (a) be understood and (b)not be "one of those ignorant, snobby Americans". And then the logical part of me would have to point out the flaws in that line of thinking. I was so glad we went to London first! We got our feet wet in foreign culture while still being able to speak our native language. I lamented not knowing another language! I also lamented not feeling well and as a result not being too excited about Paris. In fact, when we first looked around as we drove into Paris, I felt really disappointed. London was much more visually exciting.
We had dinner and met our city hosts, and then we drove to the outskirts of town to our hotel. We got all checked into our hotel, and I got to work soaking our clothes for our first round of hand-washed laundry:
We had an orientation with the whole group and then a staff orientation, and during the orientations, we were told not to wash our laundry in the hotel. Oops! Too late. We were impressed with our city hosts--they made everything in Paris so easy, especially compared to London! Paris was starting to look more promising. We settled into our hotel, and I think we even had a chance to Skype our kids, and I got a little choked up seeing their sweet little faces (But that may have been the next day. I don't remember).
Saturday, July 11: Our first real day in Paris dawned, and I was feeling much better. Our first stop was Montmatre. Our bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill, and we carefully made our way up it, avoiding eye contact so we didn't get sucked into any schemes or anything. Our city hosts had made such a big deal out of everything they told us that we would encounter on the way--the shell games, the string people, and pick pocketers--that when we made it to the "safe zone", we all kind of went "That was it?" The police must have just cleared the area because we didn't see any of it.
Montmatre is "the Mountain of the Martr." According to tradition, Denis, the Bishop of Paris was martyred here back in 250 A.D. by being decapitated, and after losing his head, Denis picked it up and walked 6 miles while preaching a sermon of repentance. Because of that miracle, he is considered a saint, specifically one of the Patron Saints of Paris. At the top of Montmatre stand the Sacre-Coeur Basilica, which was built between 1900 and 1910.
The Basilica has fountains at the base:
Greg and I felt they were worthy of another in-law picture:
After going through the Basilica, we headed over to the Artist's section, stopping to get legit French crepes for lunch. We tried chicken and cheese, ham and cheese, strawberry, and chocolate. The chocolate was my favorite.
I loved the artist area. There were so many amazing paintings and so many artists wanting to paint our pictures. There was one painting I really wanted, but it was way too expensive. Plus, I didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to figure out how to get it home. This area on top of Montmartre is also famous for being the birthplace of impressionism.
While we were up there, we did encounter a few gypsies working a scheme (that we had been warned about). They were trying to get us to sign a petition and give them money. It was clearly illegal for them to be doing that because we saw a police officer making one woman rip her petition up. And on our way back down, the string people were back. They wrap a string around your wrist, make a bracelet or something with the string, and won't let you leave until you pay them. Brian almost got caught by one. The man wrapped a string around Brian's wrist, and Brian quickly realized what was going on and firmly told the man no. A group of our students were following behind us and saw what happened. They were a little unsettled by seeing the scheme they'd heard so much about and stuck closer to us on the way down. Oh, and I just remembered, the city hosts and directors had asked the boys to help watch out for the girls. I loved seeing those high school boys stepping up as protectors. Chivalry is not dead, folks. I confess that I held on a little tighter to Brian going up and down the hill. It was beautiful despite the schemes, and we had no major incidents.
Here Greg and Brian are across the street from the Montmartre road, waiting for our bus to come pick us up after our adventure up there.
When the bus arrived, we got on as quickly as we could, and a little French tour guide joined us to give us a driving tour of Paris. We saw the famous Moulin Rouge:
The Paris Opera House:
And of course, the Eiffel Tower. They let us stop and get off the bus for photos. This is across the Seine from the tower:
And someone was kind enough to take a group photo of all of us:
After the bus tour, we went to the Louvre. Since we came in by tour buses in a huge group, we didn't use the normal, Pyramid entrance. Instead, we entered from the parking garage through the Carousel. Our city hosts have getting into the Louvre down to a science, and we were able to quickly get in and start exploring.
The Louvre used to be a fortress and palace, dating back to eh late 12th century. The Louvre palace housed the monarchy until Louis XIV moved his household to Versailles in 1682. At that time, the Louvre was used primarily as ta place to display the royal collection which included ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum. My favorite part of visiting the Louvre was seeing the building itself. On recommendation from Julie was to start in the basement, so we did. Here you can see the original fortress walls. Amazing.
(Notice the backwards knapsack? Yup, protecting against pick-pocketers).
The Louvre is MASSIVE! And all the signs are in French. We did our best to see everything we could with the short amount of time that we had. I feel pretty good about what we were able to see, but like the British Museum, we left wanting more.
Here I am with the Venus De Milo:
And the Nike of Samothrace (winged Victory):
(All of us travelers looked a little pregnant, including the high school girls due to our concealed wallets that we wore under our clothes to protect our valuables.)
Like I said, my favorite part of the Louvre was the Louvre itself. Look at these amazing panels and paintings. Incredible! We visited the Napoleon apartments and saw lots of restored interiors. I loved them!
Brian's always drawn to the armor things. Good thing we went to lots of castles and saw lots of weapons!
I finally got to see I. M. Pei's famous Pyramid in person. So cool! (Even though it doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the palace.)
One of our last stop was the gallery with the Renaissance Paintings. Of course, the area around the Mona Lisa was crowded, but we patiently pushed our way through and I made Brian take this picture:
Not sure how this painting in particular has caused the stir that it has, especially considering the much grander works surrounding it, but we can now say that we have seen the original.
One last random note about the Louvre. Remember how I said Europe doesn't believe in air-conditioning the way that we do? Well, the Louvre is air-conditioned, but the AC is quite under-powered, especially in the areas that didn't require extensive remodeling. The areas that had clearly been gutted and remodeled were the coolest, but I suppose that came at the greatest cost. If you go to the Louvre in the summer, and you find yourself overheating, go stand over one of the AC vents for a few minutes. And put a smile on because you're standing in an incredible historical building. That's what we did. Oh, and brush up on your French so you can understand what the different signs say.
After the Louvre, we went to dinner, the same restaurant as the night before. After dinner, we took a river tour of the Seine with Bateaux-Mouches. It was gorgeous to see the city from the River.
(Notre Dame Cathedral)
We also saw The Statue of Liberty, but we were too far away from it to get a really good picture. I had to laugh that I saw The Statue of Liberty in France before I saw the one in New York. I still haven't seen the one in New York.
After the river tour, we headed back to the hotel for the night. That was my favorite day we had in Paris.
Sunday, July 12: We woke up bright and early so we could eat breakfast and get to the Eiffel Tower in time that we could make it to the top before we had to be at our next thing. Greg convinced Brian, Lara, and I to walk half-way up. The line was shorter, and we figured we'd have a better chance of making it to the top if we walked. Kirt and Julie opted for the elevator. We started the adventure full of enthusiasm:
We made it to the first level and made good time (although we were pretty winded. It's a long way up there!) They have a glass section of floor on the first level, so to give you some perspective, here's what the swarms of people on the ground look like from the first level:
We cruised our way to the second level, and then bought a ticket to ride the elevator to the top of the tower. And watched as Paris got smaller and smaller.
We also followed directions:
And Kirt and Julie finally caught up to us (we were happy to know that it was slightly faster to walk up).
After going up the tower, we got a group picture in front of the tower. And then we took some silly pictures:
After the Eiffel Tower, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe
And then walked down the famous Champs Elysees to the Grand Palace (built for the world fair). The street was lined with French flags and bleachers in preparation for Bastille Day. Along the street are numerous high-end shops. In one of them, I tried on an $800 pair of sunglasses--and they weren't even that comfortable!
I wish that we had remembered that we could have tried to tour the Petite and/or Grand Palaces, because the walk was a little lame. Our concerts in Paris got canceled because of safety reasons, a big part of it having to do with the newspaper shooting. They weren't able to secure venues that they usually do, and so they canceled our concerts. The walk was put into the schedule to fill in the void created as a result.
After our walk, we headed to Notre Dame. We got in a huge line to go through, and it actually went pretty quickly.
The Gothic architecture is amazing!
And the huge, stained glass windows:
While we were walking through, we pulled out of the line to sit in the chairs and worship for a few minutes. We remembered that it was Sunday (It was so hard to remember the days of the week because everything was so out of the norm.) We went to so many different churches on this trip, none of which were places where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worships. Still, it was lovely to see these beautiful buildings that were built with so much care and devotion to the Lord. Notre Dame took 200 years to build (which is why there are two obviously different design styles seen from the exterior). We sat, pulled up the scriptures on our phones, and read the Sacrament Prayers. And then we continued on with our walk-through tour.
See the flying buttresses: Amazing.
While we were walking around the back of Notre Dame, we saw a lock bridge, and decided, "Eh, why not?" Brian bought a lock, we wrote our names on it, and then Brian tried to find a place to attach the lock.
We ended up finding a different place, finally got it locked (by then I was pretty frustrated because it was almost time to get back on the bus and I had hoped to have time to explore the gift shops, since it was our last night in Paris). We finally got the lock locked and dropped our keys into the Seine (they bounced off the bridge on the way down, and we laughed).
We had to kind of book it to make it to the bus stop. I found the shirt that I wanted hanging up in a shop, but we didn't have time to buy it. Oh well, it was the Sabbath anyway, and we have a funny story to tell about our lock that will last much longer than any t-shirt.
We headed back to the hotel, grateful for an early night. We packed and crashed.
