The Incredible-ness Continues

This comprises days 2-4. Turns out being in Paris keeps you busy and doesn't give you much time to do anything besides see everything it has to offer! We had to walk around with our big group of 27 students and our director to see the sites on the second day, which was rather frustrating. Everyone instantly knew we were americans because we were stereotypically loud and we didn't really know what was going on around us. It is also frustrating because there are quite a few people in our group that don't like speaking french all the time and so they speak in english, even to the natives, which really bothers them. I've been trying to speak french as often as I can because I really want to become better. I can already tell that I've become a lot more confident in approaching natives and speaking to them, even if there are still quite a few words I don't know. I'm figuring out how to describe things even if I don't know the right word for it. The french people are much more understanding if you try to speak in french with them first, even if you don't get it all the way right. We have class Monday through Saturday from 10:30am to 12, which is not bad at all. We're studying French history from 1715 to present so right now we are covering the time leading up to the Revolution and the conditions of the different classes during this time. I think I have learned about the Revolution five or six times now, but each time I learn new things and it gets more in-depth. It has been incredible being able to see the buildings and the monuments that go along with what I have learned. Two days ago after class we went to H&M and did some shopping. Then we got baguette sandwiches from a boulangerie and ate in the court in front of Hotel de Ville (the big building in the first picture).
Then we went to Notre Dame, which is a thousand times more beautiful in real life than in pictures. The outside is the most incredible part because the architecture is so ornate and so detailed, it's incredible. The back has the flying buttresses which I though was the most fascinating part of the building; well that and the rose window, which is also incredible. We took the pilgrimage walk through Notre Dame and looked at the stained glass windows and the many statues and paintings it has inside of it. We are going to go back a different day and climb the stairs to get a view from the top. After that we went to the Crypte archéologique du Parvis Notre Dame, which was across the court in front of it and under ground. It was basically the rock foundations for the Roman and very early Parisian constructions, which was interesting to see. Then we went to the Conciergerie, which is where some of the earlier kings lived and it is most notable for being the place where Robespierre and the Jacobins put their prisoners before they sent them to the guillotine. We saw the cell for Marie-Antoinette there and they had some pictures of what it must have been like for the hundreds of prisoners to be stuffed in that one room. Terrible. It did have some really incredible gothic architecture. We had to go through a metal detector and check before we went in there and the guard started talking to us in french, but he could tell by how we were responding that we weren't french. He guess we were German; I could tell that he was pleasantly surprised that we could speak another language when we told him we were American and he was very interested in how and why we learned french.
After that we went to Sainte-Chapelle, which is a cathedral at the center of the island that is part of Paris. Its second floor (which here is called the first floor because the ground floor is called 0, cool huh?) has amazing stained-glass windows that go like 40' high and are very colorful. The windows depict different seems from the Bible. It was kind of sad because they were doing some restoring of the windows so they had the Passion side of the floor covered with boards and we didn't get to see it. I tried to take some pictures because the ceiling was really beautiful and there were some amazing sculptures in between the wall and the ceiling, but none of them even come close to being able to show what it really looks like. Its awesome.
We took the metro and the RER (train that leads further out of the city) back to Le Vesinet and had dinner with out host family: 3 meat quich, baguette, salad, fromage, and for dessert fromage blanc (white cheese) with sugar, cinnamon, and biscuits (cookies). That was all one day! We have been keeping very busy.

I'll keep the information about yesterday short, because we did more American-esque things. Yesterday was the fete du travail (labor day) so hardly anything was open, which made lunch and dinner difficult. We took the RER out to Bercy and saw Iron Man 2 in english with french subtitles. I don't think it's released in the US yet, but everyone should go see it, it's very good! (AND stay until after the credits ;) We ate baguette sandwiches from a boulangerie again and ate in a very pretty park in Bercy (the pictures with the stone arches and flowers). Then we went out to Versailles and went to an institute dance with the church members from the surrounding cities. It was very fun and I met some cool people. I think there may have been more American people there than french people though! They played a lot more American music than French music so we had a lot of fun with it. We didn't get back until 12:30am, which was not a good idea because the trains close down at 1 so we barely made it.

Today we went to church in Paris. It was all in french which was great because I learned a lot of church words and I could really understand almost the whole thing. Elizabeth Smart is here serving a mission so we went to church with her. Turns out all museums are free the first sunday of every month so we went to the Louvre this afternoon just to get a feel for it. It is huge beyond belief. I think you could spend 20 years there and still not see everything. We only had a couple hours so we saw La Jaconde (Mona Lisa) and mostly the french artists and the italian renaissance art. We are definitely going to go back soon.

I know that this is long, but it is still only a fractions of everything we have seen and done! It was raining today, but otherwise the weather has been incredible. The sun is shining, it is warm, there are flowers everywhere, and it's just beautiful. Le Vesinet is covered in lilacs which make walking down the streets smell so pretty. If you can't tell I am really loving it here, and I am so excited to keep seeing more!

A bientot et bisoux!