Fall Break - Paris

So while all the little noobs still at GCC were bored and not doing anything all that cool, we took a trip to Paris, that GCC paid for :) (I say 'noob' because it was a word that came up often this past weekend) There is a lot to see in Paris. A whole lot. We were there from Wednesday to Monday, and didn't get to see half of it. Not even close. The Lovre itself takes forever to get through. That being said, I was ready to come home. Here's a short summary of what went down.
Wednesday:
Left the house at 6am for the train, got to the 'hotel' shortly before noon. Then for the rest of the day Dr Reuber paraded us around Paris and we saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, the Louvre and the general area around the Louvre. Then at night I went with a group of a few up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Great view, and was fun to do at night. We walked a lot this day, but we were soon to walk more...
Thursday:
We were supposed to actually go into the Louvre, but the French pansies decided to strike today, so the subways weren't running. So we walked to the closest tourist stuff. We first walked to the Pantheon. This is a cool building and we came back to it on Monday, which I'm glad we did. Of course it wasn't open on Thursday though because, as I said before, the French are pansies. We were then given a couple of hours to eat and see what we wanted. We had kebabs (why aren't there any in America?) then walked to Notre Dame. After that we met up with the rest of the group for a guided tour about France and it's involvement in WWII. After this, walked around a lot of Paris before having kebabs again (yum) and then proceeding to walk all the way back to our hotel. I'm sure we walked more than 25 miles that day...
Friday:
Today the subway system is kind of running, just not as often so the trains are all packed. We first go to Les Invalides, which is the place where Napolean is buried. It's a really decorated building with a shiny gold dome roof. Next to it is the War History museum, which had quite a few interesting war artifacts. My favorite was the pistol with an axe on the bottom instead of a bayonet. "You're charging me with a stupid bayonet? Well let me show you what an axe does." We then went to the Louvre for a little bit before going on another tour. This one was about the French Revolution. I liked this tour better, because it was really interesting to learn about the revolution of a country who was already established, unlike the revolution of our country. Then that night we went back to the Louvre to look at more things because it was open until 9:30, later than usual. My favorite thing of all of the Louvre was Napolean III's apartment. This was an extremely decorated area of the Louvre that just allowed you to imagine the luxury the French kings lived in before the Revolution.
Saturday:
We started the day off early by heading straight to Versailles. This is an amazing building, it's just too bad that most of it isn't open to the public. I was kind of rushed out of the place though, because we had other things to look at. I hear the gardens behind the building are simply magnificent, but sadly I left before I got to see them. We went from there to the worlds largest flea market! It's actually not that exciting, because there was really nothing good to be bought. The only interesting stores were the 'army surplus' shops, but I didn't buy anything anyways. Straight from there we went to see the Basilica du Sacre Coeur. This basilica is located on the highest point in Paris, which provides quite a nice view. It's also a beautiful building located in my favorite part of Paris. Nearby, there is a small square where painters do there work, and you can walk around and watch and buy some of their stuff. There was a small pizza joint with a guy playing live piano, but we weren't, eating at the time. I'd really love to go back there some day and have a pizza there. That night we watched the Rugby World Cup final, and South Africa beat England. We were probably the only people cheering for South Africa.
Sunday:
First thing was mass at Notre Dame. Very boring, but cool to attend a service in such a large, beautiful cathedral. After church we walked across the road to visit another church, Saint Chapelle. This church's auditorium had the most stained glass of any church, probably ever. The walls were pretty much made of stained glass. We then went to Musee d'Orsay, the museum of impressionistic art. This was a nice museum, and I especially liked seeing the van Gogh pieces. That night we did a boat tour of Paris, which was kind of pointless. It just pointed out all the stuff we already knew was in Paris, and it was quite cold on the boat. Good experience though.
Monday:
After breakfast we went to see the Pantheon, this time while it was open. We went inside and saw just how beautiful and large it was on the inside. In the basement are all kinds of tombs, where the still bury people. Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are both buried there, along with many other people I've never heard of. We went up to the top as well, which provided a nice view of Paris. Afterwards we went to the Louvre again and I browsed through the large collection of Italian and French paintings, including the Mona Lisa. It was pretty funny how many people were crowded around the Mona Lisa, so I took a picture of them looking dumb.

Anyways, that's the condensed version of what went on in Paris, even though it's quite long in itself. Here are a few pics. Remember to click them to get full resolution.

Me by the Eiffel Tower























The Louvre















The Pantheon