Paris

My mom and I took off the day after Thanksgiving and went to Paris for a long weekend. Everyone has been asking me how it was, and let's just say I am glad to be home! It was fun, and we saw some great things, but it wasn't my favorite place to visit. The buildings are unbelievable, how they built those huge buildings without the resources that we have today is amazing. I guess I am not a cultured person, I realized that I do not have an appreciation for art. I could not spend hours in museums like some do.

The first day that we were there we headed out to Versaille. This palace is huge, and ornate. All of the gates and iron were plated in gold. When King Louis the XIV lived there he basically had a zoo in the gardens area, and there are over 1000 fountains there as well.

The Eifel Tower was beautiful all lit up. As you can tell in all of these pictures it was also very cold there, it was FREEZING!! Every hour it would sparkle for about 5 minutes. It was very pretty. The first night we took a boat down the Seine River to see all of the sights at night. Day 2-We started out at the Orsay Museum. This museum houses many famous artists such as Picasso (barf), Maunet, Renoir, and VanGogh, and many others that I don't remember their names. It was interesting, we spent about two hours here. Then we headed over to the Louvre. Here we spent about 2 1/2 hours and we didn't even touch the surface. We hit the Mona Lisa, the apartments where Napolean lived, the jewels of King Louis the XIV and Napolean, the Eygptian and Medevial sections. This was about all that we could handle. We ate lunch and headed back to our hotel to rest.

My mom is standing in front of Napolean's dining room, it was unbelievable! That night we headed down to the Champs Elysees. It is one of the main streets there that was all lit up for Christmas. The lights were really pretty. We walked down the main street by all of the ridiculously expensive stores, grabbed something from a great bakery, and walked by all of these little Christmas booths they had set up.
Day 3-We started off our morning at the Conciergerie and the Sainte-Chapelle. This was very interesting here. The Conciergerie was a Royal Palace that was turned into a prison. This is the same Prison that Marie Antoinette was held in before her execution. The Sainte-Chapelle is the Chapel that is attached to the Prison. The Glass in the chapel is all done in scenes from the bible. Each section is from a different book. I can't imagine how long it took them to finish this.

Next, we went to Notre Dame.

We walked so much this day. We walked all through the Latin District and did a little shopping. That night we went to the Arc De Triomphe. This arch honors those that have fought for France, it also has the tomb of the unknown soldier underneath it.

My mom and I had a great time together, and I am grateful that we were able to take the time to go. The morning that we left we got up a little before 7:00 A.M. Paris time, and 25 hours later I finally fell asleep in my bed. The only thing that made the flights bearable was that we were in Business and first class on all of the flights, I never want to fly coach again!

This is the view that I had from my seat on the flight from Cincinnati to Denver, what a great sunset.