The City of Light

We woke up pretty early Sunday morning and headed out to see the Louvre before Sacrament meeting.  Unfortunately, Mom's Metro Pass got deactivated somehow, so we got held up while we talked to the extremely grumpy French Metro workers to get a new one (everyone in Paris has been friendly, which kind of surprised me after all the stories I've heard about snooty French people- only the Metro workers seem to be mean).  

So anyway, we finally got to the Louvre, and the triangle-thing you enter into was actually a lot cooler than I expected.  And the Louvre is HUGE!  There was no way we were going to be able to cover very much of it, so we headed straight to the Mona Lisa (and of course stopped along the way if anything caught our eye).

And here is the Mona Lisa.  I was kind of surprised at how small it was, and also that you couldn't get any closer than I'm standing in this picture, but that's okay.  It was incredible to me that a painting has the potential to make so much fuss.  There were a lot of people around me (and it wasn't even very crowded since it had just opened), people from all over the world, and everyone was taking pictures of the Mona Lisa.  I doubt Da Vinci had any idea that his painting would be so so famous.  (Also, I look kind of funny in this picture and I'm going to blame it on pain from my shingles: I was in a lot of pain so I couldn't sleep the night before and I was just in a lot of pain in general during the day, too)

We spent some more time at the Louvre, seeing the Venus de Milo, and some Rembrandt's, Dad's favorite painter.  I really liked the Louvre, but I was definitely okay to leave when we did.  (I think it was probably because I had been to tons of museums in London, and we there were other things in Paris that I wanted to see).

Church in French was interesting, but I definitely understood none of it.  It was still good to go to church though.  I asked some missionaries if they knew Elder Fairbourn, my friend from Freshman Year, and they did! (But he's in Southern France right now).

Next, we took the train to Versailles.  I was blown away at how huge it is, and this picture does nothing at all to show it (unfortunately I didn't take many pictures).  I thought Schonebrunn in Vienna was incredibly big and gaudy, but it PALED in comparison to Versailles.  It was super crowded, but we did audio tours through the main palace...

...including the Hall of Mirrors (which is where the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending WWI).

Us in one of the mirrors!

A view of the gardens from one of the windows.  The gardens went out as far as the eye could see.  It was incredible.

A very very small glimpse of the gardens.  I would have loved to walk around, but it was cold and rainy and we didn't have jackets (which was making me in even more pain from my Shingles... not that I'm totally complaining because it was still awesome to be here, but yah...).  Anyway, I had no idea how huge Versailles is, and that you have to walk for like a half an hour through the gardens to even get to Marie Antoinette's palace! 

Once again, the Eiffel Tower.  Even though it's cloudy, I like this picture.

We ended the day with a trip up the Eiffel Tower.  It was really cool to see the lights of the "City of Light", and some of the big places like Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe were lit up in a way that made them glow.  And also, I don't really know why it was blue and sparkly, but it was cool anyway.