I think it's rain season here.

Well, it's raining again. It usually rains every morning and then kind of clears up a little later here. Kind of annoying, but oh well. I can't wait to sit out in the sun. :)

Ok. Yesterday.

We started our day with a huge omelette that Beth made for all of us. it was scrumptious and had tons of vegetables in it. We went to Starbucks and then walked down Rue de Monge. Our first stop for the day was going to be touring the inside of Notre Dame Cathedral. Along the way we stopped at some shops. I was waiting outside one of them on a corner and so many french people came up to me asking me fore directions, I could help a few, but the others I just said "I don't speak french, I speak english" in french. I didn't know what else to do. Then some guy asked if he could buy my umbrella off me. What? No. Go away. Weirdo.

So, we reached Notre Dame and entered in the front of the cathedral, but in the doors to the right. What a magnificent building. The architecture and carvings on the door frames alone. Astounding. We walked inside to huge archways and peaks on the right side of the church. You can travel to the center and a view all down the center of it to the altar. It's enormous, it was like the ceiling was never ending. The stone and the way it was shaped and met together with the other archways was beautiful. We traveled down the right side. Along the right were alcoves. In each alcove was something different - some were confessionals (which you can still have confession at - it's like 2:30-6 or something), some were prayer areas, others were little altars and areas honoring saints. You walked around the back of the altar area and they had another bigger prayer section in an alcove with it's own altar and then a diaramma of the process of building the church. Along the left side of the church was the same with the alcoves.

I decided to go sit and see if it was different and churchlike from there because there were so many tourists everywhere, it kind of lost the sense of feeling a church brings you. Well, once I sat down, that feeling was there; there's no way it could not have been. Looking over to the altar area with stained glass windows high above it on all sides letting in light conflicting with the dark of the stone was just...heavenly. So, I prayed - for what seemed like forever, but I think it was only 10 minutes. It was really nice and peaceful and it really seemed like no one else was there, even though the cathedral on either side was packed with people. This was a really cool experience.

We left Notre Dame to head to the Musee D'Orangeree. Here, there were two circular rooms with paintings from Monet on each wall - huge mural paintings which were actually painted for this museum. They were pretty cool and were of nature - trees and water with reflections. I loved his use of scumble painting and colors. He would use so many colors to make something such as a brown, instead of using just a brown for the tree bark. This made it stand out, seem more life like, and appeal to the eye more. In the basement were paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, and an artist I don't remember seeing before, but really caught my attention - Soutine. The paintings of his that I liked were of landscapes - hills or houses or cottages, but they they were wavy. It was like if you took an image straight on and then altered it so that the picture wasn't clear - kind of like a flag looks like when it's waving in the wind. The image is there, just altered. These were really cool so I took pictures of them.

That was pretty much it for that museum, it was really small. So we headed to la place au concorde; this is where Marie Antoinette, among others, were beheaded. It's just a square in front of the Palais de Concorde. Pillars with gold at the top, green marble-like streetposts. That was pretty much it.

We headed toward the Champs d'Elysee next. We thought it'd be a lot different though. This was a strip similar to Times Square in New York or Michigan Ave. in Chicago. It was all stores and CROWDED with people. These were not the nice happy french people I've encountered every other day during my stay, nor was this street the Paris I was familiar with. People were pushy, not the nicest - I didn't like it. So, we rushed down the street to get to the Arc de Triomphe.

You have to walk underground througha tunnel to get to the Arc de Triomphe because it's in the center of a busy circular drive. Etched on the arc are names of the generals from the different wars and the ones that are underlined are the ones that died in battle. The detail here with the carvings was quite incredible, as well. We noticed some army people and got interested. In Beth's little tour guide book it said that everyday at 6:30, they change the flowers or flame for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for WWI. So, we stayed because it was about that time.

Finally, it began. There was a band playing some music and there were some veterans that walked in carrying the French flags. Families and other army personnel walked over to either side of the little grave for the unknown soldiers. Three military personnel were kind of heading what was going on and making speeches and shaking the hands of everyone. It was really cool to see, and I'm glad that by chance, we were here and able to see it. It reminded me of Grandpa and the ceremonies we go to for him and his parades and the ceremony afterward. You never really think about the fact that other countries have had the same losses in wars, have the same ceremonies; at least I never really actually sat down and thought about it. It was nice to see how similar it was. I think this was one of my favorite moments on this trip, actually. Maybe because of the ceremony and how familiar I am with it, maybe because it reminded me of what Grandpa does, maybe because of how respectful and honorable the ceremony was - I don't know. Either way, hitting this by chance was really awesome.

We headed home in the crazy wind that had been brewing and getting worse all day and hopped on the metro. We arrived home a little bit later and decided to head to the Italian restaurant located just below our apartment. We sat down at the table and the people next to us ended up being from Kansas City. How crazy is that? I ended up helping them read the menu, too. I don't know much, but I guess I know enough. So, we all ordered; Sarah and I split a ham and cheese pizza and Beth and Cathie got these huge salads. Seriously - the best food I've had in a long time and it was just pizza! They gave us little baguette slices also, which I dipped into olive oil, and then added the red wine vinegar to. Simply amazing combination - the olive oil, vinegar, and baguette. So good. For dessert, I got this ice cream with citron vodka on it or something; it tasted like lemon ice with a kick and a little more melted. It was so good. Sarah got these little cream puff things with fudge, really good too.

We got some wine and chilled the rest of the night and talked. We were going to go to Versailles today, but those plans were up in the air, and today wasn't the best for it. So, either tomorrow or Thursday for sure because that's something I don't want to miss. Today we're just going to hit up shops and visit some churches that are supposed to be really beautiful see.

Alright, well I'm going to make some breakfast and hop in the shower. Friday's approaching really fast! Have a great day!