Paris (Part 2)

Alrighty, Tuesday was arriving and rainy day, Wednesday was engagement day, that brings us to Thursday: church day.

Thomas and I, along with Haden and Allison, got up early Thursday morning and made our way towards the Latin Quarter. Haden was especially looking forward to this as this area is where some of her classes were last year. We headed for her favorite crepe stand, and were disappointed to find it wasn't open yet. We decided to keep moving and went on to see Notre Dame. We took a few pictures outside and marveled at the carvings above the doorways and the architecture. We went inside before the crowds got too overwhelming. Mass began while we were inside and it was both beautiful and surreal to hear the chanting and know most everyone there is just walking around to have a look.

Thomas and I decided to climb the towers while Haden and Allison went off to look at other things. It was a very tight spiraling staircase leading up and they only let a certain number of people up at a time for crowd control.

Interesting tidbit we learned about medieval staircases on this trip: most are built clockwise to make them easier to defend. The defender coming down the stairs will be on the larger portion of the stair and his sword arm will be more free to swing from the top right (outside) to the bottom left (inside) where the attacker will be trying to swing up and from the smaller portion of the stair. Anywho, we climbed the tower and saw lots of Paris and took lots of pictures.

We met up with Allison and Haden and were going to go to St. Chappelle but the line to get in was enormous. Also, its located within a government building so you have to go through more security in order to see it. Instead, we decided to go see St. Sulpice. There was a pretty fountain in front, but a lot of the outside of the church was covered in scaffolding for renovation.

Friday was the first day all 8 of us stayed together. We started off with a visit to the History of Chocolate museum where we saw the progression of chocolate from a form of currency to a spicy drink only for royals and the military to a sweet drink and then finally commercialized. There were old ads and china cups used to drink hot chocolate out of. At the end of the museum, there was a demonstration and a tasting!!

We all wandered the streets for most of the day, slowing making our way to the History of Paris museum. Unfortunately there weren't a lot of english translations, but once we got to the swords and armor, the guys were pretty entertained without translations! Also, there were paintings of the French Revolution and everyone marveled over the death of Marie Antoinette and the tiny gushes of blood depicted.

We went to a restaurant called Baci for dinner and had wonderful pasta, I had a cheeseburger, and Gerin and Thomas had one of the most mouth watering steaks I've ever tasted. We also had desserts of pineapple with basil and a chocolate cake thing we couldn't pronounce but definitely could eat twice!