We get all this?! Fo' Free?!

Sorry for the delay in my postings... there's been a lot going on here!  To make up for it, I'll post about our last few days in Paris now and my time so far in Carpentras later today, and then you'll be all caught up on my life!

Me at Versailles- literally blinded :)

Our first view of the... modern art

On Wednesday, we woke up bright and early (and were apparently too excited, to the chagrin of our next-door neighbors, who pounded on the too-thin walls to let us know that) in order to head to Versailles.  Hannah and I were both a little anxious because we had to take a different type of train (the RER) rather than just the normal metro since Versailles isn't in Paris proper.  However, all went well in getting our tickets since Hannah had 12 euros in coins (the machine didn't take paper money!).  We arrived at Versailles, passing MacDo on the way and making a mental note to return for lunch.  First of all... Versailles is gorgeous.  It literally shines as you walk up, as it's coated in gold.  For anyone who needs a refresher, Versailles was the king's palace, and as Hannah said, you can see why the French people were pissed off- they were living in squalor and the king was kickin' it in paradise.  :)  We were surprised, however, when we turned the corner and instead of seeing more 18th century splendor... saw a modern art exhibit by an asian sculptor.  It was... interesting to say the least.  There was a big difference between the levels of class between Versailles and its new additions.  The exhibit will be there until December, and I probably won't go back before then.  I understand that it's a 'cool' thing to have exhibits in places where there are striking differences between the place and the art, but it was just too strange for me.  I did enjoy Hannah's ultimate disgust with the sculptures. As an avid history and art buff, she hated the display with a passion.  We went for a walk and enjoyed a box of mini cereal in the gardens behind Versailles, which seem to extend almost endlessly.  

Enjoying the gardens at Versailles!

After that, we made a quick trip to MacDo, since the Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches we'd packed on dry bread weren't going to cut it.  We were surprised to find that the RER station we'd taken to get to Versailles was broken, and had to go on a detour to find a different station.  The woman told us to take two rights and we would be there, but it was actually quite a walk!  Unfortunately, the RER there was much much much more confusing than either the other RER or the other metro stations we'd used.  (Who names their trains things like 'Elba' anyway?!)  We talked with a group from Quebec (resorting to English since they couldn't understand our French accent and we couldn't understand theirs...) but ended up just getting on a train without a real idea where we were headed.  Luckily, we ended up back in central Paris as we had hoped and we were able to take the 'normal' metro from there!

Arc de Triomphe

We headed to the Jardin de Tuileries, where we spent probably a good hour enjoying some ice cream (for me) and iced tea (for Hannah) while making up stories about the lives of the people we watched walk by.  If anyone's seen Date Night, you should know what we mean.  If not- feel free to ask me if you're confused!  We then walked down to the Arc de Triomphe and spent some time scoping out theaters and shops on the Champs-Elysées.

Hannah and I split up for the evening so that she could go meet a friend for dinner, and I went to check out Galleries Lafayette and Printemps, two famous department stores that are kind of like Bloomingdale's or Macy's.  They're both ENORMOUS-each floor of Galleries Lafayette reminded me of a mall in itself, and there were SEVEN floors.  I savoured a crêpe with nutella and banana from a street vendor (check, Aunt Dagney!) for dinner and listened to the bells of a beautiful cathedral before I was displaced by two smokers who sat on the other side of my bench.  When we were both back at our temporary hotel home, we watched the new episodes of Castle and Glee before heading to bed.  

On Thursday, our last full day in Paris, we started the day by becoming international spies.  What do I mean? We went to buy short-term, pay-as-you-go cell phones with cash.  Sound sketchy?  I thought so.  Anyway, we both now have cell phones that we can use here, adding euros/minutes as we go.  We get free incoming calls and text messages, so if you have an international plan, let me know and I'll give you my numba!  

Chocolat chaud- mmm

We decided to hit up Angelina's before going to the Louvre.  Angelina's is a fancy-schmancy restaurant just on the side of the Louvre, and is famous for their hot chocolate.  The reason?  It's literally just that- hot and chocolate.  I'm not sure how they do it, but it's got to be some sort of melted down fudge and it's so thick you can almost eat it.  So good!  Hannah had a croque monsieur for our friend Madhuri and we were pleased that our hosts spoke to us in French, and the other groups on both sides of us in English.  

Just a little fun!

Le liberte guidant le peuple- my favorite!

After finishing our deeee-lish hot chocolates, we went to the Louvre.  It's only arguably the biggest, most famous, most awesome museum in the world- no big deal or anything ;)  And you know what they told us?  Yeah, that's right- since we have long-stay visas and are under 26, it was FREE!  Sweet.  I don't know that I can really say much about the Louvre, since it really speaks for itself if you have ever been there or plan to go.  The only downside of the day was that the 2nd floor was closed because of strikes in France that meant that they didn't have enough people to staff the exhibits, and the Egyptian exhibit was closed for one day for maintenance.  We'll definitely be going back.  I mean, why wouldn't we?  It's free!  We saw the Mona Lisa (La Joconde en français) of course and also had some fun posing with some of the other displays.  We rrounded out the day by heading back over to the Notre Dame to an area where there are a ton of tourist shops to pick up some souvenirs.  They have these sweet prints of different Parisian landmarks, and not buying more of them is my only regrest from my two-week trip to France 5 years ago.  I'm putting them up in my room to decorate and you'll see them when I put up pics of my room.  We ate crêpes on the side of the street  before heading back over to the Champs-Elysées to buy tickets to Mange. Prie. Aime. (Eat. Pray. Love. in English!) We were very excited that the film was "version originale" and in English with French subtitles, becase neither Hannah nor I wanted to see Julia Roberts dubbed.  We loved the movie and took the metro to get back to our hotel room one last time, finishing our Paris adventure in excellent fashion.  

The real end of our trip came the next morning, when we re-packed all of our things (oh.em.gee. my bag weighed a ton) and called a taxi to come pick us up.  That might not sound very hard, but we were very proud that we succeeded- both in using one of our new "spy" phones and for completing the whole conversation in French without a problem.  In case you can't imagine, it's much more difficult to understand people on the phone and also much easier to upset them by asking them to repeat themselves.  Our taxi driver was much less entertaining, but nevertheless managed to get us to the train station quickly.  We waited for our TGV to arrive and had an extremely difficult time loading our kajillion pounds of luggage onto the train.  A nice Canadian couple from Vancouver sat across from us on the train and we had a great conversation.  I got off the train at Avignon, bidding Hannah goodbye and starting my brand-new adventure!  More details to come later, I promise :)  For now, bonne journée!