Versailles

We woke up on day two all geared to hit up all the museums and fortunately realized that Versailles would be closed the rest of our time in Paris. With some adjustments we changed plans and headed to the most ridiculously huge place in existence complete with staggering gardens.
I had been here once before with a school group and wanted to recreate a moment from that experience with the photo above.

These are copies of some of the most famous and beautiful sculptures in the world.

Before entering the palace, we waited outside for the fantastic water show. They play music throughout the gardens and every single fountain gushes water. Imagine how impressive this would have been in King Louis XIV's day! He was known as the sun king so you see references to him as Apollo and sun motifs everywhere.

This is the famous hall of mirrors. It is a giant expanse where one side is huge arched windows and on the other huge arched mirrors in the same position and proportion to reflect the light throughout the room.

Below is a bust of Marie Antoinette who also took residence in the palace.

... and here, Michelle became part of the gallery

Marie Antoinette bedchamber

Well, it was another long, amazing day and all of our feet were getting used to constant throbbing. Good to have such amazing things to see you are willing to traverse the wonders of Paris on foot. :)

Paris Day 1: Arriving and decending to the catacombs.

So we arrived in Paris late at night and realized that all the stories about how dark, damp and urine-smelling the underground in Paris is were completely true. Putting our adventuring skills to the test and summoning our bravery we picked the route we thought would get us to our studio apartment. The journey included hauling giant suitcases up and down several huge flights of stairs, it was exhausting. Finally we emerged from the depths onto the street of our lodgings but we didn't see anything that looked like a hostel or apartments. We tried asking strangers, but without any French speaking abilities it was a lost cause. Eventually after texting our landlord we realized we were staying in an apartment above some of the shops we were standing in front of and he let us in. Several more flights of narrow winding stairs led us up to our new home for the week. Sweaty and exhausted we figured out payment with the guy and crashed in our cozy French apartment.
After a few moments our hunger kicked in big time only for us to realize everything was closed and we had no idea how to find a grocery store nor did we feel like wandering out again. Luckily I brought a bag of popcorn with me so I put it in the microwave where the interior promptly started sparking and caught on fire. I stopped the microwave and snatched out the popcorn. We did not use the microwave again. Next I tried to make the popcorn on the stove; you can see the results. We were saved by the three yogurts and bag of chips left by the previous tenants. Thank you whoever you are, without you we would have starved. It was a heavenly feast.

The next morning while we were all getting ready, we had another conflagration. As Chelsey was blow drying her hair with the provided implement, it too burst into flames and Michelle quickly beat them out with a hand towel. We were very wary of all appliances after that.

Despite our exciting start, we loved the studio apartment. It had the tiniest full-service bathroom imaginable, a small stove and refrigerator, with food cupboards, a shallow closet behind the front door, one queen-sized mattress and a twin size futon chair thing. At night, there was no floor. Luckily we were already used to small living spaces and enjoyed the coziness.

The best feature was our romantic window looking over the city rooftops. We could hear the music of the city through that magical window.

First meal in Paris and the most amazing sandwich and pastry of my life. Apricot and pistachio is a fantastic combination and it is true that French cuisine is the best in the world.

We ate our repast in a lovely park in front of a lovely building. It seems unreal the amazing bountifulness of everything. It helps too that we were staying in a lovely residential area of the city still part of the heart of Paris.

In our wanderings we pasted a Museum of natural life with this monolithic mineral outside. I love rocks!

Beside taking in the awesomeness of Paris, our goal was to find the catacombs. It took much longer and and more steps than expected but we eventually found it. I sow this tagged on a wall nearby and thought it was an ominous farewell to travelers headed for an underground artistic arrangement of thousands of skeletons.

As we marched into the depths, Michelle was not feeling to hot about being surrounded by hundreds of years of dead bodies. Pretty understandable I think.

This reminded me of the Spirits of the mountain men from Lord of the Rings. There was definitely an underground well with green mist rising out of it.

Last stop before skeletons and then....

Whew! We made it!

Our journey to the underworld and back left us pretty exhausted, but we finished our day by strolling through the gardens of a palace and visiting Notre Dame before heading back to food and home.

This is my favorite cathedral. I can't even explain how amazing it is and how much I love it.

This tower marked our way home each night just a couple blocks left to go!

Awesomely we found this just around the corner: two break dancer/rappers. I wanted to join in or kiss one of them but couldn't decide so I just stood immobilized in admiration.