This morning we had a long to do list ahead of us. I ate some small breakfast foods that I brought with me. (small chocolate waffles. aka the best things ever and I will miss these when I am back in America) I went down to the lobby to get some hot chocolate because even though their breakfast cost like 20 bucks, they did have complementary coffee and hot chocolate, how nice. Our first stop was the church of Saint Germain des Prés. This was a short walk from us. It is one of the oldest churches in Paris, dating back to like 550 AD. Since it is so old, there was so serious restoration going on inside of it. That is good, but bad because it took away from the typical church look with the high ceilings and length. The construction was in the middle so there was a bunch of canvas blocking off a lot of it. The stained glass is beautiful as always and the ceiling had these cute little gold stars all over it. It was very pretty. Its colors were red and green, a new combination in churches of my viewing. I really liked the details and the contrast of the colors though. It had these red stone columns throughout it too that give it a different look. The weirdest part about it was the music. There was someone playing the organ there. It wasn't exactly pretty though. It was pretty creepy and they would play like one note for a minute and then choose a new one for the next minute. Very strange. From there, we worked our way to Sainte Chapelle. This is the first place we needed to use our handy museum passes. We had to go through security and then outside to the entrance of the chapel. This chapel is STUNNING. At first, we walked into the bottom and were a bit confused because we were told there would be a lot of stained glass. And we were like yeah okay, we've seen it before. we know what a lot of stained glass looks like. The bottom had like a few windows, but not that many. When we were told to go upstairs, we were FLOORED. 15 windows of full stain glass. Each window is about 50 feet tall and covers every wall of the room. The stained glass had all the colors. Purples, reds, blues, greens. They depict 1,113 biblical stories in picture form. We just wanted to sit and try to figure out which story it was telling. Each window had a line of circles and in each circle was a new scene or story. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. On the outside of it, there were also carvings of Biblical events too. Those were pretty intricate as well. Our next stop was Notre Dame. This was actually like right down the street from our hotel too. The outside of it is of course amazing. We went inside and I think this ceiling was one of the tallest cathedral ceiling's I have ever seen. I am not sure if that is true or not, but it did have at least two floors inside which was new to me. The stained glass was beautiful as always. I mean how can someone not love stained glass? There was also a lot of religious art. Paintings, statues, walls of carvings, etc. We wanted to go to the top so we had to select a time slot to enter. We had about an hour before we could get in, so we walked around the side of the cathedral and went in a couple tourist shops. We continued towards the back of Notre Dame and there is a small park behind it. We sat down on a bench and just enjoyed the peaceful surroundings. Paris can be crowded, but it can also be very quiet and have a quaint small town feel at the same time. This was one of those times when I felt like one of the only people in the whole city. Then we had to go back to the line to start the million step walk to the top. SO many stairs. Spiral staircases are kind of my arch nemesis on this trip. If I never climb another spiral staircase again, I wouldn't complain. Anyway, after all the stairs, we made it to the lower portion with the gargoyles and we walked around the tiny little narrow passage around the top. We went into the belfry and got to see the ginormo bells. The gargoyles were so fun too! They all are different. Different sizes, stances, and expressions. The view was stellar too of course. The city is a sea of beige and white stone and gray roofs. I love the architecture of the city. It is crazy to think of the age of some of the buildings. A city of history. We climbed to the very top and walked around one of the two towers. Then we climbed down, down, down. Those stairs though. We had the rest of the day free until like 7. Our next stop was lunch. We ate in the latin quarter and got pitas. It was cheap and pretty good. It was one of those open front restaurants, which is what a lot of the restaurants in that area are like. This restaurant was actually kind of big and had a lot of seating. Well, they kind of had a pet cat here. I am not sure how that works with health code but it was a very cute and sweet cat and let me pet it as much as I wanted. That was nice because I miss my cat a lot. Then we went back to Shakespeare and Company! Okay, love it. So much. Cutest bookstore ever. I looked through many many sections of books. I bought that Pride and Prejudice book. It is so adorable. I tried with all my might to find a Madeline book, but the only one they had was a paperback I already own. I was pretty bummed. I thought they would have a cute one. They also have an upstairs with poetry and seating and old books. They have a window that opens with a window seat and it looks out to Notre Dame. The breeze and the sounds of the city just make the perfect environment. We lingered for some time and then finally left. We met with some of the group outside of it and we were all headed to the catacombs so we decided to go together. We took the metro across town to them. We jumped in line and it wasn't too long. However, that was very misleading because we probably waited in line for like an hour. We finally descended yet another spiral staircase. We walked through this very dark and stoney tunnel for like a long time. I was getting a bit concerned since we were not coming across any bones. I wasn't concerned for too long though because those catacombs delivered. We entered the largest and creepiest labyrinth of my life. Bones everywhere. Stacks of femurs and fibulas and tibias and skulls. It was way creepier than I thought it would be. Because, I mean, those were people! and now their bones are just on display for everyone to see. The reason they put bodies down there was because the cemeteries were overflowing and the bodies that were already in cemeteries were smelling and actually at one point, a heavy rainfall caused bodies to be uncovered. Maybe too many details, but the bottom-line was that they needed a new place to bury people. The catacombs were created and they began to fill up. The bodies were stacked at first, but later the bones were artfully arranged. It is insanity to see the number of bones and imagine that many people were buried in just this location alone. Honestly, I don't think I will get over that. Creepy, interesting, very weird. There were literally real bones on display for anyone to see. The science nerd inside me was going crazy too. We looked up food near us and found out there was a steak n' shake here. WHAT. There are hardly any American chain food places here. I know we are lame for eating American food in Paris, believe me, it was an internal struggle all week. Unfortunately, restaurants here are more expensive than our poor budget allows so we have to resort to quick cheap food most of the time. We took the metro to it and ended up in this mall. We thought it might be in the mall, but it was outside of it. We finally figured that out and I had a speculoos milkshake which was amazing. We had to leave and take the metro to the Louvre. We walked past two people playing violins and they were pretty great. What a great way to start off a night of art: with music. Our next surprise of the night was walking into the opening that holds the pyramid and there was a gorgeous sunset to welcome us. Pink and orange sky behind the shimmering glass pyramid. Lovely. We entered the Louvre with our faithful museum passes. We had to create a plan to see all the art we wanted to see in the 2.5ish hours we had. I think we got there at like 7 or so and we had to leave at like 9:30 maybe. That seems like a lot of time, but if you spent 30 seconds in front of each piece, it would take you 3 whole months. That is a lot of art. Our first stop was of course, the Mona Lisa. It took a little while to find her. We saw the sculpture of Nike. UM beautiful. The detail was incredible. I bet her face was flawless. We ended up walking through the halls of paintings. We saw a lot of French paintings on the way, those were cool. I recognized a lot more than I thought I would. Finally, we made it to her. It was bigger than I thought because I was always told it was little. It wasn't that little. It was hard to get to the front because everyone and their grandma had to take 20 years taking 100 pictures with it. I don't blame them, but when they take up like a 4 foot radius to get a picture, it is a bit rude. I eventually nudged my way in. She made me smile. Not trying to be punny. I really did just smile at her. She smiled back. We saw a lot of pieces in the time there. We walked through the French, Spanish, Italian, and American paintings. We walked through a lot of Roman sculptures too. That was neat because we recognized a lot of the people that they were of. It was nice because there weren't that many people there since it was right before closing. I saw so many incredible pieces that just continue to blow my mind. I really don't understand how a person can imagine some of those things in their minds and then actually make it using paint or stone or whatever their choice of artistic expression is. It was quite the experience. It was closing so we had to meet outside and count off to make sure we were all there. We started counting off and one of the men who walk around selling things thought he was funny and started counting off numbers. Well Steve did not like that and well, lets just say took care of it. We finished counting and got out of there. We walked back to the hotel because it was like a 15 minute walk maybe. We were all a bit happy to be in Paris and were only kind of a little crazy on the walk back. okay maybe a lot crazy. It was definitely a night to remember. Paris, I am falling in love. Very quickly!

Fun Facts: I like to watch/read Monk and in one book, he went to Paris and went into the Catacombs. I confess, that was definitely a big reason I wanted to go down in them. I love Madeline and I am SHOCKED that I have seen nothing Madeline related. NOTHING. I was so looking forward to seeing all the cute Madeline things. I don't know what Paris's problem is with her, but it makes me sad.