Today we were going to see Versailles. We took a metro there but it was kind of a long one since Versailles was meant to be a country home get away from all the city peasants. We were on our own today until later that night so we all just went at our own pace through the palace. You walk up a small hill on brick and rock and are met with the golden gates. There are huge gates blocking the main entrance and then the building has a courtyard and the side wings jut out. Then there were two more buildings flanking the main building too. The land has a lot of buildings and a massive amount of gardens with other little villages in it. It’s pretty elaborate. But everything about Versailles is elaborate. We started touring the palace and started with the main rooms. The first room we got a peek at was the royal chapel. The room was surrounded with columns and had an organ and the ceiling held multiple stories in its paintings. We then entered the King's Apartments. The first room in that area was the Hercules Room. The ceilings were covered in paintings, the walls are covered in wallpaper and gold accents. Gold and marble are everywhere you look. Again, this palace is ELABORATE. The next room was the Hall of Plenty. It is covered in green fabric wallpaper and has multiple paintings and busts. The ceiling was a painting, gold, and marble everywhere here too. The next two rooms were the Venus room and Diana room. At this point, I realized all the rooms looked the same to me. Marble, gold, painted ceilings, fancy fabric wallpaper and drapes, fancy furniture, and statues. The Mars room was next and it was a bit different since the color scheme was red. Red wallpaper with very large paintings hanging. The ceiling wasn't one large painting, but a lot of small painting surrounded by gold detail. The Mercury room had a super fancy bed and also held the red color scheme. The last of the King's rooms was the Apollo room. It was supposed to be a throne room I think. It was very dark and had red everything in it. We then entered the Hall of Mirrors. This room was was my favorite because it was different and just fabulous. So fancy. It is famous for a reason. It is a VERY long room. The whole ceiling has paintings on it and about 20 chandeliers hanging down from it. The one side of the hall has windows on it, the other side is covered in mirrors. The mirrors reflect the sunlight and give the whole room an airy feeling. Lining each side of the hall were even more chandelier type lights. They stood on statues instead of hanging from the ceiling so I don't know what they are called but they looked the same as the chandeliers. I appreciated all the light and sparkling reflections that were going on in that room. We then entered more of the King's private rooms. The theme for these rooms were FLORALS. and gold. and bright colors. There were a lot of floral curtains, rugs, couches, and beds. Honestly, I don't know the difference between the 30 more rooms that we toured. SO many rooms. I do know we went into a room where people watched the King eat and his library. It was all very unbelievable and extravagant. Interesting nonetheless. We then went through a hallway with a ton of statues of France's past leaders and important figures. It led to a The Gallery of Great Battles. It was a large hall with picture after picture of battles of France. We then tried to find our way out of that maze of a building. It all looks the same, so I wasn't sure if we were ever going in the right direction. We wanted to explore the gardens next but since it was a music day, we would've had to pay extra for it. We are cheap tourists so we opted out. That was stinky because the palace was cool, but I was more excited about the famous gardens. It just had to be music day...Our next goal was to figure out where to eat. The constant struggle. I think we ended up just going to McDonald's like always, We wanted to go to Museé de l'Orangerie to see Monet's Water Lillies next. This museum is located inside a park, the Jardin des Tuileries. So we took the metro down to the park and walked around until we found it. This park is actually located next to the river and behind the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe so we were pretty familiar with it. We had to wait in line for a little to get through the security. They were pretty strict about bringing anything in, so it took awhile. This museum was also included on our museum pass, so it was free to us, which is one of the reasons we decided it was worth it. Once inside, we made our way to the Water Lillies exhibit. It is this huge white circular room with his paintings curving around the walls of the room. In the middle were a few benches to sit and just admire. The paintings are so much bigger than I thought they would be. I think we were in the room for a good 20 minutes. Just sitting and soaking it in. I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I love Monet. His painting holds such mystery and sadness mixed with a peace and tranquil happiness. It is definitely melancholy. His colors are so rich and dark. Yet hold a brightness to them. The fact that he painted with such small strokes but could envision such a large scale painting just blows my mind. How can you know where to place every stroke and color so that when you stand back, your 20-foot painting is one complete picture? I am clearly not an artist because I just don't understand that. I just love his dark colors contrasted with the light pinks. It makes me so happy. I tried to get a bunch of panoramic pictures too, but people kept walking in front of my camera. It was funny at first, but then was getting really annoying because they could tell I was taking a picture and instead of waiting two seconds, they just went on by. Then a couple Asian dudes thought by running really fast in front of my camera then they would be out my way, but since its a panorama picture, they just left a nice blur across the picture...haha oh people. You gotta love them. There were other exhibits in this museum, but since we were really only interested in Monet, and we got in for free, we ended up using the restrooms (because you always take advantage of the toilets when you can) and then making our way to find some macarons. My dear friend Devan brought me some Pierre Herme macarons some time ago after her trip to Paris. I tried them but wasn't too impressed, but I think they just weren't fresh enough. I was willing to give them another shot. I have always just had this dream of eating macarons while sitting in a Parisian park and my gals were willing to indulge this dream so we set out to find a Pierre Herme. This wasn't too hard because there are quite a few of them in Paris since you know, Paris is known for macarons. There was actually one right outside the park so we walked to it and had to decide which two macarons I would try out of their wide selection of amazing sounding combinations. I ended up choosing Jasmin and Pamplemousse (Jasmine and Grapefruit) which was a pretty pearlescent pink and orange cookie for the first one. The second one, I chose Mogador (Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit) which was a yellow cookie with a chocolate dusting. Once we all had our choices, we walked back to the park and found a bench to sit on while we devoured our sweet cookies. They surprised me with the abundance of flavor. They seemed like odd flavor combinations, but really, they were perfect. I was seriously so shocked by how much I loved them. I think I probably annoyed everyone else because I just kept repeating how amazing they tasted. Once we had our fill of macarons, we wanted to accomplish some Paris shopping. What is a trip to Paris without shopping? We had randomly walked by a huge mall labeled Printemps earlier and so we decided to check it out. We found out it was like one huge Department store with lots of smaller sections of name brands and types of products. I compared it to Saks because it was so fancy. Name brand galore and WAY out of our price range. It was still fun to take the escalator up the 7 (i think) floors and admire all the fashion and beauty. I really did have fun exploring even though I definitely couldn't buy anything. I saw a lot of fun styles and creative designs and so many colors and textures! Since that store was kind of a bust for shopping, we looked up a mall that we thought might contain more affordable clothes. We took the metro to Les Halles and this lets you out right into the mall! We walked out and started wandering around and found this store called New Look. It had young women trendy and in style clothes, so we stayed there for quite a while. They had a lot of clearance racks, and y'all know I like a good deal. I found this denim dress with some floral and bird embroidery on the back and I loved it! It wasn't as cheap as I was hoping. I think it was still $20, but when in Paris, right? I also found these cute ripped jeans with some floral embroidery (I said they were trendy:)) on them and they were like $11 so I couldn't pass those up either. We walked around to some other stores but didn't find anything we liked as much as New Look. We went outside the mall and there were some cool thrift shops and resale shops and I was tempted to buy a flannel or jean jacket, but I refrained since they were pretty pricey. We were hungry at this point and so we tried looking for a close dinner place. There were a lot of chain restaurants around and ended up at a Pizza Hut. We thought it would be cheap since we could split pizzas, meaning split price. However, Pizza Hut in Europe is not cheap haha. It was also a very fancy Pizza Hut. There was like fancy wall art and nice tables and chairs. I'm pretty sure there were tablecloths and like candles on the tables. Nicest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. Too bad it didn't save us money like we were hoping. After dinner, we were exhausted and we headed back to the hotel. I think most people napped or chilled, I had to work on homework, unfortunately. The school work never really stopped. It was very annoying. Who wants to do homework when you're in Paris? Not me. The evening event was meeting at the Arc de Triomphe and climbing to the top for a night view of the city. I was very excited about this because it meant I would be able to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle again. Our little girl group gathered and started off on the metro to the Arc. We were told to find the group, but we really didn't know where to do that. We ran into some other people from our group and we were hanging around for a bit on the sidewalk, but eventually, we thought maybe we should go to the Arc and try to get inside. Once we found the entrance, we found more people and waited for everyone else. We went into an underground tunnel which went under the circle road and to the entrance of the Arc. We still weren't sure how to get inside, but we figured it out eventually. We started climbing the spiral staircase and when we reached the top, we were met with one of the best views of my life. Paris at night. All of the streets that shoot out from the circle around the Arc just crawl outward for miles. All of the intersecting streets with all the street lamps. All of the green and red stoplights blinking like Christmas lights. The rooftops of the buildings expand out in a pattern that is unique to Paris. The trees line the glowing streets giving them a softened and romantic look. Then of course, in the distance, is the beautiful Eiffel Tower. Lit up and glowing like a lighthouse. I didn't really notice it before this moment, but this city skyline captures my heart because it is so different than any other city. All of the buildings are the same height. None not much taller than any other. There are no skyscrapers, no tall business buildings. Just rooftop after rooftop. Paris keeps its history by keeping out the modern, and it wasn't a bad thing. These short buildings just make the Eiffel Tower look that much more majestic. It is the only structure standing above all others. Looking down on the city like a mother watching over her children. And right here I fell in love with Paris all over again. This city has a way of doing that. It was also Grant's birthday so we all sang happy birthday to him! What a neat way to spend your birthday! Since we were up there so late, it was almost closing time, we were pretty much the only ones up there. We took in the views for as long as we could, and then we had to start down the spiral staircase again because they were closing. While we walked down the stairs, we took the "2" and "0" balloons Grant received for his birthday and let them float down the middle of the stairs. If you have the chance to walk down a spiral staircase with a balloon, you should try it sometime. It is pretty great. We hung around at the bottom and looked at the eternal flame for a bit. Finally, we headed back. I don't know what was up with us, but we were all hype. We were dancing and singing all the way through the tunnel and to the metro. It was a great ending to a great day.