I lied again because we didn’t go to Sacre Coeur today, but I will get there eventually! We only had class today so most of us took the opportunity for some much-needed sleep. We had class, yadda yadda but then we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe for the sunset over the city. It was an awesome view to the northwest where it was setting, but also I could finally see so much of the city and locate myself based on other landmarks (the Louvre, the tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, skyscrapers?!). Here are my favorites:
All 284 steps to get to the top
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier underneath the Arc
A little too photoshopped, but I like the sky
Probably my favorite sunset picture
Just after sunset
Longer exposure, kind of blurry because I shook
Looking off the south corner (see Van Hise on the left)
Little bit lighter with the same view
Northeast corner, Sacre Coeur is off in the distance
North corner, mountains in the distance?
Southeast down Avenue Champ Elysees. The Louvre is directly at the end, and Notre Dame is just to the right of that (you can see the two towers poking up facing us).
I’M ALREADY A DAY BEHIND ON THE BLOG?! So (lucky you) two are coming tonight. Anway, on day 2 we walked about 13 miles, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
This is the view from my window, just in case you were wondering. Nothing too special, but the overhead path on the left is a walkway that I may/not go running on sometime in the next month if I ever get the motivation (or want to sacrifice some sleep?).
EDIT: Oh, we had our 2-hour orientation today. My roommate and I overslept almost an hour because my phone reset in the middle of the night, so it lost track of time and erased my alarms. Lesson learned – set 5 alarms minimum from now on. Luckily it wasn’t a big deal because the university is less than 10 minutes away.
So our quest began with the intention of getting to the Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel). A few stops after boarding the metro (I almost know how to do that now) we realized that Notre Dame is on the way, so we stopped there. Little did we know that Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower are miles and miles apart. After getting off the metro we popped up above-ground right next to the Seine river. The riverside (below, north to the right) is just constant buildings as you see here. You can’t see it yet, but the Eiffel Tower is about half a dozen miles just to the left of straight ahead… oh boy.
We made it to Notre Dame, which was really impressive. We wanted to walk up to the towers, but the line for that stretched almost 2 blocks, and we never saw it move – we’ll stick to the inside for today.
After leaving there, we headed across the river and came across a “locks for love” (my term) bridge. Locks fill almost every open space with lovers’ names on them. Not sure what happens after that, but it was definitely a sight. My roommate, Joe, took a spare Master Lock that he had with him and locked it on the bridge. I was in the middle of video recording it when a French woman came up and pushed 3 of us from our group aside and essentially barged through (though she said pardon every time) – still kinda rude because she could have just walked 2 steps to her right to go around – but oh well, we’re the foreigners now.
After lunch (crepes and wine) we continued to the Eiffel Tower and came across another one of the “locks” bridges, and the Louve was across the street. We’ll get there on a field trip in the next week or so! So we didn’t stop today, just a few more miles to the tower…
Along the river there are tons of book shops, but also many of these closed-up green bins. Elyse, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming these are more shops that either aren’t rented out yet or open that day – they kept reminding me of large green dumpsters.
We lost 5 phone-less members of our 13-member group at this point, so we stopped by a bar for a quick bathroom stop and drinks to wait. Enter: my first French beer! It was good, but kind of watered down from what we’re used to. Not too expensive, but more or less a Miller Lite in France.
We never met back up with the rest of our group, but eventually (2 or 3 hours later?) made it to the tower – impressively large – and we plan on buying tickets to take the elevator to the top on a nicer day. The line to get tickets today was all the way across the base of the tower and we were hungry. After dinner and another wine stop we plopped down on the lawn nearby to watch it light up. These lights popped on around 9:45, and apparently every hour until midnight (after these lights come on) it shimmers – definitely did not know this, so that was an awesome surprise.
And here’s the tower with the shimmering – with video (below)!
Paris!! 