FINALLY! Another update about PARIS

So the next day we went to NOTRE DAME which was absolutely breathtaking. It was really cool because there was this choir of students that were singing the most beautiful classical music ever, so Erica and I sat down and just listened for a bit. It really made me realize how much I miss singing, especially in choir, and classical music. I must find a remedy for this. Thinking about buying classical choir cds.... or something. I was also amazed at how huge the organ in the church was, when they were playing it, it was honestly so loud, it was ridiculous!
After that, we went and say the EIFFEL TOWER for reals for the first time, and it was soooo big. Way bigger than I had imagined. And there were TONS of people. It was really cool, and we took a ton of pictures, but we decided not to go up it right then, cus there was a huge line... we would wait until another day.
The next day we took a lovely little walk from our hostel and walked right next to the Sienne and down this really pretty part of town to the Place des Vosges which is a little park surrounded by this building and you can walk in and Erica and I sat there and had lunch. It was really pretty because there are all these fountains and trees and there are just people everywhere eating, talking, sleeping, doing homework. It kind of reminded me of being on campus at CU. It was such a beautiful day, I didn't want to leave. But we had lots of things to do that day. After that, we went and saw the PICASSO MUSEUM which was really interesting. It is amazing to me how his work can be something that doesn't make sense at all until you read what it is, and then you can actually see how he thought about it, and it becomes real. His creativity amazes me. Next we went to the Musée de l'Orangerie which focused on impressionism and especially Monet. We walked into these two circular rooms where they had nothing but these huge Monet paintings (specifically speaking, those on the water lilies for which he is so famous) that stretched across the entire walls. It was really impressive. The colors were so vibrant, and you could actually see the paint rising off the canvas. It was really cool. The rest of the museum had other Money paintings as well as paintings from other important impressionist artists such as Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume.
The next day we hopped on the trains and took an hour ride outside of Paris to visit the PALACE OF VERSAILLES. First of all, we spent the entire day here. It was HUGE! We literally walked around the entire thing for the whole day, and I still don't think we saw everything. It was surrounded by beautiful woods where there were bikers, and walkers, it was gorgeous. Especially since it was fall, and all the leaves were falling everywhere. It definitely made up for the fact that I missed fall in Boulder at home. The palace has a huge lake that is kind of shaped in a huge cross. Erica and I decided to rent a little paddle boat and take ourselves for a little ride and enjoy the scenery. Needless to say, we were the only two people that WEREN'T a couple in a boat. How embarrassing. But we got over it. Rowing a boat is actually a lot harder than it looks. We had to take turns. It was really cool though because this swan swam up to us and I actually thought it was going to try and get in our boat because it was so close. I guess it thought we had food or something. Ha, right. Are we college kids or what? The statues and gardens in the rest of the palace were beautiful, but we couldn't go inside or inside Marie Antoinette's house either because they were closed for the day (although it was probably better that way... the tour was 20 euros!).
The next day Erica and I were going to go to the Natural History Museum, but it was closed (go figure... it was Wednesday...). So we walked around the surrounding parks and came to the top of a hill where there was a little gazebo type thing and we had a picnic there. The gardens were gorgeous! It was literally like being in the middle of a forest with pathways in the middle of a huge city, weird! Then we went to the Pantheon. I was so excited when we went downstairs and we got to see where Victor Hugo is buried (for those of you who don't know, he wrote Les Miserables. If you still don't know who that is, shame on you!) The architecture of the building was amazing, and we got to take a tour (where we heard everything first in French, then English, then Spanish) and got to walk up these really windy staircases up to the outside on top of the Pantheon where we could see around the whole city. It was pretty cool. I also loved the huge pendulum that was swinging in the center of the Pantheon. There is a story to it, it's cool. Look it up (too long to write).
That night Erica and I were going to go up the Eiffel Tower, but it started POURING! So we decided against it and ended up at the MOULIN ROUGE. I was super excited! There was a huge line to get in for the show and we were informed that tickets started around 60 or 70 euros per person! We were definitely not that interested. So we started walking down the street to see if there was anything else interesting and did not realize that we were apparently in the Sex district, because all we kept passing were tons of sex stores, and cabaret shows, etc. We decided to get out of there pretty quickly. We got back on the Metro and headed toward the Basilique du Sacre Coeur which we know is lit up at night. It was really pretty.
The next day we went to the Natural History Museum which was really interesting, but I won't bore you with details. Then we walked through the gardens again, and went and saw some of the graves, which were really interesting. The last thing we did was we ended up at the Eiffel Tower and we actually went up and it was SO COOL! We were able to see the entire city. It was soooo amazing! That is the end, and I will post pictures soon! :)