Fall Break '10: Paris: Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, Louvre

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't updated sooner. I was busy with a paper and just generally tired. But, I will update as much as I can. This weekend everyone is going on a day trip to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Should be interesting...

Anyway, so on the 16th I left for Paris at 6:30 AM. We arrived at the airport around 9 AM-ish (Paris and the other cities were 1 hour ahead of Dublin) and took a bus from the airport to the city, then took the metro to our hotel. Thankfully Kasey knew where we were going. Lemme just say that Paris is beautiful and my new favorite city. It reminded me so much of New York. And the metro makes life so much easier, I don't have to walk 30 minutes just to get some where like in Dublin. And it's so much more diverse than Dublin.

 The first place we went to was Notre Dame. It's one of the well-known cathedrals in Paris, and it's where the movie The Hunchback of Nore Dame takes place. It's one of the most beautiful churches I've ever been to. I went to a Notre Dame in Montreal, I think that was a smaller version compared to this. You can pay 5 euro to go to the top where the bells are.

Notre Dame

There were beautiful stained-glass windows. Too bad my camera didn't take good interior pictures...

Luckily for me I know French pretty well. It was exciting to test my French out and I managed to do very well. I can understand and read pretty well too. That's why I would love to live in France. My French would get better! The next place we went to was jardin du Luxembourg. There was a huge palace surrounded by a beautiful garden.

Luxembourg Palace

After walking around the garden for awhile we decided to head out for dinner while looking in various book stores (le librarie in French). We reached this very touristy street filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. I bought The Little Prince postcards to mail back to my friends and family. We ate at a restaurant which we paid 10 euro for a 3 course meal. I tried French onion soup for the first time, followed by steak and fries (fries come with almost anything) and a dessert. After that we called it a day and went back to our hotel.

The next day we went to another cathedral named Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart). In was right in Montmartre where the movie Amelié takes place. It was another beautiful church, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Sacré Coeur

Montmartre

So, after all that our friend Paulo met up with us and we all took the metro to the Louvre! It's always been my dream to go there ever since reading the Da Vinci Code haha. The Louvre is like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Lots of classical paintings and sculptures. And, of course, it has the Mona Lisa and other Da Vinci paintings. When we got there we had to wait on a long line in the cold and go through security before actually getting in. We only had 2 hours to walk around, which rally isn't enough to explore more than one wing in that huge museum. Normally classical art bores me, but the huge paintings and sculptures amazed me.

Entrance to the Louvre

 

 

Isn't it amazing that someone painted this???

The Mona Lisa! Isn't she tiny?

Another Da Vinci painting

Winged Victory

Venus De Milo

After our two hours Paulo and I went into the museum gift shop. I bought a little notebook with the Winged Victory on the cover as well as The Little Prince from the children's bookstore. I love The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince en français), it's one of my favorite French stories. Since my reading level isn't too advanced, I read children's books in French. Hopefully I can improve my reading comprehension as well!

I have lots more pictures and things to share. Just so I don't spam so many pictures in one post, I'll split my Paris travels in two posts :)

Museum of Ireland and The Guinness Storehouse

Hello everyone! Today was a good day. Me and a small group went off to visit the National Museum of Ireland. The day so far was clear. Cloudy of course, but clear. We saw swimmers in the river, and I wasn't sure if they were racing or not. When we got to the museum we saw people rehearsing for a parade. Today and yesterday was is the Fringe Fest, which is like a medieval Irish festival. The people were moving puppets and it looked really cool but kinda freaky at the same time.

The museum was interesting but boring. At least it was free. There was an Asian Art exhibition currently running. We got up to the third floor and decided to leave because some of us were feeling tired from the museum. Next we went to the Guinness Storehouse, which was the most exciting thing of the day. It's where the original Guinness factory is. Part of it was built into a museum of sorts. According to one the man who gave us an introduction, the museum is set up like a giant pint of Guinness. The most appealing part is at the end where everyone is given a free pint of Guinness at the end of the tour. It was 11 Euro to get in for students. The museum was AMAZING. They show you how it all began with Arthur Guinness, who signed a 9,000 year lease for the storehouse. You see what ingredients go into Guinness, how it's made, how it's contained/bottled, and how it's distributed and advertised. I took about 100 pictures.

Free half-pint for tasting!

I don't like Guinness at all, but I liked being at the storehouse. It's so glorified in Ireland. Honestly, look up Guinness adds on the internet. The commercials are great.

The top floor of the storehouse is called the Gravity Bar. It overlooks all of Ireland in a 360 degree room. Plus that's where everyone gets their free pint. I liked the idea and atmosphere. The pint, not so much. I only drank half of it. Everyone else loved it.

Me with my free pint :)

After our pints we went back down to the ground floor to visit the huge flagship store. I bought myself a cute little bag. We were going to go to the medieval parade, but we decided to just take a cab home.

If we're friends on Facebook, check out all my pictures from today!