The next morning, I followed the Camino de Santiago (the route the pilgrams from France take to Santiago de Compostela, which is where St. John is allegedly burried) backwards and walked to France to Hendaye to catch my train. This part of Spain was breathe-takingly beautiful with beautiful, green, steep hills, and when I was there it was warm and humid and foggy. Hendaye was a pituresque little town and I spent the morning exploring the town while I waited for my train. The train ride to Paris was also beautiful, and I think that that day was the most quaint, pretty day I've had in Europe. When I got to Paris, I checked-in to my hotel and met-up with a friend from high school who is studyin in Paris this semester, and we walked around a little in the area near my hotel.
Sunday I got up and started exploring Paris. I decided to not use the metro so I could see more of the city, so I started my day by walking to Notre Dame via Batille. There were a whole lot of people there, which wasn't too surprising, since it was Palm Sunday. There were also a lot of gypsy's heckling tourists, and whenever I took out my camera, or took off y coat, I looked like a tourist, so I didn't take my camera out too much. I was a little disappointed by Notre Dame, since it's not very big, or old, or especially interestingly decorated. I also didn't go inside because there was a really long line, and it feels wrong to go in a church for touristy reasons when there are people there for religious reasons.
The Seine River was pretty too, but it seemed really trapped, because the Parisians didn't give it a flood plain. After visiting Notre Dame, I went to the Latin Quarter, which was my favorite part of Paris because it seems the least pretentious, and there were a lot of students and a few less tourists. I went through the Latin Quarter and found the Senate building and a park and the Pantheon. I went in search of the geology museum, which was by the zoo and the institute for the Arab world. The geology museum is in a complex with a mineralogy museum, a paleontology museum, and the zoo. It turned out that the geology museum was closed for renovations, and the mineralogy museum was closed because they were installing a special exhibit, so I went to the paleontology museum. They had a special Darwin exhibit (for the 200th anniversary of his birth) and they show fossils relevant to The Origin of Species, which was interesting because I was reading it in Spanish at the time. I spent nearly 2 hours there, and most of the time I was in the invertebrates (it's a bit geeky). They had some really cool fossils though, like Burgess Shale and Ediacaran fossils. They also had several trilobites from Wisconsin, including one that was from Eau Claire! They had an outdoor geology exhibit too, but they had all of the rocks in cages, which made me sad. I think it would be a great idea to have outdoor geology museums with rocks that people can touch. I went back to my hotel via a tower that had a statue of Pascal in it, because he did experiments on air pressure there.
PascalI bought my dinner at a grocery store and had juice, Camembert cheese, and a baguette, and then I went to bed.
The next day I explored the west side of the city. I started at the Louvre (I didn't go inside again because there was a lot I wanted to see, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not a huge fan of art).
I instead walked toward the shopping district, which sort-of disgusted me because of all of the excessive wealth. After that unpleasant wake-up call, I went to the last really famous Paris site on my list. The Eiffel Tower was actually very pretty, and I liked it much more than I'd expected. There are really pretty gardens around the tower itself, and that's where I ate my picnic lunch, and before leaving, I took the obligatory Eiffel Tower picture.
I also realized that the Eiffel Tower looks a bit like an exponential curve, which made me like it even more.
After visiting the Eiffel Tower, I wandered back along the Left Bank back to the Latin Quarter, where I ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant before heading back to my hotel to get some sleep before catching my flight the next morning.
Tuesday morning was nearly disastrous. I left the hotel in time to get to the train station to get my ticket to the airport, and I got to the train station with plenty of time to spare. I was planning to buy my ticket from a person, but it was just after 5:00am, and there weren't any people, but I figured out the machines without any trouble. I'd been carrying around a lot of Euro in change for when I met my grandparents to take them to Salamanca, which was a very good thing, because the machines only took exact change, and the train ticket was more than 8€. After getting my ticket, I started following the signs to the platform for the train I needed, but after going through an electronic barrier (where I had to put my ticket in), I found out that the platform that I was on was under construction. I went back out and found the correct platform, but since I'd already scanned my ticket, I couldn't get through. I started to get concerned (as well as angry), and I went to find a person to help me, but there wasn't anybody. Frustrated, I went back to the ticket machines, which also had a credit card option, and tried to pay with all of my credit cards, but it wouldn't accept any of them. By now, it was nearly 6, and I needed to catch the 6:15 train to make it to the airport on time, so I tried to find some sort of store that was open so I could get some change, but there wasn't anything in the train station. I was really nervous, and I just went walking all over the station trying to find something, and I miraculously found myself on the platform for the train I needed, but the 6:15 train had already left, so I had to wait until 6:45. Luckily, the 6:45 train was express, so I got to the airport 5 minutes before check-in was supposed to close, and I was one of those annoying people who runs through the airport. I found my check-in counter, just in time, and was waiting in line, when a couple of old French ladies budged me. They took a really long time to check-in, since they had a lot of questions and complaints, and I didn't check-in until after I was supposed to be boarding, but the gate and security were immediately behind the counter, so I made it. I was especially worried because I was supposed to be meeting my grandparents at the Madrid airport, and I had no way to contact them. The Paris airport fiasco was definitely one of the most stressful experiences that I've had ever. Luckily, it turned out fine, and I found my grandparents and got ready to start the second half of my Semana Santa.
The next day I explored the west side of the city. I started at the Louvre (I didn't go inside again because there was a lot I wanted to see, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not a huge fan of art).
I instead walked toward the shopping district, which sort-of disgusted me because of all of the excessive wealth. After that unpleasant wake-up call, I went to the last really famous Paris site on my list. The Eiffel Tower was actually very pretty, and I liked it much more than I'd expected. There are really pretty gardens around the tower itself, and that's where I ate my picnic lunch, and before leaving, I took the obligatory Eiffel Tower picture.
I also realized that the Eiffel Tower looks a bit like an exponential curve, which made me like it even more.After visiting the Eiffel Tower, I wandered back along the Left Bank back to the Latin Quarter, where I ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant before heading back to my hotel to get some sleep before catching my flight the next morning.
Tuesday morning was nearly disastrous. I left the hotel in time to get to the train station to get my ticket to the airport, and I got to the train station with plenty of time to spare. I was planning to buy my ticket from a person, but it was just after 5:00am, and there weren't any people, but I figured out the machines without any trouble. I'd been carrying around a lot of Euro in change for when I met my grandparents to take them to Salamanca, which was a very good thing, because the machines only took exact change, and the train ticket was more than 8€. After getting my ticket, I started following the signs to the platform for the train I needed, but after going through an electronic barrier (where I had to put my ticket in), I found out that the platform that I was on was under construction. I went back out and found the correct platform, but since I'd already scanned my ticket, I couldn't get through. I started to get concerned (as well as angry), and I went to find a person to help me, but there wasn't anybody. Frustrated, I went back to the ticket machines, which also had a credit card option, and tried to pay with all of my credit cards, but it wouldn't accept any of them. By now, it was nearly 6, and I needed to catch the 6:15 train to make it to the airport on time, so I tried to find some sort of store that was open so I could get some change, but there wasn't anything in the train station. I was really nervous, and I just went walking all over the station trying to find something, and I miraculously found myself on the platform for the train I needed, but the 6:15 train had already left, so I had to wait until 6:45. Luckily, the 6:45 train was express, so I got to the airport 5 minutes before check-in was supposed to close, and I was one of those annoying people who runs through the airport. I found my check-in counter, just in time, and was waiting in line, when a couple of old French ladies budged me. They took a really long time to check-in, since they had a lot of questions and complaints, and I didn't check-in until after I was supposed to be boarding, but the gate and security were immediately behind the counter, so I made it. I was especially worried because I was supposed to be meeting my grandparents at the Madrid airport, and I had no way to contact them. The Paris airport fiasco was definitely one of the most stressful experiences that I've had ever. Luckily, it turned out fine, and I found my grandparents and got ready to start the second half of my Semana Santa.
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