Yesterday was a whirlwind, seeing more then we bargained for, and honestly today was to. The streets of Paris are crazy as they seem to always be winding. There really isn't a direct way to get anywhere when you are walking, which makes walking places both entertaining but also more time consuming the you originally anticipate. In most cases time is not an issue for us at all.
We also came acros the lock bridge. For those who don't know this is a bridge where you attach a 'love lock' and you throw the key into the seine, which is the river below. There are thousands of locks on this bridge, I do have pictures but not enough space to post it tonight.
The Notre Dame, it is an incredible church, especially when you consider that it was first under construction in 1100 and finished in 1220 all excepts for the towers. Pictures will never do justice to this place so I have decided not to attach many. Any amazing place though, really. Cool to think of how much history it has been around for and all that it has survived through.
As we journeyed our way through the he streets of Paris, we came across a few more metro signs. For some reason I felt I had to take pictures of them due to the fact they different then the two that I thought were their only ones. Today our weather was better. Although we did not have the downpour, which makes me lean toward saying much better, we had a mist. The misty rain when you are walking outside for a period of time gets you equally as soaked as a downpour does. This we realized rather quickly, although it is hard to protect yourself when it seems to come from everywhere. We have seen many unbrellas sadly lying on the ground, or in the litter bins, which makes us thankful we paid a little extra for a sturdy umbrella. Especially as when the wind blows, and the umbrella gets inverted we don't have to worry that it will break.
My parents, as part of Luke's graduation gift, as well as not being able to meet us over here, gave us money to share in an experience that got to enjoy when they were in Paris together. A dinner cruise on the Siene river, going past the major buildings, and seeing the city light up. Unfortunately for us, due to the fact that Paris has been having mass quantities of rain, the river in overflowing and there is only one out of many many cruises even operating on the river. We would have considered this option except that it was at a time that wasn't even late so the lights would not be light even by the time it ended. Thus we chose a different experience and had dinner in the sky. On the 57th floor of a building overlooking and seeing the glorious city. Although the building seemed in the end to much to high, we still got to see what mattered most, the Eiffel Tower. We got to see it sparkle in the night sky twice as we were enjoying our meal here. Even though the clouds seemed to be hovering and getting clearer and foggier, we could see a decent amount. Our choice to go for a unique experience and risking the view ended up making a unique vantage point of the city, and definitely an experience in Paris that we will always remember. In the end we were surrounded by clouds and eating in the sky, which was and experience in itself. We had a great evening enjoying the city and the company of one another. Overlooking the Eiffel Tower, with one another, class of wine, even though it wasn't the panoramic view we were hoping for we enjoyed if for all it was worth, and enjoyed an experience we didn't think we would have.
Here you can seeing the river flooding. In between the trees should be a roadway where cars can drive, and the water should not be that close to the branches. The bottom right picture you can see a poor guy trying to save his boat and get it back onto his bigger boat. It is pretty crazy to see. We took a gamble with dinner and risked that we may not be able to see much, but ended up seeing more then we thought.
Before our unique dinner in the sky we head to the catacombs, beneath the city. This place is unbelievable. So many bones and skulls and pathways beneath the city. We heard some crazy things about how these got started, the history behind them, and they came to be discovered and restored.
It is an experience like nothing else. In no other place would you ever see the bones lined up and skulls of humans on display.
Even though it was still a little creepy, it was better then I thought I t would be. But walking down the spiral staircase, the extremely close stairs and tight corners, made me sooooo incredibly dizzy. It was soon weird. As was the same thing going up, mixed with a little light headedness, anywho this maze far below the ground goes for quite a while, and there was more maze that we couldn't see, although we saw all the bones. And man were there hundreds and hundreds of bones. Again pictures don't do justice, especially as flash was not allowed, but google is a great resource that you can look up better pictures, and yes what you would find on it would be both real and accurate.
We saw many wedding pictures happening today, as they have a bank holiday and we are assuming maybe they have 2 days off, not sure though. Cool locations that they are taking pictures. One lady outside the Notre Dame, evening though she had flocks of pigeons around here and then someone would make them fly and that was their picture, I am sure it will be great pictures. Momentary side note, there was a lady not far from her that was beckoning the pigeons, and had them on her arms it was gross. Anyways behind the Notre Dame they have a swing and there was picture there. As well in the metro station they were taking a picture the bride pulling the groom from falling on the edge into the train tracks as the train was coming, again I am sure they are going to have some cool and unique pictures.
Where we had lunch was in this unique building of sorts that had tons and tons of shops and restaurants stacked on top of each other. As we were sitting at the table discussing our dinner plans for later and what they should be there were many pigeons flying around. As previously mentioned Luke is great as scarring these things away. Normally not in any way that would cause me any type of heartache. This time however, as he stretched his foot out from under the table, he grazed my leg, which absolutely terrified me as I thought it was a bird flying under the table somehow. With a deeply distrurbed look on my face, and tears in my eyes I looked at him in horror. As soon as he realized he told me it was his leg, which wasn't as comforting as I had hoped.
Both yesterday and today have been very late postings, but worth it as it is a way for process all that we saw today. I continue to fall in love with elegance of this city, and beauty that surrounds it.
And so the adventure continues...
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