This weekend Kimmie came in from Angers to visit me and spend some time "touristing" in Paris! I met her when she got off the train Friday night and safely negotiated our way through the enormous train/metro station. Our first stop on Saturday was to the Centre Pompidou (above), a modern art museum named after Georges Pompidou who was a great French art patron, Prime Minister under Charles de Gaulle, and also the French President from 1969-1974. The building itself, as you can tell, is a sort of modern art. It looks like an inside-out building with all the stairs/escalators on the outside instead of the inside of the structure. While it wasn't my favorite museum, Kimmie and I were both glad we went just to say we had experienced it - plus, as students we got in for free!
On Sunday, we went to Hillsong Church together and then out to have crêpes with some of the other Powerhouse people. After a late lunch, we headed back towards the apartment and went to the Forum des Halles (the mall across the street) and watched the French version of Gnomeo & Juliette before having some Italian for dinner with Rhonda (the other American student staying with my host family) at a restaurant down the street. Altogether a great day!
On Monday, we decided to do some more "hardcore" sightseeing - which in Paris essentially means a lot of walking and gawking at things we cannot afford! First, we went to see Sacré Coeur (above) which is a beautiful church and actually a national monument of France built on the highest hill in Paris. As such, it has both a beautiful view and a ridiculous amount of stairs. Sadly, no one is allowed to take any pictures inside so we just had to content ourselves with gawking longer and trying to commit some of the beauty to our memories. After walking up the stairs, around the church, and then back down the stairs we were pretty tired and hungry, so we decided to head on to our next sight-seeing destination.
Where did we go next? You guessed it - the Arc de Triomphe! I've seen pictures of it before, but I had no idea how incredibly BIG it is until I was standing under it looking up! I don't know what it was like in the past, but now because of increasing automobile traffic, the only way to get to the Arc is to go through a tunnel under the street (there aren't any crosswalks, so it's like the Arc is situated on a little island in the middle of a giant roundabout). Despite the persistent chill in the air, we decided to walk the entire Champs Élysées after finishing our gawking/picture taking at the Arc. For anyone who doesn't know, the Champs Élysées is one of the many streets that branch out from the Arc de Triomphe roundabout that is famed for its fantastic (and expensive!) shopping opportunities. After a lot of cold walking (for both of us) and an unfortunate pigeon incident (for me and my coat) we found ourselves in a McDonald's bathroom trying to clean off my coat. Since we had already walked past a bunch of different restaurants we couldn't afford, and we were already inside the McDonald's...we decided to give the French version a try. All in all, not much different from the American version except for the option of potato wedges instead of french fries, the posh decor, and the automated ordering machines. But now at least we can say we tried it!
After a long day (and weekend!) of adventuring, we were both pretty exhausted and since Kimmie's train out left at 8 AM Tuesday morning, we decided to make it an early night. She got back to Angers safely, and both of us had a lot of fun over the weekend! It was nice for both of us to see a familiar face, or as she put it - "If I get homesick after this it's your fault!" Sorry for the length of this post - I hope you enjoy the pictures and I'll have to post again soon about my classes. Hopefully after this second week I'll have more insight into the differences and eccentricities of the French university system! A plus tard!
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