Versailles and the Sparkles

So today we woke up and after poking around in our room for a bit and having oranges and apple sauce, we took a train to Versailles. We bought our ticket there but then realized that we would be leaving the metro system to get on the train system and our little metro passes wouldn’t work so we ended up paying twice for the tickets. But they were only like six bucks so it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was a pretty long ride from both the metro to the train and also the train to Versailles. It is about a 40 minute ride out from Paris and is its own town. I learned in my history class that it used to take 3 days on horseback to get to Versailles. Then with the invention of trains it took three hours, and now with the newer trains it takes about 45 minutes. Wow the industrialization has changed the world!

I listened to my iPod for most of the ride. It was kind of nice to just have some refection time. I feel like during my trip here I have been doing a lot of go go go and not enough of sit and think. Especially when I have been traveling so much. When we got to Versailles we walked towards he Chateau which was a few blocks down. We passed a few really cool building like one which I think was the hotel de ville because the words equality and Fraternity were on it which along with another word which is slipping my mind, are the three words of the motto of France.  We walked past a souvenir shop which had cheap postcards so I made a note to stop there on the way back. We walked to the castle and because we had already bought tickets on line we didn’t have to wait in line which was really nice. Though it was weird because we didn’t have actual tickets as we hadn’t been able to access the site to print them but when we showed our paper to the very nice lady, she printed them for us and we were good to go. It was nice having pre-purchased them. Then we walked in and took pictures at the big golden gate before going to visit the little Madame’s apartments. They were pretty cool but we did find them a bit smaller than the apartments we would see later. It was interesting to see each style as not all of them were done at the same time or lived in obviously by the same noble lady They were cool but we were more interested in the grand apartments.

The Grand Apartments were the quarters of the Kings and Queens. It was a very lavish set of rooms. We looked at the Apartments du Roi which are the kings’ apartments first where we saw the big dining room and little dining room as well as the kings’ bedroom which took 25 years to restore. It was very lavish and heavily gold and deep red colored. It was very gorgeous but I found it a bit less lavish than the Napoleon Apartments in the Louvre just because the rooms didn’t have as many tables or were nearly as homey. In the bedroom, there was simply a big bed and then some small stools. It was a quite plain room. I am not sure though if that is because they have since moved those things to another museum or if they were lost during the revolution, or whether it was just the style to not have very many things in your rooms. One of the things that I really liked about all of the rooms that we visited was that they had huge fireplaces. They used wood as the source of heat during this time but because of that every room was required to have a nice big fireplace. We also visited the Hercules ballroom which houses the largest one piece of canvas hand painted ceiling in the entire world. It was really beautiful. I didn’t know that bit of information until Cassidy told me. I just thought it was really pretty.

Then after that we visited the Hall of Mirrors which was right next to the Kings apartments. It was really beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Opera Garnier in Paris because of its gold and extravagance. I think I counted over 20 big glass chandeliers. I thought they were really beautiful. I was a bit surprised that it didn’t have more mirrors though for being named the hall of mirrors. It also had a very beautiful view out of the windows to the vast garden below and in the distance, the forest ground for hunting. Versailles was originally made as a hunting cabin and then from there developed into a palace, but hunting and the gardens have always remained a large part of the purpose of the palace because that was its initial purpose.

Next we visited the Queens Apartments which were in a separate wing. The King and Queen obviously couldn’t share apartments and needed their own rooms in separate wings of the palace. I think that I like those apartments more than the Kings because they were more unique and there were details from each of the queens that had lived there because each queen would hire her own designer to change it to fit her. I thought it was cool because it was more of a patchwork of styles. The colors were a lot less comber than the Kings apartments and had more of a womanly touch, which I appreciated.

After that, we decided that we were starving so we went and found a little café sort of place in another part of the chateau. We both got café au lait and a sandwich. Cassidy also got a brownie and I got a chocolate muffin. The bread on the sandwich was VERY chewy so it made our jaws hurt to eat it but other than that, it was very good. I really enjoyed my muffin but it still had the muffin taste, unlike some muffins which just taste like cake without frosting. I like those the best because I don’t really like frosting very much. Cassidy really liked her brownie.

Then after that we went and walked around the garden a bit. It was really cold and Cassidy had thought it would be warmer so she hadn’t brought her heavier coat so we weren’t really into walking around a whole bunch. But we did go out and there were two swans in one of the fountains. It had been turned off because of the cold, but it was still pretty cool. I really liked looking out over the gardens and looking out down towards the big pond like pool. It was really pretty. On the ma it showed that there were a lot of fountains and little garden areas, but because it was winter time all of the fountains were shut off and half frozen, and then also the trees and leaves and such were all dead. We didn’t feel like there was that much to see in the gardens while we were there because of the time of year. I would really like to go back during the spring or summer and spend an afternoon walking around and seeing all of the beautiful gardens and flowers and fountains. We also saw that you could rent bikes or go-carts so that you could see more, but with it being so cold we decided against it. But this was definitely somewhere I would not mind coming back to.

Then it got to be about two so we decided to get a move on and headed out town. We were headed back towards the train station when we stopped and got postcards. I got 10 like normal because they are cool and I think that postcards are a cool way to remember a place I was because they take way better pictures than I do and can get some nicer angles. Later this evening I was telling Dad that I wanted a like book that had sleeves to put my post cards in and he said okay for like 25 or a hundred? And I was like ummm… Probably more like 130? I have a lot of postcards. I get 10 from everywhere I go usually. So I have quite a lot. I think they are a relatively cheap souvenir and they will be an easy thing to take to show people when they ask how my trip was. Though I guess I should get a smaller group of pictures together for when people want to see MY pictures… That will be tough. It’s hard to take 9,000 pictures and then pick just some to show… That will be a challenge for another day. I think that everyone should just read my blog don’t you? ;-) There is a ton more explanation and it will remember more things than I will!

I also bought some other things at the shop which I can’t reveal because some of them are Christmas Presents. I have ALMOST finished buying for everyone. I will be done once I get back to Aix because I have some things that I want to buy there and I know where to get them but I know what they are and who for, so then it will be easy to get everything done. I also don’t have finals on Monday; I just have to wake up early and take Cassidy to the Airport and make sure that she gets on her flight. SO I will be up super early and chilling at the airport for quite a while tomorrow. Boring. But oh well. That’s what friends are for right? But while at that shop I found a little bottle of perfume that I liked and looks really cute (I just tried to spell it qute, English is too hard!). I think it was a good little purchase for me. But the problem with buying stuff at this shop was that then I had to pack it around all day. It wasn’t heavy, but I didn’t bring my bigger bag with me so it was carrying around plastic bags which wasn’t very fun. 

We took the same train back to Paris but got off a few stops earlier at the Eiffel tower stop. We started walking in the direction of it and away from the other Tourists which Cassidy was like a bit freaked that we weren’t going to the right way, but I told her to trust me. When we got around the next corner there it was! She was kind of unimpressed. And was like wow it is a lot browner than I thought it would be. I said the same thing. Why is it so photo shopped in all of its pictures to look super silver/gray but then in reality is brown? Why did anyone pick brown to paint it anyways?  But she was a bit unimpressed with it. We walked out a little farther and got pictures with it, but then decided to go get dinner and wait for it to get dark. It was only about 4:30 when we sat down. It felt kind of late so we ordered for dinner, but then once the food got there we realized that wait a second, we aren’t even hungry. We just ate like three hours ago. Well this was kind of a waste. We ate what we could and then decided that we just weren’t going to be able to eat a lot more. We got water as well and I decided that I had been dehydrated lately so I decided next time we found a store I was going to buy a water. The waiter was a nice guy though and wasn’t a jerk and didn’t charge us water and bring us the bottled stuff. Thanks waiter guy! Then we left after Cassidy barely touched her pasta and I ate my burger but left all the fries. Cassidy had picked at them a bit but they were pretty much all still there.

Then we got out and Cassidy was like do we really have to stay around here until the next hour and I was like yes. The Eiffel tower sparkles on the hour for about two or three minutes and it is cool to see so I made her wait. I went into a few other tourist shops until I realized Cassidy really hated them. Then we found a pastry shop so we went in and I got a Buchette de Noel which is a Christmas log. It is like a chocolate cake rolled up sort of like hostess rolls but all chocolate. It was really good but really hard to eat because they didn’t give me a fork. Oops. So I made do. It was really good and I am glad I bought it but it probably didn’t help me start eating better… It’s just too hard to think about it in France. I will worry about it when I get home…And after Christmas. I do miss the gym though which is something that I didn’t think I would miss. But I miss it.

 

Then after that we walked around a bit more before deciding to duck into a café to get warm until the hour. I got a tea and Cassidy got a hot chocolate. My tea was SUPER hot. I was under time constraints though so I just opened the top and stirred it a lot to get it to cool down. But then we got ready to leave and Cassidy thought she lost one of her new leather gloves but it had been zipped into her coat so it was all good. We walked back over to the Eiffel tower which Cassidy liked much more at night. I think it is way cooler at night. We found a little bench with a spectacular view of the tower. And as we were sitting there Cassidy was like, “does it noticeable sparkle?” And I was like uhh yeah you will notice. Then it started and she was more impressed. We took pictures and ogled at it for a while before starting off in the direction of the metro to go over to the Champs Elysee and the Arc de Triumphe. We walked under the tower and when we went out the other side Cassidy noticed that is had Nelson Mandela’s name and years on it. I thought that was kind of cool. It also had some lights shining out from it. I think that is a cool thing for France to have done.

 

We walked down to the metro stop and then got on to go to the Champs Elysee. We got off on the Champs-Elysee stop which spit us off at the center of the road no at the far end by the arc. We decided that was better than transferring trains again. So then we got up from the stairs of the Metro and we like ohhh goodness gracious. There were SOOO many people. The Champs Elysee is famous for being a huge road with a ton of really high-class shops on it which we sure as heck didn’t want to pay for. So we just walked down it. There were lots of lights which looked like hula hoops and then lot s of the shops had decorated some more for Christmas. There were just so many people that for Cassidy and I who don’t like large crowds it was a little too overwhelming. We both don’t like Malls because of the people and noise and this was exactly that. It was so many people and slow people and people pushing you and no order or direction and it was just far too chaotic for us. It was too much so we were just like let’s get our pictures in front of the Arc and then get the heck out of here!!! We eventually got to the top. This was a feat in itself. And when we got there we got our pictures. Cassidy’s was a bit hard to get because a police car stopped like RIGHT in front of where we were taking pictures and then just stayed there. So then we had to move to get a good picture.

Then we said great let’s find the closest Metro and leave. We went down a passage which ended up not being it and then I consolidated my bags because one was breaking and then turned around. We got on the metro which was crowded and then transferred to our 5 line which had our hotel on it. It was less crowded and we got seats which was nice because our feet hurt! We eventually got back to our hotel and were so happy to be in a quiet and not full of people place. On the way back from our metro there were some weird guys who were on playing music and doing a little weird dance thing which isn’t too terribly uncommon on the metro. But then when they walked around the metro car I noticed that on was wearing tear away pants. And sure enough soon their shirts were off and they were walking around in just pants. And then the ants came off and they like were hanging onto the poles upside down. I was not really in the mood but other people on the metro thought it was funny. I was kind of over it plus I had known it was going to happen before it did so the surprise factor was lost. Yay theater background!

 But when we got back to the hotel we were happy to be there. I took a shower and we chilled. Cassidy uploaded pictures onto facebook and we were chilling and taking until we figured out that we were both pretty hungry at this point so we debated on vending machine or finding a grocery store. Either way we needed snackies. We decided on the vending machine so we wouldn’t have to put clothes back on. But when we got down to the vending machine it didn’t have any decent food. So we went back up to our room and changed and grumbled about it before going down the street to a little convenience store where we bought PMS cookies and toasted bread and cheese which was garlic and herb. Cassidy knew what it was. I got a sunny D which ended up being kind of gross and Cassidy got a berry juice which was also weird. But we ate our cheese and bread and cookies and talked. This adventure was because we were “totes hungry” Then eventually after a couple more hours we were tired enough to go to sleep for our next day!