Voyage to Gay Paree

I came, I saw, I took pictures of ornate buildings. The Office of International Relations organized a day trip to Paris specifically for the exchange students, and I paid my 40 euros and signed up. I stayed up till 1:30 am reading a book that I hadn't realized I like that much till I saw the time, went to bed, and woke up at 4:15 the next morning to shower, pack a lunch and some snacks, and jog to school so I could be on the bus at 5:30. Sometimes my briliance and common sense astounds me.

After three sleepy hours we stopped at the Tour d'Eiffel and gave our legs a good workout. It was cloudy that day, so the pictures I took from the tower weren't fantastic, but I was amazed at the amount of time I spent simply looking out at what seemed like an endless city.

I had not thought to be surprised with Paris, having seen just about all of it in movies. But it was huge! I got tired just looking at the Louvre, and for some reason I had thought the Notre Dame would bear an unimpressive resemblance to FUMC in Tulsa. Hah. I gawked just like all the other tourists, took pictures because I didn't see the sign saying you weren't supposed to, and was a little glad that churches now aren't nearly as ornamental—anyone with even a mild case of ADD would never hear a word of the sermon. There is so much to look at, and it's wonderful to see the care with which churches were constructed. No moving into an old Walmart for the Catholics.

I saw the Moulin Rouge, and was only impressed with how many sex shops the French have managed to fit on one street. And here I thought that one was as good as the next. I saw where Chanel and Gucci and Louis Vuitton house their wearable art, and maybe someday I'll work up enough courage to set foot in one of those shops. Porbably not, though. I took pictures of many ornate structures (and now have no idea what they were), tried not to yawn when I realized that I had been awake for the majority of two whole days, and climbed a lot of steps at Montmarte. There were some angry men who tried to sell us some string, and my friend Ronan got caught by one of them until I went back and literally tugged him away while the guy yelled after us.

The Sacre Coeur was my favorite stop in Paris, despite the impolite African string men surrounding it. There I did see the sign that said no pictures, and I wandered in hushed awe through the massive chapel. It's an experience that is beyond words, so I'll not ruin it for anyone else by attempting to verbalize it.

All in all, there was not a whole lot to say about the trip, though I did manage to take 97 pictures. There was the Eiffle Tower, the boat tour of the Seine, the Notre Dame, the rest of the boat tour, the bus tour, Montmartre, back on the bus for a five hour trip home that took us three hours going the other way. I did get to see some wicked break-dancing in the streets, then hear the other students gush about how ripped the dancers were for the whole way home. So that was fun.