And the week continues...

Sunday January 18th, 2009

Today we slept in for a little bit. ... Unfortunately that meant missing Sunday mass at Notre Dame. Supposedly it was supposed to be an international mass, but it still wasn't in English. I was really meaning to go because that would have been awesome! But def i will sometime before we leave Paris!

At 2, I signed up for a guided tour of the city. On the tour we started walking from school to Notre Dame. Our tour guide was actually the art and architecture professor for St. Johns. Thankfully she could speak great English-- just like an American! lol I found out a lot of interesting things about the architecture of the Notre Dame! It is actually pretty interesting! I found out that the exact center point of Paris is in front of Notre Dame. Paris' districts are formed around in circular formation around this center point, which is marked off on the ground. Also when someone looks up information on the distance from one point to Paris, it is approximated by this center point in Paris. ((From Westfield MA to Paris France, it is 3526 miles)) i thought that was an interesting fact.

Anyways the tour was pretty interesting, a little dull tour the end because it was pretty long. However, the weather couldn't have been better. I was supposed to rain, but it ended up being sunny like all day, which was great!

We saw many different places on our trip. We walked through the smallest, and only original streets left in Paris. After a certain point a long time ago, the government decided to redo Paris. They repaved roads, and made them more than twice as wide. The streets we walked through, the original streets, were so narrow. It seemed as though only 1 car could have fit through them at a time. She said that part of the reason they repaved was for military. As for defense, it was easier to barricade streets and trap troops in. Also the (beautiful) cobblestone roads were able to be used as weapons a long time ago. People used to dig up the stones and use them as weapons, throwing them at the enemy.

Also by the original roads and buildings areas, you could tell how old the buildings were. some had garages from medieval times ( like low wooden doors, with brass handles) She said that they probably weren't used as garages anymore, because they were so short lol.. but who knows with the tiny cars Europe has! On the same road we noticed a weird sign on the building. It was at a certain height, with a line in the center of the sign, something written in french and a date. Someone asked what this was and she said that you can find those in various places around the city. It is a water line form a major major flood Paris had a while back. The line was sooo high up! Like probably well over 8 feet above the street... and looking at the nearby river, that was at least 50-100 feet below the street.... To get that high, must have been such a huge flood.!

After we saw all that, she took us to an original ancient Roman part of Paris...weird... and she brought us to a street where the oldest cafe in Paris was. She said Ben Franklin used to eat and have tea here! Nuts!! she said shes actually never been in there, but it was a cool original part of Paris to visit!

After the tour me and my friends decided to go to eat American cuisine... McDonald's!! and let me tell you, it was delicious!! It was funny ordering, starting with our favorite line to say in french, Parle-vous angleis? (aka do you speak English). We thankfully got someone who spoke a little english. I ended up getting a royal cheese... it was basically a cheeseburger...just with a fancy name. ahh the pleasures of fast food. lol For some reason it tasted so much better in France!

After McDonald's, we walked back to campus, taking in some sights along the way, and decided to have a girls movie night. We watched the movie, the Sweetest thing- my friend Jen brought a bunch of movies from home. I had never seen it before so it was good to relax for the night with the girls. It's such a girly movie lol. After the movie, everyone was pretty tired so we all decided to head to bed. I read a little of my book at night before i fell asleep. Class the next day!

Until next time...
-Julia