Since Paris is my home for the next two months I am trying hard to be more Parisien than tourist. However, I am in Paris. It would be foolish to not go see the sights. So with that in mind I set out this weekend to be a tourist. First thing on Saturday I took the metro to a crepe café near the Eiffel tower. The previous weekend I had met up with friends in the UK honors program on the honors trip to Europe and we went there. Since I planned on starting my day at the Eiffel Tower I decided to return. The owner and his wife are very friendly. They speak a little English although their accents sometimes make it hard to understand. The food was delicious (as all the food has been in Paris) and an American was also in the café so I had some English conversation while I ate. 

Following my meal I walked to the Eiffel tower and lay on the grass for a couple hours: reading, taking some pictures, and enjoying the sun. One of the more pleasant things about the Eiffel Tower area is the smorgasbord of different people there. You hear French, German, Italien, Chinese, and English (both American and United Kingdom English). There are older couples, families, teenagers, small children, and those in middle age. One man was playing a mideval role playing game with his children, running around with a sword. A group of French college aged kids of both genders played a small game of rugby near where I lay.

After the Eiffel Tower (Tour d'Eiffel en Francais) I begin to make my way on foot towards Notre Dame. I chose to not take the metro because I wanted to see Les Invalides on the way. Les Invalides was housing ( built for crippled or retired soldiers during the monarchy. Currently it is a military museum. The complex is huge and looks more like a palace or fortress. Its most striking feature is a golden dome. On a sunny day it is incredible how bright the dome gets. The gardens and grass are kept at perfection. There appeared to be one guard whose sole purpose was to blow a whistle if anyone went near a 10' x 60' patch of grass. On another side of the complex, massive cannons point out over a walled trench that surrounds the complex. I am sure the old soldiers staying at les Invalides felt very safe. I did not see much of the inside because it required a ticket and I wasn't sure I wanted to go in. I may return in the next couple of months and see more.

I navigated the streets and alleys of Paris and finally arrived at Notre Dame. The cathedral has been the place I have visited most since being in Paris but I had yet to go inside. While I decided to save the tower for another day (I had walked about 5 miles at this point and probably had 2 more left to get home and the mideval architects had neglected to add elevators to Notre Dame) I went inside for the first time today. Notre Dame is a big cathedral. That is an understatement. But still when you go inside, the size of the interior is breath taking. How did they fit this into the building you had been looking at outside. Massive pillars and walls of arches support the ceiling which is as untouchable as the sky. I tried to take pictures to capture my experience but when I reviewed them later I knew they did not do it justice. Candles burned along the sides of the interior. Intricately decorated chapels and confessionals lined the right side. Renaissance artwork (I assumed. I don't know enough to be certain) lined the left side. One could get candles to leave burning for loved ones. They were free but a box next to them said, "2 Euro offering for candle." On the sides of the cathedral near the altar but high on the walls were the largest stain glass windows I'd ever seen. A similar theme of all the sights in Paris ran here. That theme is, "Wow this is a lot bigger than pictures make it out!" Before I left I spent some time to sit in the chairs facing the altar. Resting my head back I stared up at the massive ceiling. I thought this would have been what a Renaissance Parisien would have seen if he fell asleep in church and woke up leaning back. Being surround by the opulence of the late middle ages Catholic church I couldn't help but think if the first Christians in the first century could have ever imagined a building like this.

With my feet close to falling off I walked to the university I'm working at and then home. Fortunately, I chose to wear running shoes instead of Sperry's so my feet were not screaming as much as they had my first couple of days here. I'll have another post soon about my latest excursion to L'Arc de Triomphe and La Place de la Concorde.