Woke up to screaming kids and and slamming doors this morning, about 7:30...yippee! The hostel is just crawling with young people. Ate breakfast at the hostel.
The hostel is nice on the outside, and it has lots of cool extras, like the bar, restaurant and stuff, but it is noisy and kinda grungy inside. The showers are the type you don't wanna use them in your bare feet, you wanna wear sandals or something on your feet. Oh well, the price isn't too bad.
Headed to Notre Dame Cathedral first. The main cathedral is free to walk around, but to see other parts, costs money. We went to see the treasury part, the Tower and the crypt. The treasury wasn't too great, the Tower (where the great bell is, as well) was pretty cool, got some good photos and video up there. That bell is MASSIVE! The crypt is actaully an archeological dig site, where they unearthed ancient Paris, the origins of the city of Paris. This was actually cool, you actually see the dig up close and personal. Notre Dame Cathedral was built around 1160. Notre Dame and Westminister Abbey are completely different. Notre Dame is completely wide open, Westminister Abbey is tight, super crowded.
Neil, Dave and I had pita's for lunch. Finally some real European food. We got them at some small place down some back street, where the small shops are lined one right after another. Ryan didn't have anything.
We hopped on an train for Versailles, it cost about 30 French Francs, which is about $8.00CDN.
Versailles...AWESOME. Better than awesome. Magnificent. The castle is stupendous. The courtyard is massive, and amazing. As you walk around the treed paths in the courtyard, you keep running into these fountains hidden in groves all over the place. Unfortunately, a storm in 1999 uprooted about 80% of the historical trees and vegetation, so they're working hard to restore the vegetation. It must have been amazing to see before then.
This is one place I'd LOVE to revisit again. We didn't have the time to explore all the nooks and crannies in the courtyard, it's simply massive.
Caught the train back to Paris at about 4:15. We then walked to the Obelisk, then caught the subway back to our hostel.
I could've been killed on the subway back. I got on, and sat beside this guy...he seemed to be preoccupied with something in the front of the car. All of a sudden, he get's upset and starts muttering to himself, in French, visibly upset. He then turns and stares at ME, for, like 30 seconds, right at me. I didn't look back at him,I was afraid, I just looked forward. He then started staring at another women for about a minute. Neil and Ryan saw the whole thing. At the next stop, he got up, and was looking for someone at he front of the bus, and he marched off, and started looking around, upset, presumable because he had lost whoever he was "stalking". Weird!
While this was happening, another guy, got on the car, and immediately dropped to his knees, made the sign of the cross, then started praying, then started walking around on his knees, begging for money (in French). The French definately have some weirdos among them.
Weather today was good/bad. Cloudy, sunny for a while, then a little rain, then wind, then the sun comes out. It's relatively warm, though, which is a good thing.
Neil just noticed a message above his head on the ceiling above his bed. It says: "I jerked it here. Have a good sleep."
Anyway, tomorrow we rent a car, and head to the north west coast, I think. These guys want to see some of the WW1/2 beaches and whatever. Should be interesting.
Check back soon!
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