Paris, The city of light

Ms. Garcia on the blog today - We started the day figuring out the metro system, which thanks to London, is not very difficult, besides the fact that everything is in French (not complaining, just wish I had snuck into some of POMS beginner French classes). We met some fellow teachers from Georgia and had a nice chat with them. We were quite amused as they had confused us for Parisian teenagers! I'll take that compliment.


At the request of Kelsey, Adilene, Kaylan, Keir, Amador, Kazi, Mirna, Steven , Jose, Max, Jaelene, Antonia, Eva, William, Isaiah, and Joe our first place to visit was the Louvre. It is massive! It is basically divided into three sections: Denon, Richelieu, and Sully. Each section has at least three levels. Per the request of many students, our first venture was to find the Mona Lisa. I have to say that I have never really been a huge fan of the Mona Lisa...let me tell you though she is beautiful. Seeing her in person, I now know why the world has been captivated by her for all these years. We also found two other paintings by Leondardo de Vinci that Kelsey, Adilene, Kaylan, Keir, and Amador asked for us to find those were St. John the Baptist and Madonna of the Rocks. I cannot begin to express how much we saw in the Louvre. It was painting after painting, statue after stature, artifact after artifact, all the while being amazed with the beautiful architecture of the building itself. After over four hours in the museum, we merely scratched the surface.

From the Louvre we headed out to the Jardin des Tuileries. We took pictures of the fountains at the request of Katherine, Paul, Alek, Sergio, Andy, and Isaac. We were also able to enjoy a nice lunch sitting down in the garden looking towards the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. I think it was then that it truly sunk in that we were in Paris.

Steven, Kazi, Mirna, Jose, and Max also asked us to visit Musee d'Orsay, We were given the tip that if we showed up around 5pm we could possibly get in free (thanks Rick Steves). It was a good thing we were there around 4:45 because we were some of the last people to be allowed in the museum. And as luck would have it, we arrived right when they started letting people in for free for the last hour (unlike the man who cut in front of us and ended paying for a ticket only to have two more minutes than us in the museum!). This was a little gem of a museum. I say "little gem" because it was so much smaller than the Louvre, but every inch as incredible. We saw works from Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Gaugin, Matisse, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The museum is under a bit of construction, and they placed their pieces in a sort of "these artists influenced each other" sort of story line. It was quite exceptional!

After the museum we decided to walk our way towards Notre Dame. On the way we came across a bridge. The bridge was a pedestrian bridge, nothing fancy about this bridge. However, as we were crossing it we saw that the chainlink sides were dotted with locks. On many of these locks were engravings and writings. Our guess is that these locks were left behind by couples who left them as a symbol of their relationship. It was really quite sweet.

Walking along the river Seine, we finally came across the majestic Notre Dame. I kept expecting to see Quasimodo jumping along the gothic spires and gargoyles. As it was late, we decided to find a place to eat dinner. I believe we ended our day while having dinner in a cafe in the Latin Quarter...or perhaps it was St. Germaine...in the end, what does it matter? We are in Paris. (Pictures to come as this is Ms. Ballard's department!)