Appreciating the Arts

Nick and I slept well last night. Too well. We were trying to get up at 6:15 am to make it to Versailles by 9 am; however, I jumped out of bed when I saw 7:15 am. We had a lot more to see in our last day of Paris and I didn't want to waste another minute. We quickly got ready (without yet another shower), washed down our small breakfast with a cup of hot chocolate, ran to the metro with our heavy backpacks on our backs. The hostel wouldn't let us leave our bags there for the day, so we split a giant locker at the train station. It turned out to be a great idea!




We caught a bus to forgo the closed metro due to construction and caught another metro to Versailles. It took about 30-40 minutes to get to the palace from Paris. I feel I'm being redundant with my descriptive words but this palace was truly awesome! Unfortunately, our pass didn't let us forgo the 45-minute line (trust me...we tried) that we were trying to avoid by waking up early but it was still worth it. My lack of writing skills cannot begin to describe the majestic detail of this palace. King Louis XIV was so flamboyant in the way he lived. Very fascinating! We spent a good three hours walking through the ornate palace and extravagant grounds before making our way to the Louvre, "the museum of museums."











Everyone and their French dog told us that we didn't have time to visit Chateau de Versailles and the Louvre in one day. Well...they definitely underestimated our speed, strength, and stamina. The only thing that slows us down are Nick's what-seem-like-forever bathroom breaks. However, I've lived with him before and have grown accustomed to it. It's just one of Nick's funny quarks that makes me laugh and roll my eyes. And I usually have enough patience as long as these breaks don't extend longer than 30 minutes. The Louvre was HUGE. One could seriously spend three weeks in that museum and still not see everything. We spent about 3 hours. The Mona Lisa was cool but a little overrated. There were just too many people worshiping the idea of taking a picture of the painting that it turned me off. I was more excited to see the artwork of Jacques-Louis David.

We walked the main street of Paris before our night train headed to Nice (Southern France). Visiting H&M brought back memories of buying cheap ties as a missionary. It was a struggle but I talked Nick into buying matching blue dress shirts. I thought it'd be a step up after what we wore to church in London. We were both more impressed by London's night life (near Piccadilly Circus) in comparison to Paris' but both beat out the night life of Salt Lake City or Provo for sure.