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| View from outside of Notre Dame |
We woke up super late today. I guess we have been tired from walking around everywhere in Paris that we didn’t realize how tired we really were. We thought waking up would be okay since we were just going around the corner to see the Medieval, gothic style cathedral Notre Dame. It’s always a lot of people in the streets around it, but it wasn’t until today we realized that actually was the line to get in! We flashed our passes and to NO AVAIL whatsoever we ended up in the BACK of the line. -___-
The line was located in between buildings and the wind was mean. She whipped us like we had stole something from her, and being that we forgot our hats in the room, we felt her wrath ten-fold. I broke down and bought some ear muffs from the local shop because I thought I felt my ears pop and ooze (gross, I know), but I was tripping. Did I tell you I woke up with some kinda cold this AM? So it didn’t make my wait in line any better.
We waited for… wait for it… wait for it… an hour and a half in the whipping winds. While waiting, a man came by and handed us a brochure about the Notre Dame that told us what we would see inside, what we could see from the outside (top of the Notre Dame), and that there were 400 steps, no lifts, no bathrooms, and that they let 20 people atop of the towers every 10 minutes. NO WONDER we stood in line so long… 20 people every 10 minutes? C’mon son!
Cold and anxious, we finally made it to the front of the line, flashed our VIP passes again, got in and climbed 200 stairs upward. The first part wasn’t too bad because we were happy to be inside and shielded from the cold. But as the stairway got narrower and the steps became closer together… and the winding of the staircase seemed as if it would never stop, I got nervous, claustrophobic and ready to break free. When I saw the light of day, I didn’t care that it was cold outside anymore. I just wanted to get out of that stairwell!
The view from the top is beautiful to say the least. You can see the city and all of it’s majesty, take a look:
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| View from on top of Notre Dame |
We walked around the top of the towers, and descended the stairs (200 – had to have been) only to make it to the bottom and WHOAAAAA… I know that’s not ANOTHER line to just get inside of the cathedral?! This particular line stretched for about a half a mile. “X” that, next that… won’t be seeing THAT today. With no contemplation on even stepping foot in that line, we walked away and stopped at our bakery, grabbed lunch, and went back to the room to enjoy it (while grabbing our hats of course).
Since we had a plan for the day, we decided to continue by visiting the Sacre Caeur. We rode a different train than what we normally take and BINGO – we found the Black people. It was like East Market in Greensboro at every stop we got off. I saw two guys who sat on the metro in front of me with “THUG LIFE” tatted on their knuckles. o_O I won’t lie, I was nervous, but since I’m more tatted than that, I didn’t feel too threatened… maybe. #lying
We got off the metro, walked toward the church, and saw all types of illegal stuff going on including these warehouse like stores selling coats, shirts, shoes, accessories… you name it, they had it, for like no more than 5 euro. I mean WINTER COATS were going for 1 euro. I’m thinking they were stolen from some people who were in the church, sat it down, and POW – it’s gone. Or either they raided some trucks and racked up on goods… either way… no thanks! We also saw more scammers on the way. One of them referred to me as LADY GAGA. Really, sir?! REALLY?! He got totally ignored.
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| Sacre Coeur – Beautiful! |
We were finally in front of the church (Thank God!) We climbed more steps, saw a puppet show, and listened to a man encouraging everyone to love one another or they would end up singing … you guessed it (probably didn’t): “Adele – Someone Like You”. I don’t know how he translated that song to mean that (maybe he doesn’t know English too well) but he sung it, played his guitar, and had a huge audience swaying and humming along. You know I had to help him out with the high notes since he was more of a tenor and I’m more of an “altoish-sopranoish, can be tenor depending on the song” type of girl. #songbird
They asked for no photography inside of the church, but I’m a rebel so here are some pics that I took inside:
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| Inside of Sacre Coeur |
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| Arc De Triomphe |
We left Sacre-Caeur, took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and took some pics there. This is where many people in Paris bring in the New Year, and tonight did not fall short of a celebration. Immediately exiting the metro to see the Arc de Triomphe, we got tangled up in a group of people watching some break dancers. We took a minute to cheer them on and went over to the Arc to take pics. Instead of going back to the same metro station, we strolled down the street to sight see. Guess what I found while walking…
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| Louis Vuitton store by Arc De Triomphe |
-Sigh- No, I didn’t buy anything. I am determined not to go into any stores that can be found in the US because the UK costs so much more. I’d rather save those extra dollars and spend them on something else. We took the metro back to our side of town to see if we could catch Notre Dame before it closed, but just our luck it was. Bummer. But we have time to see it, we we will probably catch it tomorrow. We just got in from grabbing some Japanese food – Sushi <3 and we plan to chill out for the remainder of the night so that we can wake up early tomorrow to start another fun filled day!
Okay, songbird! -_- lol <3