Mom's Adventure in Paris part 1

We started towards Paris early in the morning. Nathalie drove us to the train station which was VERY nice and we hopped on a train for the next two hours. Upon getting of the train, we (after some difficulty) acquired our three day metro/bus pass, and this is when Mom started to go a little bit crazy. We needed to take the metro 4, then get off and connect to RER B and then get off and get on a bus to our hotel. It sounds complicated, but it's actually really simple. The hard part was mom keeping up with me. After dragging her unnecessarily large suitcase through two metros and one bus, my bruised mommy and I arrived at our hotel in Fresnes. But there's no rest for the weary, because we turned right back around and headed toward the Louvre.

One thing I love about being a student over here is that I get into all the museums for free. :) Mom, on the other hand, had to pay full price. But I'm pretty sure if you asked her she'd say it was worth it. We walked around the Louvre for about three hours and MAYBE saw a third of it. I think she was more struck by how large the Louvre is than by how much artwork is in there. The whole thing is incredible. I think the highlight of the Louvre was seeing original parts of the castle in the lower level. They still have the original stones from hundreds of years ago. Also a highlight--Greek and Roman sculptures.

After Mom took her four million pictures, we turned our weary feet toward Notre Dame for 6:30 mass, which was given by the archbishop and televised--if anyone's interested--http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/index.php?page=calendrier&date=2010-11-21&id_rubrique=2. This is by far the best thing I could ever give my mom. One thing that's great about Catholicism is that it's a universal religion. So even though Mom wasn't able to understand what was being said by the archbishop, she could follow along with her English prayers. As I've said before, Notre Dame holds a certain feeling. It's not necessarily decadent or striking, but you feel different inside. You feel different knowing that millions of people have been there to pray, to sing, to cry, to laugh, to live. All of you have been added to the uncountable amount of prayers said in Notre Dame and you have my mom to thank for that. I'm sure God did a double-take when he heard her praying all the way in Paris!

Quite satisfied with ourselves, we headed to see the Eiffel Tower because I assured Mom it's the best at nighttime. And sure enough, the second we walked out of the metro, the Eiffel Tower was twinkling! Doesn't she just have the best of luck? We oohed and aahed once more at the Tower and took some more pictures and had some more hugs. By this time, I think she was pretty tired of running after me on the Paris metro system and we headed back toward the hotel for the night enchanted and ready for the next day.