Mom's Adventure in Paris part 2

Day two was slightly less ambitious than day one, but we still managed to squeeze in quite a bit. We started back at Notre Dame to go up in the towers. Four hundred steps later, we finally made it to the top (after a slightly disgruntled me dealing with an annoying ticket booth). Even though it was a little hazy that day, it was still a sight to see. And can you imagine climbing up those four hundred stairs every single day to ring the bells every hour? Unbelievable. They must have had legs like a rhinoceros. When we got to the bottom, we just had legs of jello. Remember those jello commercials where everything is jiggling when they touch the jello? Yeah...that's about an accurate description. But WORTH IT.

After that, we headed up to the Champs-Elysees to see the Arc de Triomphe and to find something to eat. This is where Mom got a little crazy with the camera. I believe at some point she took a picture of someone's parked car. After we ate at a decent restaurant (where I still can't figure out how they knew automatically that we spoke English), we headed under the Arc where the master of photography was shoved out of the way by another master of photography. hahaha. Poor Mom...ruining some French guy's picture. Tsk. As if he expected to come to a tourist attraction and not get any other people in the picture. Good luck buddy.

Then we hiked our way over to one of my favorite parts of Paris--Montmartre. We started out at Starbucks to get a picture for Brenda, then we moved over to Sacre Coeur. I know I've explained it before, but the hill up to this place is so cool. It's the world's largest flea market, so on the way up to the church there's tons and tons of little shops selling an oddball collection of things with people in the streets playing games and such. It's really an interesting little place. The only bad thing is, they don't sell much else besides touristy junk. We had quite an encounter with street vendors on the way up to the church. I think he was struck cold by the Mama Burk, "NO." She had a little bit of crazy eyes going on. The first time I came to the church, it was pretty close to night time, so the church was closed. So I got to see something I didn't see last time and I'm so glad I did. The inside of the church is incredible. Unlike Notre Dame, this church is quite decadent--I don't know how those people pay attention during mass. The dome of the church has a huge golden mosaic of Jesus on the ceiling along with several other mosaics. And the stained glass in the church is pretty fancy looking too. After checking out the church for a little bit, Mom went to the center to "say her prayers" and comes back with her CAMERA in her hand! It was made very clear to not take pictures of the church. Sinner. Thought that was pretty hilarious that she sneaked some pictures after her prayers haha. So now Mom has prayed for all of you guys at Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur. God is up there scratching his head trying to follow this busy-body!

We ended our day at the Luxembourg gardens. I wasn't expecting much due to the cold, but to our surprise, they were planting flowers and plenty were in bloom. Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside the castle, because I think it's a government building now. That's okay...I don't really want to see a bunch of government officials at work. Awkward. It's a pretty cool garden though, with plenty of statues of royalty throughout the garden, and elaborate fountains and so on and so forth. We left the garden and sniffed out some French pastries and a baguette.

After that, we trucked it back to the hotel. I was quite the party-pooper that day. I had to finish up homework that I couldn't frantically finish before she got here. I think this was really okay because we were pretty chilled to the bone by this point. So we cranked up the heat, sent some messages, got homework done and just relaxed. Dinner at the hotel was an interesting experience. The waiter had a little bit of a strange accent, so I'm sure he was less than impressed with my ability to communicate with him. But, overall, a successful day. By this time, I was really proud of myself for not getting ourselves lost at all in Paris. Go me!