(Posted By Anjali)  

  In France they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Instead, they have a 15 day holiday when the whole family comes together from wherever they are living to have some “family time”. This holiday is called Toussaint, or in English, All Saints. We chose this holiday to visit our friends in Paris. To get to Paris we took a train.
  The train that we took was called the TGV. That stands for Train à Grand Vitesse. Roughly translated, that means Super Fast Train. It only took us five hours to get to Paris. It seems like a long time but seeing how far we were away from Paris it was a really short ride. On the way, we passed lots of vineyards with all the grapes and everything. It was really cool. When we left Beziers it was super sunny. As we neared Paris it got super rainy. That was upsetting but our spirits soon lifted when we saw our friends waiting for us at the station.
  Our friends are our neighbours back in Victoria. They are living in Paris for the year. They have two kids aged 7 and 11. Since they are in Paris for only one year they didn’t buy a car. The only way (and probably the easiest) to get around is the metro.
  The metro, as we soon found out, was not so great. It smelled TERRIBLE! It smelled like pee and sweat and gross stuff. It was also very crowded. We got separated many times. When we all got regrouped again, we would all get on the crowded metro and SPEEEEED away. Despite the horrible smell, we took the metro to most of our destinations.

The Louvre is a palace.

  Our many destinations included the Louvre. It’s the most famous museum in the world. I found it not at all what I’d expected. I’d imagined it as a museum with a red carpet and just paintings lining the walls. In fact, it was so different. There were paintings all right, but with the paintings were really cool artifacts like old weapons, jewelry, statues and stuff like that. I also found interesting a hand that someone had found 100 years after the HUGE statue that the hand belonged to had been found. The statue is called Winged Victory and it is of a winged lady.

The Winged Victory

The other thing I found interesting was the way Picasso took a painting by Delacroix and imitated it but changed it completely by making it abstract. There was so much to see and too little time. Luckily I had the chance to see the Mona Lisa.

Crowding around the Mona Lisa

I thought that it was at the end of a long hallway but I was so wrong. It was in a very large, very open room. It was really hard to see it because of the HUGE crowd that was simply a blur of flashes and shoves to me. The museum was really cool, of what I saw of it, which was less than a 50th, and I really enjoyed it. But nothing will quite compare to the stained glass windows of the Notre Dame cathedral.

The detailed stained glass

 

Notre Dame

 Notre Dame is a huge cathedral on an island in Paris.  They started building it in 1163 and finished it in 1345.  It was partially destroyed over the next few centuries and again during the French revolution.  So this young guy named Violet Leduc, an architect, rebuilt it in 1790.  When we went there, the first thing we noticed was the organ music,which sounded to me like screeching.  Our moods changed when we saw the beautiful, detailed stained glass and the millions of candles lighting up the church.  The other things that I found cool were the very skillfully-made models showing the exact interior and the exact exterior of Notre Dame. 

When you wish upon a candle

When we left, I turned back one more time and looked at the huge church.  It was really huge, but nothing is huge compared to the Eiffel Tower.
  The first things I noticed when we walked up to the Eiffel Tower were the abnormally long line-ups emerging from all directions. The people were in line to pay to go up the Eiffel in the elevator or on the

stairs.  We joined one of the lines and had enough time to eat a full lunch without being rushed.  I was also surprised by how tall it was – it rose at least 270 metres in the air.  When we got to the front of the line, we had two choices – the stairs, or the elevator.  We chose the stairs, and saved 24 Euros, which is about $35.  There are three floors; you can only walk to the second floor, and then you have to take the elevator, which we decided not to use.

La Tour Eiffel!

  We started to walk up.  My friend was getting nauseous but I was running like a marathon runner.  When we got to the first floor, we looked out over the city.  We could see the Louvre and Notre Dame, and also the many people walking along the streets.  On the first floor, there was also a gage showing how much the tower was swaying in the wind.  At one point, it went 3.7 cm off its centre.  It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for a huge metal structure . . .
  There was also an exhibit explaining who, what, when, where and why.  The Eiffel was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1887 as a temporary structure for the International Exhibition in 1889.  Many people protested its construction when they saw the plans.  They thought it was hideous.  But it eventually got constructed and here it stands today.
  When we finally climbed back down, my legs were aching.  Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience.  If I had the chance, I would love to go to the very, very top and parachute off it someday.
  I really liked my trip to Paris. It would have been a lot sweeter if there was more sun, and if we had had more time.  It was pretty fun, though, with our friends and everything and I’m saying this right now – I think that Paris is definitely on the list of Places To Go Before You Die!! 

To see more photos of my trip to Paris, just click here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/30487738@N06/sets/72157609260419119/