Paris

The first leg of our post-study abroad adventures landed us in Paris.  After having been to various big cities throughout Europe I was still impressed with how many people there were in Paris.  I don’t need to give you a day to day what we did because if you really want to hear you should just talk to me in person when I get back or look through my pictures when I finally get them up.  Here are a few highlights from my time in Paris. 

Mass at Notre Dame:  As Sunday was our first day in Paris and the day we had set aside for sight-seeing I wanted to go to mass at Notre Dame.  We went to the international mass which was only international because the readings were printed in multiple languages and a one minute part before Communion was in English.  It was my first time going to mass since being in Europe and they opened with a song that is commonly sung at Blessed Trinity so that made me very happy.  I then listened to a mass in French but being Catholic I knew what was going on so that was nice.  I thought it was interesting that in the French and English parts of the Order of Worship they printed a note about if you are not Catholic please do not join us in Communion but in the Italian and Spanish sections it was not printed.  Yay for countries that have essentially universal Catholicism!

 

Before Mass

The Louvre: As noted while I spent 4 hours walking around the Kunsthistorische  in Vienna, I wore tennis shoes so my feet wouldn’t hurt too much.  This was a very good call as we spent about 6 hours in the Louvre.  It was very crowded which was unsurprising.  The number of people crowding around the Mona Lisa and taking pictures of it was astounding.  We didn’t see everything because we were past the point of enjoying looking at art.  It was the most recent in a long line of art museums since we have been in Europe so 6 hours was more than enough.      

 

The view from the line to get in

The Eifel Tower Light Show:  I am such a tourist.  I absolutely loved the Eifel Tower light show.  It was literally just 5 minutes of the lights on the tower flashing but it was really cool to watch.  It reminded me of how excited I get during the light parade at Disney, which last time I went I was 18 and still enjoyed it as much as when I was 6.