Paris Day 3

Before I begin, let me apologize for not updating this blog in a while! I'm still on vacation and don't have wifi at my grandparent's house. Their computer is really slow so it takes forever to do anything online. I'm currently sitting at a Starbucks drinking a mocha and using their free wifi. :)

So the last post was from our second day in Paris, France. You may remember that my parents had left that day to spend a night in Normandy, so Jen and I were on our own. The third day was a big one for me. When I heard we were going to France, I told my mom immediately that I wanted to go to the Palace of Versailles. I didn't know how close it was to Paris, but I wanted to go if I could. I had first heard about the Palace in 7th grade World History. My teacher told us that it was a really amazing place and to go and see the Hall of Mirrors. I've wanted to go ever since then! We also talked about it back in my second year at SVC and my teacher once again said that it was an amazing place and to try to go. So my mom made plans for that third day in Paris for Jen and I to go.

As my parents weren't there, we had a bit of a later start. Okay, ONE of us *coughbigsistercough* had a later start. We were supposed to leave the apartment at 10 but we didn't leave until 11, which meant that after our train ride, we finally made it to Versailles at 12. It was so exciting to be there, though! We first stopped at the Starbucks so that Jen could get a coffee, then made our way up the road to the Palace.

It was astonishing. It was a nice, sunny, warm day out so the Palace gates just glimmered as you walked up the road. The gate and many of the outside parts of the Palace are gilded in gold, so you can see it from quite a distance. There is a huge area outside of the Palace where you can see the outside from behind a gate without paying. There were many people out there, but we of course were going to go in! I had pre-purchased our tickets the night before so we just had to wait in the entrance line.

Once you got inside the estate, you walked into the front courtyard of the palace. We decided that we would do the free audio tour first, so we made our way to the proper place and got our audio receivers. We began the tour and I was having a really hard time understanding the thing, but kept going. We saw all kinds of amazing paintings on the first floor and a big row of cool statues on the second before beginning our walk through all of the rooms. I was excited because they had the famous painting of one of the Louis wearing red high heels. haha

When we reached the first major room on the second level, I had Jen listen to my receiver while I listened to hers; it was perfectly clear while she remarked that she could understand why mine was so bad. She had thought I was just having trouble understanding the thick accent. She waited for me in that room while I fought my way through the crowds and got another receiver. I finally got back up to her and we continued on.

There were so many amazing rooms in there that had amazing paintings, ceiling murals, thrones, beds, etc. It was pretty incredible to see! One of the coolest things was that the ceiling murals had painted in borders that looked three dimensional. It was amazing artwork!

We finally made our way to the Hall of Mirrors, the room I had been most looking forward to! This room was full of history. One of the most important things that happened there, though, was the signing of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. The room is a long rectangle. On the right side, there are many windows that have a great view of the gardens behind the building. On the left side are mirrors that are parallel to the windows on the right side. There are ornate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and fancy chandelier like lights sitting on gold statues. It was spectacular!

We made our way through the second half of the building, which included all of Marie Antoinette's chambers. Somewhere during this time, my receiver stopped working. It reset itself and when it turned back on, the commentary was in Spanish. The guy working there said the only place that could change the language was the distribution desk on the first floor. Instead of taking a 20 minute trip down to get it, I decided to just share with Jen. We probably looked pretty funny holding the receiver between our heads, turning in unison whenever the commentary mentioned a feature of the room. haha We definitely felt pretty funny! We also took a tour of the apartments of the Dauphin and Mesdames' Apartments, which were the apartments for the royal family including the king's daughters.

By this time, it was close to 3 o'clock and we were quite hungry. Prior to leaving the city, we stopped at a patisserie and got a couple of pastries, but that can only keep you going for so long! After the previous night's raw beef fiasco, I told Jen we were just going to go to McDonalds and eat there. She reluctantly agreed. There was a HUGE line there, so it took us a long time to get through. Jen was also pretty tired and wanted to relax for a while. We also went into a couple of souvenir shops, so it was about 5 before we made it back to the Palace.

At this point, we walked over the the gardens of the palace and took a very quick look. We didn't purchase tickets to go inside because the website had said they would be closed that day. As it turned out, they were only closed for part of the day for a private event. Regardless, we were able to see a small portion of them and got a few pictures before making our way back to the front courtyard and gate area, where we took many, many pictures and videos. It was such an amazing place!

Finally, we had to leave as the Palace closed at 6:30. We made our way back on the train and went back to the apartment to rest. I had found beef Top Ramen at the store the day before and purchased it. I was so excited to know what it was! haha So I had that for dinner and we just chilled while we waited for our parents to return. They finally made it back and told us about their fun couple of days in Normandy. We then went to bed in eager anticipation of the next day--the final stage of the Tour de France!

All of my pictures from the Palace of Versailles can be seen here. A lot of them were taken by Jen!