Paris Day 2

Bon Soir (good evening in French),

We have had another great day on our journey. We spent our 10 hour day walking and riding the bus around town to see the amazing sites of France as quickly as possible. The first amazing thing was that we woke up to it SNOWING this morning. According to the locals, this is quite rare b/c the temperature hardly ever reaches the freezing level. It quickly melted, but to look out our window this morning and see snow falling and the Eiffel Tower in the distance was just incredible. We walked to the Rodin musuem and saw The Thinker (outside with snow), The Kiss, and The Gates of Hell, which are just a few of his great sculptures. We were heading to The Louvre, but then detoured to the Musee d'Orsay b/c it was supposed to hold the famous Van Gogh painting Starry Night. But as luck would have it, the painting we saw was another version of starry night, not the more famous one. We did see other great paintings of his including his self portrait. We then headed to the Louvre, which was an incredibly amazing, confusing, and large museum. This was the busiest tourist spot we've seen so far; therefore, we fit in the main things (The Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, The Raft of Medusa) and flew past other works of art. We walked on to the Cathedral Notre Dame, which wasn't nearly as impressive as St Peter's Basilica or Basilica of St Mark, but still great to see with lots of beautiful stained glass.

Next we caught our tour bus to the Arc de Triomphe and walked to get some lunch. After lunch we caught the metro to Montmarte (Bohemian area) so mom could walk around as it was one of the places she most wanted to visit and also to see the famous Moulin Rouge. It was just like you'd expect with the big red windmill and all! It was a great stop but the area was more crowded and dirty compared to the rest of Paris. We hopped back on the metro and went back to the Arc de Triomphe, hiked the 250+ stairs to the top, and I saw one of the most amazing views of the trip. The sun was setting over the city and the Eiffel Tower was beautifully placed amongst the sunset. It was probably one of my favorite moments of the trip!. I highly recommend taking the time to travel up the stairs of the Arc if you ever make it to Paris. After seeing such a great view of the city, long lines, and freezing temperatures, we decided to forgo riding up in the Eiffel Tower. We all agreeded the day was so perfect and we appreciated the views of the Tower from afar, we didn't want to ruin things by standing in line all night and freezing our tails off. We made a quick stop into a pastry shop and came back to the hotel to prepare for the trip tomorrow.

We will leave Paris in the morning and take our "1st class" train to London (We don't know how we got first class!). We will have a short bit of time for sightseeing before our dinner and show of Wicked, which we're so excited about. By coincidence, Jenna let me know that her and her friend also have tickets to the same show tomorrow, so hopefully we can meet up. Hope all is well and depending on the day tomorrow and availability of internet at the next hotel, I hope to blog soon. We will spend Saturday and Sunday in London and move me into my dorm Sunday evening. Mom and Dad fly out Monday morning and I will begin my clinical rotation the same day (January 5th). Hope all is well and hope to blog again soon.

-Melissa