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Magnifique!

I'm going to throw some pictures on here while we wait for the 8 hour plane ride back to Chicago. I think these pictures are mostly from Thursday and Friday. 

Beneath the Louvre. This is the excavated castle portion. Before the Louvre was a museum or palace, it was a  medieval fortress. I thought the dungeon was pretty cool. 
Napleon's tomb. That's cute Laura Fletcher in the background. I joined her and Alyssa (two of Emily's friends) along with Laura's parents for the day. Rick was presenting his paper at HEC and I was a little nervous about roaming around unfamiliar areas on my own. Luckily, their trip to Paris happened to overlap ours by a couple of days. 
On Friday, we experienced some famous artwork at the Musee D'Orsay. Monet's paintings were my favorite. 
But seeing Van Gogh's work in person was neat too. 
I loved how this cafe at Orsay was decorated. The colorful glass chairs were so bright and cheery while also seeming elegant. The Orsay museum was originally a train station built to get people to the city for the World's Fair.
This is a view of the Louvre across the Seinne from Orsay. 
Another lovely Monet. 
This next picture is the best picture of Versailles that I got.
We had plans to visit Versailles on Monday (a day before flying home). As I reviewed our plans on Sunday night, I realized that Versailles is closed every Monday!  Poopy!  I was so disappointed.

Next is a picture of Angelina's. They had very rich hot chocolate--like drinking a melted chocolate bar. It was good but so difficult to drink a whole cup--especially when we got ice cream too. 
After Angelina's we went to a nice creperie. The crepes were so good, but after the hot chocolate and ice cream, I struggled to finish my food. 
On Saturday we moved to another hotel. Rick had flowers there for me. Cute!
On Sunday we went to church at the Paris ward. They have visitors often, so there was a whole room with translation to English. Sunday school for the English speakers was across this courtyard--which was also the very small and crowded parking lot. 
The Sunday School teacher worked at the US Ebmbassy. At the end of a nice lesson, she reminded us that it was September 11 and we should be cautious and watchful--especially on the metro (subway). She didn't provide any more details and didn't even really say what to watch for, so we were kind of creeped out. We had used the Metro to get to church and had plans to take it home, but after the enigmatic warning we decided to walk back.

We visited the cathedral of Notre Dame and medieval chapel, SaInte Chappele on the way home.  There was a large police and military presence around Notre Dame. Two days earlier, a car was parked outside the site which was found to have a few full tanks of gasoline in it. They had already arrested the suspects who were thought to be planning an attack on a nearby metro station. 
Weird face of mine in the next one, but I like the detail on the building with the apostles and Christ. 
The stained glass in SaInte Chapelle is really amazing. The entire Old Testament is illustrated in the glass that surrounds the chapel. 
That's it for now. Hopefully one more post of Luxembourg Gardens and you will have seen most of what we saw on our trip. I feel very blessed to have been able to go. I really missed the kids and got pretty homesick on Sunday, but they were in good hands and enjoying their time with Grandma and Grandpa. 

Comments

Lisa said…
Amazing! I would have been nervous on 9/11 too. Glad there were no incidents. What a fun trip!
September 13, 2016 at 3:34 PM
Olga said…
I am so glad that you guys had so much fun!!! thanks for sharing.
October 7, 2016 at 11:25 AM
Olga said…
I am so glad that you had so much fun. Thanks for sharing!
October 7, 2016 at 11:25 AM
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