WAY UP I FEEL BLESSED

PART 1

I woke up this morning on the plane still but there was not too much time left until we landed. The flight attendants brought us our breakfast which consisted of brie cheese, yogurt, and a few other foods that were very lite, and then before we knew it we were landing in the Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Landing had me very anxious because you are finally touching ground for the first time in over ten hours, plus the wheels seem so small compared to the plane and the weight of the plane including the passengers and everything else just seems so heavy. The pilot made an announcement that we would be landing very soon, and then finally it was over and we were unboarding.

We walked through the airport, waited on our luggage, and finally walked towards the front of the airport to meet with our tour guide. Our tour guide met us, and she handed us all papers that contained French words with their translations. She introduced herself as Mirka and she told us what the plans were for the day and included her itinerary. While we were standing around waiting for the bus to drive up there was a sketchy situation. First, let me tell you about the police in France, they walk around in groups (two by two) with tons of gear, and they are no joke. They carry huge military rifles and when a situation occurs they approach it as if the worst is going to happen. So the situation was brought to my attention when a woman alerted the police about a suitcase sitting in the middle of the floor. I could see how frightened the woman was, but I was more impressed with how the police handled things. They stood alert (some split and moved in opposite directions) and asked if anyone had seen who dropped the bag and then some man came running up and picked it up and then apologized for leaving it and walked away. Yes, it wasn't a huge situation but if you think about it there are so many things that could have gone wrong and our world has seen gone wrong so that suitcase was seen as a threat.

Finally we went outside, boarded our bus, and were on the road....this time the transportation stayed on the ground.

PART 2

As we set off on our trip to the hotel there were many things that we saw and learned about. First of all we learned information about our tour guide, of course she told us her name again (Mirka) and she told us about her life. Mirka first visited Paris at the age of 17 and she fell in love with it! She said after many years back home in the Czech Republic she finally moved to France and has been there since. Mirka then proceeded to tell us all about Paris and the things we were seeing as we rode along in the traffic. The first thing I noticed was how people drive, they drive very close to the car beside them, slide into impossible spaces, and they don’t seem to care too much about it. It is so different than parts of America where people drive with more space in between their cars, and wait until there is tons of room before switching lanes.

We arrived at our hotel in hopes of being able to put our bags in our room, and it just so happened that it was our lucky day. We got to go up to our rooms where we dropped our stuff and freshened up a bit. Our room was an apartment style room which meant that it had a living room, a bathroom (Shower, and sink) a separate room for the toilet, a kitchen area that was tiny, and a bedroom. The bed was two twin beds pushed side by side where Carly and I slept, and Lauren and Jaya slept on the pull out couch that had two twins pulled out also. The room was really nice, and it even had a balcony which was nice because you could look out at the buildings across the street and look up at the stars at night.


We met in the lobby not long after we arrived at our hotel (Citadines La Défense) and Mirka gave us our Metro tickets. The Metro is relatable to the subway in New York City, where there are multiple stops and outlets to take. The maps in the metro help when it comes to getting to certain places because not every stop is on the same line so you have to find stops where you can connect to other lines that will help you get where you would like to go.
For example, we are on line one and needed to get to Notre Dame so that meant that we had to get off of the metro at Chatelet and get onto line four that we would ride for two stops and get off on the second that was called St-Michael (which is also the location of the Latin Quarter.)

PART 3

As we walked I seemed to get very tired, this was due to the fact that I had jet lag and had only slept about three hours the night before. We walked to so many different places and in that time I focused on what i could but still I was so tired so I didn't comprehend as much as I should have. However the things that I did notice were things like the buildings, they were all very close

together and there were tiny little streets in-between some of them that would be full of people. The French took their dogs everywhere, of course they would walk them on the street, but other places included the grocery store, inside Cafe's, pretty much everywhere you can think of. Paris is one of the fashion capitals of the world so it was not a shock that all of the people dressed fashionably. The women dressed in outfits like we do (ours normally modeled after them) except they wore a lot of black, and their dresses/ skirts always had a pair of tights under them. Many women wore booties and heels, I rarely noticed anyone in flats but that is because I don't really pay attention to flats anyways. I loved how they always looked so professional especially in the business district which we saw on the ride to our hotel.

Today we visited A church that was in the middle of mass so we did not stay long but it looked magnificent on the outside and the inside of the church was absolutely breath taking. Another place we visited was Stohrer which happens to be the oldest bakery in France! Their desserts were so colorful, and I got to try an éclair that had peanut butter in it and it was to die for. Our teacher let us go to lunch where ever we would like to, so Quincy, Sterling, Gabe and I chose a place called little Italy. I didn't know any French so when we ordered it was kind of like a guessing game. Little did I know when my food arrived I had ordered a Lasagna that did not have noodles but instead it had eggplant. It honestly was very good and the sauce was superb!

The highlight of this day was Notre Dame though! It is a massive cathedral that stands tall in a nice little square. When we arrived there was a line out of the door that looked as if it would last for hours, however the French move very fast so it took five to ten minutes tops! On the outside there was amazing art work, my camera could not get all of the detail but the statues on the sides of the church and even the engravings in the arches were magnificent. Inside the church was another story though. There were tributes to saints and statues all around the church, you could even buy a candle for two euros and light it and place it with others inside of certain areas of the church. Since the church is so old there was construction taking place, but still will all of that around us the church was beautiful. My favorite part of the church is the rose windows! I took so many pictures of them because they are so gorgeous. They are full of color and their shape is so different that the windows we always see in America that it's almost exotic. The overall feelings I got upon entering Notre Dame were chilling and breathtaking!