Notre Dame, Food, and the Louvre

After seeing the Eiffel Tower, we took the Paris Metro to Notre Dame.  The cathedral is famous for it's beauty, as well as Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Disney did a fantastic job of making the cartoon look accurate.  I could have been Esmerelda on Satuday.  We went inside the cathedral, and I was amazed.  There was a choir singing, candles were lit for prayer, I made the sign of the cross with holy water.  It was unreal. 

This last window is the rose window in Notre Dame. I wanted to lay down on the floor and just soak up the whole cathedral.  It was so neat, especially being raised Catholic, so see such a brilliant Cathedral with so much history and so much Catholic tradition seeped into it.

So, it is Saturday at about 12:00 at this point.  My friends and I are starving.  So we walk down the street a bit, we have about a half hour to an hour before our tour guide will be leaving for the Louvre.  We find this little pattisserie/ boulangerie, like a deli bakery.  And Holy Delicious Smell, I think my nose lead the way to it.  It smelled like heaven.  If heaven doesn't smell like that bakery, I maybe don't want to go. 

I ordered in French, and got a piece of leek quiche and a nice little raisin roll.  The quiche didn't last long enough for me to take a picture, but I did stop to capture the roll. Plus it was pretty. 

 These poofy colorful things are meringues.  And that man right there, is a glorious French dude drinking coffee.

After eating we took the Metro again, this time to the Louvre.  Let me talk for one minute about the French Metro.  I feel like after two weeks in London (I can't believe it has only been two weeks!), I am pretty experienced when it comes to figuring out the subway, not falling over on the train, holding on to the bars.  Oh man.  The French Metro was an experience.  Those doors do not wait for you to get on, they just close.  And when the train starts, you will fall over. I was even holding on tight.  The London Tube is much smoother and more calm.  You can walk leisurely onto it, hold onto a bar, and be fine. I fell on a French woman in the Paris Metro. Oopies. Je suis desolee, madame!

At the Louvre, I was getting very very tired.  We had been up all night, we hadn't showered, we were getting crabby.  But we saw the basics, the Mona Lisa (I never really understood the hype about her. She's so small!), Aphrodite, I saw a painting we has discussed in my art class last year. But I knew that what I really really wanted to see was a cathedral on the same island in the middle of the city, Sainte Chapelle.  Sainte Chappelle sits adjacent to Notre Dame, and is maybe a ten minute walk from the Louvre. 

So the Louvre was pretty cool. But I am stubborn as a mule (who would have thought, me being the granddaughter of Bud Muhs and Larry Simms??).  I knew that if I didn't go to Sainte Chapelle, I would never forgive myself.  I couldn't rile my friends to go, we were all pretty dead. SO, I did maybe the scariest thing I have ever done, and went by myself.  My friend Erin gave me her mace, so don't worry family and friends.  I was confident and safe. Plus, I speak Franglais, so I think that helps too.  It was beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that it deserves it's own post.