Notre Dame

June 9^th –

So before coming to France, I was told it would be extremely warm and sunny. However, most of our time in Paris has been really cloudy and cooler that I expected. This was probably the first day that it rained all day, though. It kind of limited what we were planning on doing, but we still ventured out to see some new (for me, at least). It was our last day in Paris before heading to Southern France.

We decided to travel by subway because it was going to be a lot cheaper than taking a taxi, and now we were feeling more comfortable with figuring out how to get to our desired location. Three subways later, we ended up by Notre Dame. Before making the climb up, we went down into  the Crypt. There weren’t a lot of people down there, and it consisted of some old ruins of the city.

We then entered the church, and I was instantly surprised by just how large it was, and how tall the ceilings were. It was really beautiful, as well. At one corner of the church there was some sort of prayer ceremony going on, but I don’t know what it was for because they were speaking in Latin, a language I am even less familiar with than French.

Even though the weather was not the greatest, I had to experience the top of Notre Dame.  Although it was clear that this was an extremely large church, for some reason I was surprised by how many stairs we had to climb. It circled around and around,  and I was beginning to wonder if we would ever reach the top. We did of course, but not before climbing up a second set of stairs, which felt even longer than the first. I was so shocked to learn that the same staircase we used to get to the top of Notre Dame would be the same staircase we use to get down because there is no way both could happen simultaneously. When we reached the top there were a lot of people waiting to begin their descent. It was still raining when we reached the top, but I didn’t really care at that point. It actually felt refreshing after climbing all those stairs. The view of Paris was still absolutely gorgeous. After making our way around the perimeter, we made the long climb down.

We were pretty thirsty by the time that was over, so we stopped at a café and had some Orangina. Everyone was feeling tired by the time we got back to the hotel, so we all took a nap to refresh ourselves. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, and for dinner we walked around until we found a restaurant that looked appetizing. I had some grilled tuna with caramelized onions that was really good. Since dinners are eaten so much later here, I was again exhausted by the time we left the restaurant, and went to bed after we got back to the hotel . I had to pack up my suitcase first, though, because the next morning we were off to Narbonne!