The Colosseum still standing tall since 70AD

I think seeing the Colosseum was pretty equivalent to seeing the Eiffel Tower. It really hit me in the face that I was in Rome! It was pretty epic. We got to go inside and see the quarters where the gladiators would wait, and where the animals waited before being released through the trap doors. It all became so real! I read some history about the Colosseum and the movie Gladiator was a pretty accurate depiction of everything.

Then, literally next door was the Roman Forum.

The center of ancient rome

I didn’t realize how big the forum was. It really stretched out like 5 blocks or something ridiculous like that. I definitely didn’t get a chance to see all of it. It felt very strange walking along the streets of ancient Rome. You could really tell that this was indeed the city center.

Then, we went to the famous Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain

It is believed that if you toss a coin into the fountain, you will return to the eternal city. Apparently 3,000 euros are tossed in there per day. Holy poo! And I’m not going to lie, this definitely made me think about the Lizzie McGuire Movie. Oh hell, I was reminded of this movie for most of Rome. haha

Pantheon built in 2nd Century AD

Best preserved of the ancient Roman buildings.  The Pantheon houses the remains of Raphael. And some other Popes that I should know, but don’t.

Then the next day was, the Spanish Steps!

The longest and widest stairecase in Europe

We actually climbed all the way to the top. Yay us. But what is the problem with Rome and its stairs.

And Finally, St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter's Basilica/Vatican City?

So the whole Vatican City nonsense is so confusing. I don’t quite understand this. Also, I didn’t know that the Vatican City was its own country. That is crazy. I didn’t actually go inside the Vatican city and Sistine Chapel because it costs money. In a way, I wish I did, but I’m also glad I didn’t too? Because I know I’ll be returning to Rome some day, and I want to save at least one to do then. Well St. Peter’s Basilica was so incredibly beautiful. I learned the the Apostle Peter was buried here, and the all of the Pope’s are buried here also. We got to go down and see their tombs, but weren’t allowed to take any pictures. Oh here is one very puzzling thing about Rome. So my friend Teresa needed to find a Jesus picture for her sister. And you would think that she would have just so many pictures to choose from, as Rome is the city of the Vatican and all, but you wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to find one! There was Mary and Pope Benedict calendars, magnets, postcards, etc… everywhere you turned, but not a sign of Jesus. We were finally able to hunt one down in this print store. There were about a million Pope Benedict pictures, but there was only ONE Jesus picture. There weren’t even copies. There was just the one. So I guess we got very lucky, a little. I guess Jesus is not that much in demand? This is all very curious.

Oh and Italian men.. Most definitely creepiest of the Europeans thus far.

Sabrina and Teresa entertaining us all

We ended up actually getting to Dublin at around 6am, about 6 hours later than we had planned. We only had time to take a quickie power nap and we were on our way to the city!

O'Connel Street

I don’t know if it was because we were all famished but we had breakfast at this one restaurant and it was DELICIOUS! I am definitely a fan of food in Ireland. And I love how cheap the food is! Well, in comparison to Paris. It was hard coming back. I couldn’t believe how friendly the people were too! People smiled in the street, made small talk in stores, continued to ask questions after finding out you were american! I loved it. I feel like Ireland is the America of Europe.

After the quick breakfast, we made our way to the Guiness Factory. I’m not a huge fan of Guinness, but it was interesting to see how everything was made, and the process it goes through. Quick fact about the Guinness harp. When Guinness wanted its beer to be completely representative of Ireland. What better to pay hommage to your country than using its very own emblem, the harp. The government didn’t like that however because they didn’t want Ireland’s symbol to be associated with beer and asked them to change it. The clever people at guinness then decided to simply make theirs the mirror image of Ireland’s.

Barley room

Another cool thing I learned was that Arthur Guinness, when he initially opened up his factory, he signed a lease on the property grounds with the payment of 49 pounds per year (which was a lot of money at the time) for 9,000 years. So to this day, they’re only paying 49 pounds a year. The tour included a free pint of Guinness at the top of the factory.

The sky lounge at the top

View of Dublin

 I’ve never had Guinness, but that stuff is straight black! At tastes like it looks. blegh. In short, I only took a sip. I probably would have got wasted and embarassed myself if I drank the whole thing anyway.

The next day, on our way to the walking tour, we saw some oompa loompas.

Ooompa train!

We ended up meeting them again later that night at Temple Bar. That made for a very interesting night. Nothing like partying it up with the oompa loompas. haha

So the dubilin walking tour: This was cool because it was completely free and you give tip at the end if you should feel so obliged. These guys pretty much showed us everything that’s anything in Dublin with a lot of history. It’s kind of a shame because after the 20 min history spheel, I figured I was done listening. So the following are going to be light in commentary and mostly pictures.

Our wee Irish tour guide

Christ Church Cathedral

It was started in around the 1000s. It is the oldest Medieval church in Dublin. Annnd that’s all for this one.

Dublin Castle

Although it doesn’t look it, Dublin Castle was built in the 1200s by King John, the bad guy from Robin Hood. It definitely looks more 1600s-esque. The crowned jewels were stored here in a new safe, but the safe couldn’t fit in the room it was originally stored in. So the officer of arms just put it in his office inside his desk drawer. And surprise surprise, it was stolen. They remain missing even to this day! It really makes me curious who has kept this a secret for so long!

Dublin Castle wall

This wall was built for the Queen Victoria’s visit. Ireland’s slums were about the worst at this time and these slums would be her view from her window. They figured they would just construct this wall to block her view. Also, because of the stench of the city, they placed a horse resting stop there to mask the fact that the smell actually came from humans.

Oh man, this is getting long and there is just a little bit more stuff. So I’m just going to be brief. We then went to trinity college, which was beautiful, then to a really nice park. After, we had some fish and chips, which were oh my goodnesss so delicious. Went to a pub, did some oompa loompa limbo, got creeped on by creepers and the end. Oh and the live music was so awesome! Live music everywhere!  I wish I could upload the video. There was this one couple that was totally irish dancing to it. It was awesome. They weren’t even part of the gig. All in all, Ireland was awesome. GO THERE!

On our last excursion, we went to the Villette, specifically to the Parc de la Villette. It’s an incredibly huge ultra-modern park with art pieces here and there.

First thing that needs to be seen:

Back of Dragon

Front of Dragon!

 YES WHAT! This is a freaking DRAGON SLIDE! I wish our playgrounds were this awesome. This was pretty much the highlight of the excursion. I’m pretty sure I spent a good page of my composition talking about how awesome this slide is.

Next super awesome thing was La Geode.

La geode amphitheater

This is not only a cool looking building, but it also opts as a 3d theater for the inside.

On Saturday, we finally! ! made our way to Le Tour Eiffel!

Eiffel Tower with the ladies

 I was only kind of looking forward to the Eiffel Tower visit. I was just anxious to go because, I just felt like it was necessary to go. How are you in Paris for 3 weeks without going to see the Eiffel Tower? It was just about time. I’ve seen it in so many pictures and from a far, I thought I knew what to expect. But actually seeing it in person was so overwhelming! I didn’t think it would affect me like it did. Just thinking about the architectural genius. I could stare at it for hours. It’s so hard to believe that everyone thought it was an abomination. Prestigious people from the art community like Charles Garnier (Opera House remember?) and Alexander Dumas even wrote a petition for its removal.

Sunday was our good friend Chelsea’s unbirthday in Paris, so we surprised her with a visit to…..

VERSAILLES!

Gardens and gardens as far as the eye can see!

Yes as you can see, there was a lot a lot of people. And this was actually a slow day.

The Hall of Mirrors

The infamously infamous Hall of Mirrors, ceiling work done by Le Brun, who we are learning about in class now. I love it when things overlap. Oh, and interesting tidbit. I learned that in one of the rooms we were in, the queen would actually give birth in public because they needed to prove the legitimacy of an heir. Talk about intense.

Then we went to Marie Antoinette’s estate. She has two small mansions.

Marie Antoinette's room

 Her room was a lot smaller and less extravagant than I expected. Her mansions were pretty small too. I mean, they are huge in the sense that it was only meant for one person, but I would have thought, being the Queen of France, it would be a little bit more luxurious. There weren’t really any gold trimmings and it was quite simple, in comparison to Versailles. Granted that is to be expected, but I didn’t think it was going to be that great of a contrast.

As tired as we were from all the walking, we ended up having a little picnic in this quiet little spot amongst the gardens.

Place of said picnic

But unfortunately, in the beginning consumating ants kept dropping out of the trees. But stopped soon after. I guess they all do it at the same time periodically. In total, we spent about 7 hours here and we still only saw about 1/4th of the palace maybe 1/16 of the gardens. This place is huge. Definitely need to go back and go around the gardens.

All in all, it was a very good weekend! Best weekend in Paris thus far.

In front of L'Opera Garnier

Our excursion today was to the Opera Garnier, only the most amazing opera house EVER. This is the biggest opera house in the world, and as some of you might know, Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera was based on this opera house. The building was made for Napoleon III and was finished in 1875.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's The Dance

This sculpture is called “The Dance”. When this was first presented, the public went crazy. They were shocked by the indecency and called it pornographic. Many people wouldn’t enter the opera house because of it.

The Grand Staircase where people of high society mixed and mingled

I stole this picture from the internets because my camera simply couldn’t capture the beauty of this. This picture doesn’t even do it justice! It took my breath away. I could totally imagine the elegant ladies in their gowns and men in tuxedos. I was born in the wrong era!

Ceiling of the theater

 The lady was saying something about them having three themes. The art in the theater ceiling changes with every theme. The theme right now is Paris.

Opera Theater

 The actual theater was a lot smaller than I expected. I feel like he really splurged in other areas. Being in that balcony seat, I could really imagine the Phantom of the Opera coming to life. Like in the book, the opera house was actually built over an underground lake and there are little rooms throughout.

The Grand Foyer where the audience would stroll and socialize during intermission.

 This is the most gorgeous room in my opinion. You can’t really see the ceiling, but the ceiling was just amazingly amazing. Sorry that my commentary is getting weaker and weaker. By the end, I kind of stopped listening to the guide and just started admiring as rooms got shinier and shinier. haha Plus, listening to French is kind of exhausting. I’m really excited to actually watch an opera here. Supposedly, if you come just before a show starts and there are a few left over tickets, you can get them for like 20 euros. Hopefully it will all work out. Anyhow, check facebook for more pictures!

The street light where Edith Piaf was supposedly born.

Rumor has it, that she was born directly under this street lamp out in the open. But no one really knows for sure.  As if you couldn’t tell by looking, this was a pretty poor neighborhood. This was also the Chinatown area of Paris. woot woot. Now to find the Korea town.

And then off we went to the Parc de Belleville, which had the greatest view of the Eiffel Tower. Supposedly, the town was named Belleville because of the beautiful view it offered of the city.

View from the Parc de Belleville

After much walking and slightly boring scenery, we came to the wonderfully amazing Pere Lachaise.

Pere Lachaise Cemetary

The cemetary was established in 1804 by Napoleon III. Before then, Cemetaries were banned in Paris because it was seen as a health hazard with open markets and such. Sorry these entries are sometimes going to sound history like. I have to write compositions about every excursion and I usually just take my entry and translate it directly. Two birds with one stone!

Walkway through the cemetary

It really creeped out, but fascinated walking through here. I’ve never seen such old tombs. And there was one coffin that was collapsed and looked as if someone had just broken out of it. The sun helped on the creep factor. I definitely wouldn’t come here at night. But this place is known to be the burial site of such people as: Moliere, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, the list goes on. I only went to see 2 graves. Chopin and Jim Morrison. The place is HUGE!

Here lies Chopin

I was kind of star struck.  There are always flowers around Chopin’s grave. I really want to go back and see Oscar Wilde’s. Apparently, he was buried with his lover, something especially shocking back in the day.

That’s all! Now to start on my composition…

Moulin Rouge

Now, I know I haven’t seen much of Paris yet, but I am absolutely certain that Montmartre is the most amazing quartier of Paris. Emerging from the Metro station, we were welcomed with a plethora of sex-related shops along the row (has nothing to do with its amazingness haha). Past the many brightly colored stores, we finally reached the infamous Moulin Rouge. I’ve been wanting to see this for so long and was definitely underwhelmed. I heard it was small, but I didn’t think that it was this small. But of course I do want to go inside and am still fascinated by its history. I wish the elephant wasn’t torn down though.

Cafe des 2 Moulins (Amelie)

Walking up the hill a bit, we came to le cafe des 2 moulins, which is where Amelie worked in the movie, Amelie. There are going to be a lot of Amelie references in this post. Not much farther was the fruit stand. There were all these newspaper articles posted up on the side of the window about how famous it got after the movie.

The absolutely gorgeous windy streets of Montmartre.

I love that Montmartre is pretty much all cobblestone streets. The streets are so small too and the houses/ apartments are so charming. I really wish all of Paris was like this.

Famous people under fake names

Then, we came to these nice hidden apartments. I guess it’s sort of pointless that I post this picture because you guys probably can’t even read the names, but the names are famous painters such as Raphael, Monet, Dufy, etc… It’s not that all of them lived there at some point, but the apartments are those of famous people that want their place of residence to be private. So they hide behind these names.

The Sacre Coeur

And finally, we got to the Sacre Coeur, located on the highest hill in Paris, which is not really saying much at all. But the view was still gorgeous.  The interior was beautiful as well. We weren’t allowed to take pictures though so no inside pictures for you guys. haha Apparently it was only built just after the first world war.  I was under the impression that it was built a lot earlier than that.

The artists gathering around to sell their work, just like the olden days.

Mur je t'aime. This is a wall that says "I love you" in every language. It's kind of awesome.

So that, my friends, is Montmartre the greatest quartier in the world. haha I know these pictures are small, but I will put up bigger and more pictures on facebook later. It’s just that France internet is super slow so it takes forever to post pictures. More adventures later!

-Au revoir!

My neighborhood!

I love the location of the dorm. It is right next to the Bastille and the neighborhood is lovely. It’s a bit quiet right now because Paris is quite deserted July-August as these are the key months of vacation for Parisians. It’s so bizarre that for about 2 months, restaurants, boutiques and businesses are completely closed.

Monday: The first day was pretty free, so we just walked around the neighborhood. Paris is amazing in that everything you need is walking distance. And it doesn’t matter which bakery or patisserie you go to. THEY ARE ALL DELICIOUS!

Notre Dame from the Seine

Tuesday: Walked over to the Notre Dame which, is pretty close to our place. I finally got to go inside.

Wednesday: Walked over to the Latin Quarter, which was pretty far. Had a drink at a little cafe sans alcool (without alcohol) to avoid le asian glow. Went over to see the Patheon also.

Thursday: Took the metro (first time this time around!) to go to the Louvre. I thought I was going to get jacked, but God had some mercy on me. I finally saw the Mona Lisa! I thought it was a pretty good size compared to what a lot of people told me to expect. I didn’t think I would be as taken aback as I actually was. It was definitely quite amazing seeing it in person. Interesting side note: I learned the origin of the word hermaphrodite. There was a roman sculpture there and apparently, she/he was the sister of HERMes and APHRODITE. Therefore, hermaphrodite. I thought that was quite interesting.

In front of the beau Louvre.

Friday: Classes started. After class, we go on an excursion three times a week. (I am so extremely exhausted by the way. I’ve never walked so much in my life). We went to the Jardin de Luxembourg. It was so beautiful, peaceful, romantic and everything you could ask for.

Jardin de Luxembourg

Saturday: We went to the largest flea market in the world or something ridiculous like that, called La Puce, which means flea. Apparently about 200,000 people go there every weekend.

Monday: On the class excursion, we went to see Le Jardin des Plants. It was made in like the 1600s by Louis XIII and we also went to see the Mosquee, which is historically significant as it is, but was also featured in the movie “Paris, Je t’aime”. haha

Today we visited Montmartre, which I need a whole new entry for and will be addressed in the next entry. Hopefully I will get to update more regularly to avoid a mass update such as the one here.

à bientôt!