No school! So as part of our program we have certain weekends off to travel - free travel days. The travel can be anywhere as long as you travel in groups of three and file hotel and contact information with the Directors. Anywhere! I mean in France, out of France - heck out of Europe is even an option! So where do you go when you have nearly unlimited options? No where. Ok, to be fair, I and some other girls wanted to go to Dublin, Ireland but because of skyrocketing plane costs and other complications, we didn't end up making our plans a reality. So I and some other girls stuck around in Paris. And even though I was disappointed by the canceling of the Ireland plans - (I mean I had dreams to finally go to a real Irish pub and grab a pint...of Sprite or Coke or something) I also figured I'd make the best of my stay in Paris and take the opportunity to really see the city. It would be a good chance to go around and see the sites as well as daily street life - since typically as a class we stick to the museums. Today, a group of us girls started out by going to another brocante (antique/flea market) at Motte Picquet. Again, I totally loved the brocante. There was so much to see. Some vendors were selling furniture or jewelry while some had fresh fish and meat on display, still others had little knick-knack trinkets on sale. Perfect place for souvenirs! And I wasn't disappointed, since I came home with several in hand.
My favorite stand was one manned by a large man with a big voice who had a large pile of scarves that were overflowing from cardboard boxes and he would call out "2 euros - les écharpes!" while brandishing the scarves high in the air. He would pluck a particularly flowy one - or one with a unique pattern or beautiful color and wave them in the air. Sometimes he would attempt to engage a lady standing nearby while showing off his wares with flare. It was a good deal - and a quite popular one, if you were to judge from the horde of busy ladies digging through the boxes surrounding the stand. I was convinced enough and found a couple that I liked - after all, buying a french scarf was long overdue since the french people wear scarves like they are as essential to an outfit as underwear.
What would a French outdoor market be without a huge cheese stand? After we finished at the brocante, we attempted to take a tour of the Catacombs but once we arrived we saw they had been shut down for the day, much to our disappointment. Next we decided to go to St. Chappelle, an old church (possibly older than Notre Dame?) that was famous for its stained glass windows. There wasn't much too the church since it was a small ground floor room - maybe a fourth of the size of Notre Dame - and then an upstairs the same size. But upstairs, what St. Chappelle lacked in size, it made up for in intricacy. The stained glass is truly amazing. If you do your research (which I didn't really) you'll find out that each panel depicts a scene from the Savoir's life and that there are over ______ (fill in the blank with an impressive number here) scenes. The stained glass are floor to ceiling - and the ceiling is Gothic sized - it is HIGH.
After that we visited the Conciergerie, which used to be a small prison and was the prison that held Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded. It was neat but there wasn't a lot too it. Lots of old-ish (because of the restoration/repair work much of the building wasn't original) looking cells. Hers was the only real one of note, and they had recreated it to appear the way it had during her occupancy. Then we went to La Defense again and took some time to peruse the shops before going home.
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