This past friday was a beautiful and perfect day for discovering Paris. I was supposed to go see the Musee d'Orsay with my british friend ( I think I need to come up with nicknames so I don't use their names (privacy reasons) and that way I'm not always writing "my british friend" my "american friend"). But once again, we didn't end up going to the museum. But this time it wasn't because we didn't have time, it was more because it was just so nice outside to be inside a museum.
So I met her at La Sorbonne, which is a very well known University here in Paris, because she was going to register for her french courses. I had heard about the french lessons they have at the Sorbonne, and thought that it would probably be better than taking random french lessons but once I saw the price.... yeah definitely cannot afford that. Well I could but I don't want to spend 1,400 euros in french lessons!! I might as well buy myself a Louis Vuitton bag.... haha no no, of course lessons are better than a LV bag but yeah you get the point, they're freaking expensive! Anyways, so after she registered we wondered around and headed towards the Seine. We ended up in Notre-Dame and let me tell you it's beautiful. The details that went into the outside decor are insane. I wonder how long it must've taken! Every time I see a church like this I am so thankful for religion being so big back then. Thanks to religion we get to see these beautiful works of art. Even though I had already seen the church from the inside I wanted to go back again because all I could remember from last time I visited was that I wasn't really impressed... that I thought that the Notre-Dame in Montreal was prettier. I thought to myself that is not possible! I must have been blind back then...after all I was 15.
Oh yes, I was blind back then. The inside was beautiful, of course Notre-Dame in Montreal is still gorgeous, but the one in Paris is beautiful in it's own way. It is much larger than the one in Montreal, with its very high ceilings and long arches. The windows were so mystical, and as the sun shined you could see all the different colors being reflected on the walls.
After going all around the inside of the church we sat in the little plaza that is in front of Notre-Dame and just stared at it. I like to once in a while just sit down and admire things, take a mental picture. I think its important to do this once in a while, stop whatever you're doing and smell the flowers. Life goes by so fast, and we need to remember to appreciate the small things. Appreciate beauty and capture it in our minds, after all memories are the only things we have in the end.
After having lunch in a resto near by, we continued to walk and passed by the City Hall. The City Hall made me feel like I was in Germany or Bruxelles. It had a very different design from what you usually find in Paris. Then we continued to walk and found ourselves in front of the Pompidou Museum. This is what I love about Paris, you can get anywhere you want by metro and walking. Even if you have to walk a little from the metro to your destination it doesn't feel like it's such a long walk because there's always something to see, something to discover. If you look in a map our whole walk, you would see we walked a lot, we went from one side of the Seine to the other side. But it was an enjoyable walk, we got to see so much and I saw for the first time a Mexican restaurant in Paris! I actually went back yesterday (I am writing this on a Sunday) and bought some beans because I'm making something for my host family. But OMG, the beans were so freaking expensive! 7.50 euros!! they better be worth it....
We also found this really cool shopping mall/plaza/hall... don't really know if it can be considered a mall since it's more of a hall. It was very nice and quiet, but the stores that where there were SO expensive! Most of them where jewelry stores and even the simplest things cost around 50 euros! I don't know the name of the place because we were walking and we just found it, and even though everything is expensive, it's still a nice place to go visit because of the glass ceiling, here's a picture...
We walked around the Pompidou museum looking for a store that my friend had seen last time but didn't remember exactly where it was. Instead of her buying what she wanted to buy, it was me who ended up buying this really small, simple, but cute, bracelet with a 4 leaf clover. I usually never wear bracelets because I have very small wrists and can never find a bracelet that is not too big, but this one caught my attention and it was a perfect fit. So I bought it! I bought it not only because I liked it and hoped it would bring me luck (yeah I'm kinda superstitious hehe) but also to remind myself how lucky I already am. Whenever I feel like complaining about life or whenever something bad happens, I'll just look down and remember that I'm lucky to be here in this amazing city.
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