This morning, I woke up to an adventure. Olivia came back at 8 in the morning and told me about her trip to the hospital to get stitches and that caused some drama and gossip throughout the day. But after breakfast, we went to a fashion exhibit that was really cool and then to the Centre Pompidou to see 20th century art. I walked around with Molly, Lisa, and Randi. I really liked some of the pieces, like the chain link fence that was reworked and the computational algorithm art and the interactive art, but some of the exhibits were just a little too weird for my taste. I really didn't understand them and they were just too out there... Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the next floor of the museum, so we missed the Kandinskys and Picassos and the more famous artists. After the museum, we had a sandwich and a crèpe from a street vendor that were both very good and headed out to the Basilique Saint Denis.
The Basilica is absolutely amazing. I really liked it--a lot more than Notre Dame. I'm not sure why, but it really impressed me much more. I really loved the stained glass windows the most. The crypt was really neat too. I discovered that the French like to remove body parts from their royalty to be buried and spread around to different places sometimes. They had Louis XVII's heart on display in a glass jar. As usual, I lit a candle for Dino and Nonna Mia. The candles in these churches have unfortunately been more expensive than I'm used to...
The Basilica is absolutely amazing. I really liked it--a lot more than Notre Dame. I'm not sure why, but it really impressed me much more. I really loved the stained glass windows the most. The crypt was really neat too. I discovered that the French like to remove body parts from their royalty to be buried and spread around to different places sometimes. They had Louis XVII's heart on display in a glass jar. As usual, I lit a candle for Dino and Nonna Mia. The candles in these churches have unfortunately been more expensive than I'm used to...
We went back to the hotel and then Molly, Radhika, Mykia, Sam, and I went to McDonald's because we were very hungry and didn't feel like trying to pick a place to eat. The food was terrible and the Fanta was fake, but it filled my stomach and wasn't terribly expensive. After that, we were on our way to see the Eiffel Tower at night. We took the subway by ourselves for the first time (at least for me) and made it there and back without any problems. We saw the tower sparkle at 9 PM from the outside and then went up the tower to see it twinkle again at 10 PM. We went all the way to the top again to see Paris at night and it was amazing. Radhika and I went down the stairs a little bit to be inside the tower as it twinkled, and then went back up to watch it twinkle from the second level all the way to the top. It was definitely a magical sight. Strangely enough, the tower had a very high density of Italians. I swear, 9/10 on the tower were Italian. It was weird.