Paris, je’taime

Sunday, August 28, 2011 Wake up was at 9 AM today, but not for me, because I showered last night ☺. I rolled out of bed around 10:30, when the other 3 were getting dressed and packing after each having a shower. In case I forgotten to mention that in addition to its strange lack of continuous water flow, there is only ONE shower. Yeah. Anyway, we packed up and were excited to leave our smelly hostel. Really, the smell just kept getting worse. Even though yesterday we were woken up at 11 by this guy banging on our door and telling us there was a “look out” (turns out he was saying “lock out at 11” but it sounded like look out with his French accent…). So, even though there was a lock out for cleaning at 11 AM yesterday, our room still smelled like something was dying in it/fish. The worst was that it started pervading our belongings, and that’s where I draw the line. There was also a communal hostel cat (so precious), but Laura is allergic to cats, so we couldn’t sleep with the door open, in case she came inside the room. Bottom line was, thank goodness we were leaving the Woodstock hostel in all its splendor. The plan for today: Versailles and anything else we could fit in before catching our night train to nice at 22:03 hrs. We took a train to Versailles that was free with our Eurail pass! The ride was about 30 minutes long, and when we arrived in Versailles, we weren’t really that impressed with the town. But we got onto a bus to the Chateau and….Oh my goodness. There is definitely a reason that Versailles has the reputation it does as one of the most beautiful palaces in Europe. Everything morphs into splendor when it comes into sight. Laura and I did the palace + garden tour, Molly and Malvika just did the garden, so we agreed to meet outside at the statue of Louis XIV at 6 PM. Versailles, the palace and the gardens, was absolutely breathtaking. Just a little bit of historical context, Versailles was the brainchild of Louis XIV, the bourbon king of France, who rules by Divine Right, channeling authority from the Sun and the Gods. The mythological aspect was prominent, as Louis XIV had entire rooms dedicated to gods and goddesses (Venus, Diana, Apollo, to name a few). There was some quote like “All light and energy and good things come from the sun, and I want to be that to France” that our audio guides mentioned. I need to google it. We didn’t have time to do Marie Antoinette’s quarters…raincheck. Speaking of weather, it was perfect…no rain. Laura and I felt like we were in a dream the entire day. One could literally spend hours in the gardens alone. Turns out, also, that a huge part of the garden is public park space. We found out when we wandered outside the borders and tried to go back, but couldn’t because I had lost my ticket stub (oops). By one of the main lakes, I ate crepe with sucre and a café au lait. Laura got a crepe with chocolat. Bottom line is that Versailles is Heaven on Earth. FORREAL. On the way back to the metro, stopped at an antique store for Laura to buy books. She found 4 for 1 Euro a piece and was ecstatic. We ended up being short on time, so no sit down dinner for our last night in Sweet Paris. Didn’t get to see Melina again either, but at least I saw her at all! We got back to Paris, took the #2 line to Anvers, grabbed our bags ,and made a run for the metro. Had to make two train changes before arriving at Paris Montparsse, where we had just enough time to order a sandwich to go and board the train. On the train now, slowly falling asleep while typing this fragmentally. Off to Nice.