After a 4.5 hour bus ride, we entered Paris around 5:30 pm and got installed at the FIAP, an international youth hostel (really a 3 star hotel after roughing it at Taize). After eating dinner at the FIAP we got on the Metro and arrived at the Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel) just in time to watch the glitter of strobe lights that sparkle for 5 minutes every hour on the hour. We walked to Trocadero and amazingly, while walking to the Arc de Triomphe on a side street, encountered one of our newly-acquired friends from Taize, Shane from Dublin! We got to the Etoile (the star) at the center of which the Arc de Triomphe is suituated, and walked down the Avenue des Champs Elysee all the way to the Place de la Concorde at which a giant obelisk sits in front of an even larger ferris wheel. We walked along the north side of the Tuilleries park to the Louvre and admired the building s from the outside before finally taking the Metro home to a well-deserved bed and sleep. At 8:00 am we were up for breakfast (cereal, bread, butter, jam, orange juice, coffee or tea) before leaving for a whole day of running around Paris--St. Michel (the left bank area where students like to hang out) the flower market, the police headquarters and voila! Notre Dame's imposing towers appeared. After spending almost an hour inside we walked to the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) probably the most decorative city hall building in the world in front of which we took a group shot. Amazingly, some of us stumnled upon another of our Taize friends, Colin and Sheryl there!
Then we walked to the Centre Pompidou, a large exhibition hall in a modern style that we did not appreciate very much, but found Les Halles, a shopping center built on the site of the famous old central market place of Paris and then moved on to Sacré-Cœur, a church built on the highest point overlooking Paris, called Montmatre. Wandering through cobblestone streets, we came to the Place du Tertre. famous because many painters set up their easels in this quaint little square. It is surrounded by restaurants and some of us decided to eat lunch there.
The 26 of us split up, a number walking down to the Moulin Rouge then took the metro to La Grande Arche situated at the end of the Metro line number 1 in the modern business district of Paris called La Defense (because it was where a sculpture honoring French troops who held off Germans in WWI is located) See photo of "LC" on the steps! There we also saw a large thumb sculpture [another photo] and one of the world's greatest free span of concrete, a shell housing a shopping center. Several others split from the group and the rest of us headed for refreshments at a brasserie before taking the metro to meet the whole group for a lecture on French bread, given by a market research group for which Bill Vollman, LC 85 works as a consultant. We sampled wine (langedoc) and a multitude of different breads. Then took off for dinner and bed--a full day, to say the least. Tomorrow and Wednesday will be spent visiting lots of museums before heading back to Chicago and home on Thursday. More photos to come
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