Hokay, I did something irrational...

Right, so I haven't posted in a couple days because...well...I went to Paris. I wasn't gonna go, but some folks  I was staying with in Evreux convinced me, saying "You can't come to France and not go to Paris!" Especially when they lived right beside the train station, and it was only a 45-minute trip! So I booked five nights in two hostels, the only nights available, literally packed a bunch of stuff in one bike bag, ran to the station, bought a ticket, and just had time to jump on the train. All within about 30 minutes. When I got off the train at Gare St. Lazure or whatever it was, I panicked. I hadn't planned, didn't know where to go, it was weird. Paris is a LOT different than the rest of France so far though! Totally different atmosphere, but not in a bad way.
Like I said, I panicked, and hailed a cab. I know I'm on a budget and all, but I needed the security, and it only cost me 20 euros all the way across the central city! But man, what a cab ride that was! The streets are huge here! The buildings are huge, the city itself is SO huge! But back when Napoleon III was in control, he decided to widen all the avenues so it never feels crowded! And bikes everywhere too; in fact, you can rent one of the 5,000 Velib bikes that are placed every 300 meters around the town and ride pretty much anywhere as there's dedicated lanes and most people are pretty easygoing with it.

But anyhow, so I showed up at my first hostel on the outskirts of district 11, and met a nice Italian fella who I was sharing a room with, headed to the nearest boulangerie, picked up a sangwich, did some laundry, and headed to bed. Not very glamourous for my first day in Paris, I know, but I was bagged as we stayed up way too late the night before watching the game. The next day I ventured to the metro station to see what the town looked like on a map, bought a book of ten single passes, decided that the Opera station looked pretty central, and hopped on the subway. Good choice of station!! I walked up the steps to find myself in a square in the middle of the street with six massive streets heading in different directions. I picked one and walked. You can walk in any direction here and find something amazing, but this particular one, as I had hoped, led me to a beautiful garden that was apparently the kings personal courtyard. The palace has since burnt down, like everything here does at one time or another.

There is also lots of people here, and about half are North American I think. I walked up the pathways among the tourists and street hawkers, and came into a neat plaza with some cool triangle buildings in the middle.

Then I looked at the lineup. Then the door.

If you haven't guessed, that's the Louvre Museum, house of the famous Mona Lisa. One thing they don't tell you though, it's mostly underground! But you could literally spend all day here and not see everything, it's that  big.

All the Louvre.

And that too..

So after walking through the maze of columns and alleys of the Louvre, I stumbled upon a bridge crossing none other than the Seine River, full of tourist boats. But the bridge itself was the cool part here:

Hundreds of thousands of those on either side, and that's not the only bridge like this I found either! But the river was pretty too.

I didn't cross the river at this point, I went back exactly the way I came, for I had an idea of where I was now. At the far end of the garden this is what I found, and was hoping to find from the start!

The Champs Elysees! That is a 8-lane roundabout by the way, and never stops moving. Walking through the parks on the side of the Champ was pretty neat, and like I said, the atmosphere is so different here. People just sitting everywhere doing nothing. Or snogging...the movies dont lie about that.. For those of you who don't know, the Champs Elysees is like the ultimate shopping destination out there. Anything you can imagine, any brand, whatever, it's got a place on or near the Champs. My favorite part was the top of the street though.

I know it doesn't look that big, but those are people on top! I couldn't figure out how to get there as it was in another roundabout, so I chose another street and walked some more. Until I came upon this!

The Sears Tower!! Again, linups were way too long so I didn't bother going up, but it was pretty fantastic to see! Like most things in Paris, it's way bigger than it looks. I moved on from there and found a bunch of really cool churches unlike any others I've found in France yet. These were all done in Roman style instead of Gothic, so very round with lots of pillars.

And I can't even remember what this one is..

By this time I'm feeling a bit thirsty, as I've literally just walked to every major site in downtown Paris, so I end up in an alley and spot this sign hanging over a tiny little bar...and it's a name I know!

Harry's New York Bar. Some of you may be familiar with the patrons who used to frequent it, such as the legendary cocktail nut and alcoholic Ernest Hemingway. Others may be more familiar with the drinks they've invented, such as the French 75 or the Bloody Mary. Either way, it felt like I was stepping on a bit of history when I stopped in. Oh, and the cocktail I had was pretty awesome too! 

After I stopped into a little place for some dinner, I had ground poop. No joke, I took one bite of this sausage thing they called chivette, covered my fries with as much vinegar I could, and chowed them down to get the taste out of my mouth. It didn't work unfortunately. 

But to close out my day, I headed back to the river, followed the sounds of bells, and finished my watching the sun go down on a beautiful church they call Notre Dame de la Paris.

And by the way, when you can actually see the sun here they have beautiful sunsets!

The next day I went back to Notre Dame to see the inside! I even attended the evening service with the pipe organ and everything!!

Much prettier than the other abbeys that have since been decommissioned! So not 5 minutes after I got in, a voice in English booms over the speakers saying that a free tour of the architecture will be held by a volunteer in 10 minutes! So that took about an hour and a half, but at the back of the church was something that surprised me:

That, and apparently the history is quite traceable, is the remains of the crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus head when they whipped him. That was kinda cool!

I pretty much spent most of the day there I think. But when I left, it was sunset time again.

So I wen't and checked into my new hostel after that, which is atrocious, and fell "asleep." Today, went to see the North end of town! The Montmartre and it's surroundings. This end of town is really interesting because it's the best description of the art-deco scene I've found here yet. But it really is a fairly big hill for here, with of course, another church at the top.

And behind the church was a little market street with about fifty street-hawkers trying to sell caricatures, and the cool buildings I was talking about.

That to me is what Paris should look like everywhere! I walked around some more, and found an interesting neighborhood where I had to put on my tunnel vision, but I did get one photo just for the sake of it.

Anyhow, we're coming to the end of my Parisian venture so far, I still have one more full day here so we'll see what kind of trouble I can get into. But, I will leave you with the last place I went today, the Hotel Invalids, which is a kind of armoury, but also happens to be the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was buried. There was some other official military funeral going on too, but I wasn't close enough to see what was going on.

So that's it for now, sorry for the crazy long post, there is just far too much to see here! Bon Swa!