Paris: Day 11 (Versailles)

We awoke to another rainy day in Paris. People keep telling me that we are in a drought, but I have my doubts.

I got up much earlier than my roommate, so I went to the Centre Commercial at Place d'Italie to do the grocery shopping for the week. I have really been craving milk as of late, so that was a necessity. The french don't consume in such bulk as we do. I swear this oreo box is a third of the size of an American one, ha! I got a straightener, too since everyone told us we could forget those working, even with adaptors or converters (they will just fry). 20 euro, not bad. If you ever need a one stop shop, a CarreFour is your place. The other markets, like Monoprix, are pretty limited (think Kroger or Publix) whereas CarreFour is similar to a Target or WalMart as far as diversity of products.

Afterwards I got back to the apartment to get ready to go to Versailles for the day. We all met at Fountain St. Michel and grabbed a sandwich at a nearby stand (it REALLY hit the spot). I had this drink called Oasis that was pretty good, much better than Hi-C!

We had to take the metro to the RER. The RER is bigger, but also known to be a little unsafe since it travels to the suburbs. I know, it is crazy that the suburbs are the dangerous part of town, but that is the cheap part of town. And everyone in or out of real estate knows what kind of money it takes, or doesn't, to determine a neighborhood.

Versailles seemed like a fun town, I wish we had more time to explore the town itself, alas, all day was spent at Versailles. The Chateau itself was, well, boring. I've seen old paintings and monuments and old rooms before. There wasn't anything to the tour, I would say it is only about 25% of the palace itself. The gardens were the place to be. This tour was included in my program with CEA. It included the trip to and from, dinner, our ticket to the palace, and our ticket to get into the gardens that night for the evening show. My roommate and I decided we didn't want to go into Versailles and just shop, so we bought a ticket to experience the gardens during the day. And boy was it amazing. Completely worth it. In fact, I think we are going to go back on a sunnier day with more time.

The gardens are so expansive. In fact, part of it goes well beyond the grounds and are simply a public park for locals. I saw several people running on the public part. WHAT a run. Gosh, I wish I could wake up and run next to the Versailles palace everyday. The lines of trees and expanse of beauty were simply indescribable.

We took a break to grab something to drink on the public side as well as Barquettes, these absolutely delicious strawberry jam like cookies. Oh gosh they were amazing.

Before we could get back in they closed the gardens to begin setting up for the night event and made us walk ALL the way around the palace to the front. Since our evening tickets were with our CEA leader, we had no way of getting back in. So we walked to the front and just sat on a bench for a while, enjoying the raining day! (Fortunately it had only lightly sprinkled up to this point)

We met the rest of the group at 6:45 to go to dinner. I had the craziest dishes, that for the life of me I cannot remember. I was also slightly inebriated. Wine does me in pretty quick. There was a chicken with smashed mushroom dish followed by this pasta and roast beef meal (I'm not much of a roast beef person, so I just enjoyed the noodles) all ended with an apple pie like dessert with a very tarty custard on top. It was all food I had never tried so it was a new experience, but probably one I wont order again, ha!

Afterwards we returned to Versailles for the evening. They had all of the fountains lit, some with rainbow colors and others with neat laser effects. There were also industrial bubble machines at the grand entrance to the gardens. There was also a fire show where fire shot of out these tubes along the main vertical lawn, all synchronized to music. The fountain at the end of the strip also had a synchronized show that went every 15 minutes. The gardens are very different at night, but equally cool. The finale features a firework show, nothing compared to Disney, but it was okay! It was very cold by this point so I watched it while enjoying a Nespresso. My first yet and it was wonderful.

It was really nice to get out of the house for the day and to even sleep in (mind you sleeping in for Madison is 8 am).

Tomorrow is Sunday market on Mouffetard (have you noticed how much I love Mouffetard yet?) and probably just taking it easy and beginning the end of my homework for the summer (thank God!!!).

Much love