Tuesday 25/1/11

Only five days left of the J-Term trip! I'm very excited to go home but I will definitely miss the new cultural aspects of both countries.  But were not there yet, so today we went to the Palace of Versailles! It was very lavish! I felt as though it was a little over the top.  It had gold gates and doors, too many paintings to count, mirrors all over the place, grand bedrooms and gardens, extravagant chandeliers and very detailed ceiling paintings-too much for one man to have-that's for sure. My favorite part about the palace itself has to be the ceiling paintings.  Granted, they are over the top but they are exquisite.   The picture below was the ceiling in the Hercules Room. It's very pretty.

  After we toured Versailles, we 

 went out to the gardens.  They were bigger than the castle itself! We wanted to go to Marie Antoinette's private house, so we took the long way around (the WHOLE garden)-accidentally.  We got there about two to three hours later (that's how big the gardens are-if it took us 3 hours to walk all the way around them!)  So anyways, we found her house.  I personally thought her house was prettier than Versailles itself.  I think it might be because Versailles is talked about so much about how beautiful it is that when I saw it, it just wasn't pretty anymore.  But Marie Antoinette's house was not talked about so when I saw it,  it was more of a surprise of what it looked like. The gardens are the same way.  They were not over talked about so they were more of a surprise to see them.   

Gardens of Versailles

Marie Antoinette's House

After Marie Antoinette's house, we started walking back to the  Palace, we took more pictures and then headed back to our hotel for our afternoon meeting.  After our meeting, Lisa, Danielle and I went to a restaurant where the people didn't speak English. It was fun to point to what we wanted on the menu and give the waiter a blank stare when we didn't understand what he said.  But that's the experience.  So anyways, after our dinner, we went out to the Eiffel Tower and we went on a River Boat cruise.  It was really cool to see all the lights and stuff sparkling in the night light.  After the hour cruise though, we came back to our hotel and I got ready for bed. The cold from being in the gardens all day made me very tired. So, until tomorrow, im outta here! Au Revoir!

Question of the Day: Discuss your reaction to Versailles.  

Versailles was a very extravagant palace.  Too extravagant some might say.  It's way too over the top for me.  I think it was talked about too much that I got a specific picture in my mind of what I thought it looked like because everyone talked so highly of it, that when I got there, it didn't look like I thought.  Marie Antoinette's house on the other hand, I loved! It was absolutely gorgeous!  I think this is because people didn't talk about it that I couldn't gather a picture of it and when I saw it, it was nothing I have pictured before.  The gardens were amazing though.  I bet they would be prettier than they are in the spring! I would love to go back to Paris in the spring when the flowers are budding and the sun is actually shining.