Paris again

So it's been a while since I wrote. The last two weeks were school holidays. The first week was with Ambre's mom, and that week we went to Bayeux. The second week was with Ambre's dad and we went overnight to Paris!
We left Tuesday the 23rd and got back the next day. On the first day, we took a 7:08 train from Caen to Paris. It was about two and a half hours. It was almost more exciting than flying because I haven't rode trains as much. It was sort nice to be up in the cool, fairly moist air in the morning, and I felt like I had more space to move around in a train than in a plane. People don't stick to their assigned seats as much though. I seemed fairly common for people to say "Excuse me but I reserved this seat".

We got to Paris and dropped our stuff off at the hotel. Then we got something to eat at a cafe. We had had a bit to eat at 6:00-ish but it was good to get more food. Compared to Canada, France sometimes seems to have set-ups where people handle everything. That can be good since you can talk to a person, but sometimes it's hard to know what to do to get your food in a self-serve-ish food place. Anyway, the food was good and fairly filling. We went to the Palais de la Decouverte. It's the same idea as the Space and Science Centre, although that's the old name, in Edmonton. Although this one is bigger and the building is castle-like. It might actually be a castle. The expositions were comprehensive but appealing to probably all age groups. They also had a planetarium like the one in Edmonton, and it was tempting to almost fall asleep under the fake darky, starry sky. They also had a temporary exhibit on dinosaurs. I was going to see if it was like the Royal Tyrell, but it was more aimed at kids. There were a fair number of robotic mopving dinosaurs and that was cool. There were robotic velociraptors! My brother and I have an inside joke there. I also bought two packs of freeze-dried astronaut food. One pack is an ice-cream sandwich and one is... BANANAS! I plan to give that one to my teacher.

Then it was probably 5 pm and we went to the Champs Elysées. I recently realised what the name actually meant and have like the street more ever since. We went to a few stores. I asked if they knew if Le Coq sportif, a store or so I thought, was on the avenue. I wasn't. My brother had wanted me to take a picture of that store but it would have to wait. We stopped at this bistro place and got drinks. I got a lemonade, but it was seems to be typical french lemonade, which is Sprite-ish pop with a hint of a lemon taste. The last time I was in Europe there was a brand of french lemonade, I think it might have been a bit more lemony, and I'm not going to put the name on a website.

That evening we went to a play. It was in a nice, cozy theatre, and yes it was in french. It was about a lady who hires the buttler guy and he fantasises about her, and she does in a way about him. I didn't like the story that much but the actors and the presentation was good. One actress reminded of Donna's tall friend from Mamma Mia! who my mom thought also played Mrs. Weasley. At the end, the audience kept clapping for a long time, the curtain kept rising and the actors kept bowing in intervals of three. They did at least twelve bows!

Afterwards we went to Pizza Hut to eat. It was about 11 o'clock I think. I had a deep-dish pizza that was quite good. We also had dessert and I had a meringue, like on pie, floating in this vanilla custard I think made from eggs. It was pretty good but it depends on your mood how much you like it. I'd had it once before and I enjoyed it more the second time.
Afterwards we went to the hotel and went to sleep. Ambre and I shared a room. It was two single beds, spaced about 5 cm from each other, but for a Paris hotel room is was quite nice. The TV was a flat-screen and big for a hotel room in Europe. However, there seemed to be channels in Spanish and English and other languages, but not in French. How odd.

The next morning, I got up earlier than I had been during the vacation time. I had been getting up sometimes at 11, so earlier than that isn't necessarily saying much. But I started the day later than I remember I would when my family was traveling in Europe. Ambre and her dad's style was less packed, in schedule and in mind. At about 10 o'oclock, we went with Ambre's dad, who collects stamps fairly avidly I get the impression, to a stamp trading place. He didn't take that long, but then he saw a motorcycle helmet store and went in. I think he motorcycles by the way :). He tried on a few and ended up buying one. If I remember correctly, it had a target design on the front. The store was called Elmo, so I took a picture of the outside because it reminded me of Christina :). Then we went to this sopping place called Les Halles. They used to be greenhouses or something vaguely like that that were underground, only the roofs would be above ground...something like that. Now, it's a three-floor deep underground mall. It was pretty cool but I didn't buy anything. Some stores, like H&M and Zara, are popular in France and we also have them in Canada. H&M was in Les Halles and Zara was on the Champs Elysées, and we went into both, and I think Ambre bought something at both. That afternoon we went to the Pantheon. Ambre's dad said there was a street with a lot of old bookstores in Paris, and I think we might have been on it. I think my dad would have like that. There were some books about law, and also science, in some storefronts. Maybe because it was right by the law school, or the old law school building maybe.
The Pantheon doens't seem like Paris' biggest attraction, but it's actually auite interesting. A king a long time ago was dying and he told St. Genevieve that if she let him live he'd build her a church. He lived but the country was broke. They made this national lottery and got profit off that, and then built the church. Then probably because of the Revolution they made the state and the church seperate, so they decided it was now a Pantheon instead. They buried some people in the basement. People get panthonized if they were considered to have emulated things the french value basically. People like Victor Hugo, Pierre and Marie Currie and Louis Braille were Panthonized. Also, a group of people can get honourarily panthonized, which means they are panthonized but they don't get burried in the basement. Sometimes they made statues for groups of people like that. It became and unbecame a church many times, and they kept taking down and putting up crosses, but they left it up the last time I believe. The Pantheon is in the classic - roman and greek-ish - style instead of the gothic style. The tour guide actually said how to get a person panthonized, but it's sort of long to write and it doesn't have anything that wierd in the procedure.
Afterwards, we might have walked around a bit more I don't remember, but then it was time to go back and get our luggage. We went to this special place where I couldn't tell if it was one big store or a small mall, but it had mostly, in my opinion, north-american style clothing. The british style might have been included too. We only had about five minutes to look around. I saw some gold shoe laces but decided not to buy them.
We then got back to the train station, composted our tickets - sorry if that's a frenchicism, I'm not sure of the english word - and took the train back. I think we got back to the house at around 10. They were having fun giving the taxi driver directions and stuff.
I believe we had a snack after that and then went to bed.

So in short...the trip to Paris was fun and different from what a tourist might do. If I was a tourist it wouldn't have been ideal but as a sort-of local of France temporarily it was a less busy way to visit Pairs. Now that I think about it, it's sort of nice ot know Paris can be less bustling and busy and crazy than it sometimes looked when I was touring with my family and with the OSEF group. The architecture is also sort of cool. It's cool to imagine having an apartment in Paris or even in Caen. It would be sort of different, well a lot different, than I live in Edmonton, but it would be close to stuff and if you wanted that and you didn't want a yard that badly, then an apartment would be great. Ambre's mom actually has an apartment that I'm in as I write this. It's outside of the city by a tiny bit and I think most of the neighbourhood is appartments. It's not so much different than my life at home, since I still have a bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom and the TV. There's also space to breath, as in it's not packed to the gills or anything, so it's good.
I think I might be using a lot of commas. I read part of a book in french that had SO many commas. They are used correctly, but there are just so many. I read it and to change the sentence structure would seem weird, but other books I read have fewer commas and it works! Oh well!