Paris 5 and 6
Yesterday we went to Victor Hugo's first, which was interesting, but we found the gift shop items kind of disappointing. Then we went up to the top of notre dame to see all the gargoyles. It was very cool and the guy didn't make us pay full price though I don't know why. It was crazy windy and rainy though and it felt unusually dangerous lol.
We then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the most parisian way possible: killing time in cafes. We hung out in three different cafes for a few hours each, then finally headed over to Notre Dame for the Xmas eve mass. We managed to get way better seats than I was expecting (despite accidentally getting communion from the service before ours in the process >> ).
Service started with a video that almost went into TOO much detail about the church, and then service, which was part latin and part french. I was following the french pretty well which kept me awake. We then walked back to the hotel and got in around 1:30 I think.
So natch we slept in on the actual Christmas day. We were surprised to find out that, actually, many things are open today. It seemed to mostly be big chains that were closed while mom and pop things were open (examples: carrefoure and McDo's closed; local poissonerie and fruit shop across the street open). The people we got the walking tour from on the 23rd were running their Montmatre tour so we went on that, which was super cool because without him we never would have known all these houses and which people lived there and the like. We then went to the sex museum and had supper and came back home to collapse
:3
We then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the most parisian way possible: killing time in cafes. We hung out in three different cafes for a few hours each, then finally headed over to Notre Dame for the Xmas eve mass. We managed to get way better seats than I was expecting (despite accidentally getting communion from the service before ours in the process >> ).
Service started with a video that almost went into TOO much detail about the church, and then service, which was part latin and part french. I was following the french pretty well which kept me awake. We then walked back to the hotel and got in around 1:30 I think.
So natch we slept in on the actual Christmas day. We were surprised to find out that, actually, many things are open today. It seemed to mostly be big chains that were closed while mom and pop things were open (examples: carrefoure and McDo's closed; local poissonerie and fruit shop across the street open). The people we got the walking tour from on the 23rd were running their Montmatre tour so we went on that, which was super cool because without him we never would have known all these houses and which people lived there and the like. We then went to the sex museum and had supper and came back home to collapse
:3