L'anniversaire de Mandi à Paris

For Mandi's 21st birthday, Sadie,  Emily, and I took her to Paris for her first visit ever! Sadie and I met Emily and Mandi at Notre Dame in the oldest part of the city. The cathedral was beautiful, as always, but we decided to go up the bell tower, which I had never done before. SO WORTH IT!

The views were probably the best I've seen in all of Paris and I've seen quite a few (top of Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré Coeur hill, etc.). Completely gorgeous! There was also a smattering of quotes from Victor Hugo's Cathédrale de Notre Dame (more commonly known to anglophones as The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which conjured images of the Disney movie in my mind. I felt like Quasimodo as climbed the ladder up to the tower and stood next to a larger-than-life sized bell. Very cool! We were pretty hungry, so we stopped for kebabs and leisurely ate them while sitting next to the Hôtel de Ville. Next stop was the Eiffel Tower, for posterity's sake.

After walking through the Champs de Mars, we hiked up to the Trocadero for a more complete view and hung out there for a while. We did the obligatory walk down the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe, and then headed to the Latin Quarter for dinner. By this point, it started pouring. Literally. I haven't seen rain like that in a loooong time! We ran into the first decent looking restaurant we could find. We had planned to stop by a bar in the Latin Quarter after dinner, but our long day and the rain persuaded us otherwise. We ended up buying some champagne and cookies to while celebrating in our luxury accommodations of Hotel Luna. And by luxury, I mean pretty freaking modest. We had a good time just being ridiculous together.

The next morning, our first venture was to Saint-Chappelle, which was built by Louis IX, I believe. (Perhaps I did learn something in l'Histoire de la France?) Holy wow. I have never seen stained glass like that in my life. If you are ever in Paris, this is a DO NOT MISS church! Definitely one of the more incredible churches I have ever been in period.

We then walked across the Pont Neuf (the oldest bridge in Paris) to the Louvre just to see the building and stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries. Before we went home, we had a couple more stops to make: Sacré Coeur, Montmartre (where we ate lunch) and the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge was a new stop for me, and I'm glad we saw it. It's one of those silly touristy things that are just hard to miss. We got a coffee across the street and chatted for a while, then headed back home to Lille.

Although I didn't see a lot of new things in Paris, it was really fun to watch someone experience for the first time. I also had kind of forgotten how much I really do love Paris. I can sit here and complain about how touristy it is, but the fact is, there's just something about the city that draws people to it. I can't explain it, but Paris really is a little magical. Photos on mobileme.