Taco Tuesday | 10.15.13

We are beginning to conquer cooking in the Czech Republic with limited resources. I made a concoction of different spices to make a seasoning for tacos tonight.  It was good, a little spicy but we are definitely looking forward to Josh's parents coming next week because they are bringing us actual taco seasoning packets!!

Paris, Day Four | 10.13.13 Sunday

Paris, Day Three | 10.12.13 Saturday

First thing on the agenda today was to get to the Eiffel Tower before the crowds, and then see more sights in the city because we are planning to visit sites outside of the city tomorrow before we head home.  So we got up and ready fairly early and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. 

In case you didn’t know, the Eiffel Tower was originally built to impress visitors of the Universal Exhibition in 1889 and was meant to be a temporary addition to the Paris skyline.  It was designed by engineer Gustave Eiffel and was the world’s tallest building until 1931 when New York’s Empire State Building was completed.  It is 1,051 feet tall, uses 2.5 million rivets to hold together the tower, it still uses the hydraulic lift mechanism from 1889 to lift the elevator from the second level to the top and is separated into 3 different viewing levels. 

It wasn’t too crowded when we arrived and only had to wait a few minutes to get our tickets to climb the (dreaded) stairs.  To the first level, we climbed 360 steps and I was already tired by the time we reached that level!  We walked around and rested for a minute before heading up the next 359 steps to reach the second level.  I could feel the burn going up this set of stairs, the last few sections were a killer!  Thank goodness you can only take the elevator to the very top!!  The second level was filled with restaurants and gift shops, the views were beginning to reach beyond the city but I was excited to see what we could see from the top!  We stood in a very long line to ride the elevator up to the top only to get close and realize that we needed to buy the lift ticket, so Josh went to find the ticket counter and I stood in line and hoped he would make it back in time.  Also I forgot to mention that the wind was unbearably miserable and we were freezing waiting in line.  Josh was able to get the tickets and jump back in line and we finally reached the elevator and crammed inside.  The ride up was kinda scary because the elevator was so open, with lots of windows and we were able to see how  high we were as well as what was below us!  The top level was very cold and crowded, supposedly this level can hold up to 800 people at a time (wow), thank goodness it wasn't like that today!  The views were awesome, although it was a little overcast we could still see the main sites.  We walked around, took a lot of pictures and then headed back down.  Then we had to head down the 719 steps to get back to the ground level!  Wow, that was a workout!  What a great site, my favorite thing that we have done so far in Paris!  We admired it from the ground for a few minutes, saying goodbye, and headed towards the Statue of Liberty statue.  After walking for forever, as usual, we reached this tiny statue that was given to the city in 1885, it faces west towards the original liberty in New York.  So although we haven't seen the Statue of Liberty in New York, we have seen the one in Paris, beat that!  

Next we decided to go to the Musée d'Orsay, one of the museums on our museum pass and we were able to walk right in which was nice because we were running out of time.  Originally this museum was a mainline railway station and was closed for 47 years before opening in 1986.  It showcases mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh.  We mainly went inside to see the grand interior as well as a few famous artworks, didn't have much time to look at everything.  

After visiting the museum, we headed towards Paris's Panthéon before it closed for the day!  It was also on our museum pass and I think we made it inside just in time, they shut the doors after us!  When Louis XV recovered from desperate illness in 1744, he was so grateful to be alive that he conceived this magnificent church to honor Sainte Geneviève.  It began construction in 1764 and was completed in 1790.  But with the revolution underway, the church was turned into a pantheon which is a location for the tombs of France's powerful leaders.  Napoleon returned it to the church in 1806 but it was secularized and then de-secularized once more before finally being made into a civic building in 1885.  The interior was beautiful and filled with details everywhere you looked.  You could tell that the facade was definitely inspired by Rome's Pantheon and was designed as a church with the 4 aisles arranged in the shape of a Greek cross and the great dome located in the center.

The sun was beginning to set so we decided to walk to our last museum of the day, the Pompidou Centre.  First, more important things, I wanted to find the pandora store and Josh's phone said that it was located near the museum so we went to find it.  I wanted to see what pieces they had that we don't carry in the US.  We finally found it, hidden on a side street, I walked inside this very small and busy store, looking around and josh was playing with this cute puppy that was just chilling in the store, patiently waiting for its owner to finish shopping!  Made me miss my Maggie!!  They had a few different things but nothing that I couldn't live without, so we headed to the museum.  The Pompidou is unlike any building that you have ever seen before, I remember studying about this at UNCG and thought, my what a strange concept for a building, never knowing that I would visit it one day!  It is described as a building that is turned inside out, escalators, lifts, air and water ducts, and even the massive steel struts that are the buildings skeleton have all been placed on the outside.  This allowed the architects to create an uncluttered and flexible space within it for the Muśee National d'Art Moderne and for other activities among the space.  With our museum pass, we were able to get in and ride the escalators up to the top floor.  Unfortunately we were unable to see some exhibits because they were additional but at least we got a great view of the city before the sun completely set and was able to warm up for a bit.  

By this time, we were ready to go back go to the hotel and relax, we grabbed a panini for dinner on the way home and started walking.  One and a half miles later, and much complaining on my part, we finally arrived at our hotel.  Paris street blocks are no joke, josh would say that we had only a few more blocks which really meant we had a ways to go, the blocks were huge compared to Prague!

When we got to our room, we noticed that our refrigerator was still broken, noticed last night that it stopped working so the cheese we had was spoiled and they said that they would fix it while we were out today.  We also noticed that our heat was not working properly and it was freezing in our room.  After many trips back and forth from the reception desk, josh was able to get our room switched, which was very nice.  So we quickly packed up our stuff and moved a few doors down to an interior room and both the heat and fridge worked so we were happy.  We spent the rest of the night figuring out what sites we wanted to see tomorrow and packing up to head back to Prague late tomorrow night.