Day 27, Saturday with Friends

I was going to go back to Versailles, this time to go see the chateau because I found out that one of my friends here has a disabled pass that she could use to get me in free with her.  Unfortunately, our plans were derailed when we found out the train to Versailles was closed off in many parts of the city, meaning we would've had to take other connecting metros to get there.  Instead, we decided to avoid that potentially chaotic mess in favor of taking the Batobus on the Seine.  Because we each already have a Navigo pass to use the Paris public transportation, we got a discount for the Batobus.  Although I had to sacrifice sleep to not sleep in after having gone to bed late, it was definitely worth it to be out and about on a pleasant Saturday morning in Paris.  Even just while taking the metro over to the stop by the Eiffel Tower, where I met up with Bonnie, Kristal, and Emily, I sat and suddenly felt excited, "I LIVE here!"  And then to be able to take a boat ride from the Eiffel Tower to the Museum of Orsay, Notre Dame, the Plants Garden, Hotel de Ville, and past the Louvre and the Alexander II Bridge--absolutely  wonderful! 

Sunshine and the Eiffel Tower on a clear morning in Paris!

 

Yeah, apparently it's possible to get wet on a boat.  Fancy that.

 

 

A unique view of Notre Dame!

The Pont Alexandre III behind me!  I like that the centerpiece on the bridge almost looks like a tiara.  Which would be even cooler if it weren't made up of naked women statues...

We got off at the Jardin des Plantes to see the plants and the menagerie.  That wasn't so exciting, but I did find out that that menagerie is the second-oldest one in the world!  Also, I learned that menageries are an older form of a zoo because kings would receive exotic animals as gifts and needed to store them somewhere.  Huh, I'd known that menagerie was a word in English, thanks to "Aladdin", but I didn't know what exactly it meant until Bonnie taught me.  Fascinating!

Next, we found a bus to take us to the Pantheon.  While waiting, I found another cool, fancy lamp!

At the Pantheon, Kristal got herself, her daughter, and me in all for free, and Bonnie got in free for being a student, so it was a total ganga going there!  And this time there was no obnoxious crane outside of it like there was the first time I came and only saw the outside.  Among the highlights for me was a mural with old French captions about Chralemagne getting crowned, Christ with an angel with a Latin caption, and seeing the tombs of people like Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Voltaire, and the guy who invented Braille.

Here's a shout-out to Charlemagne for creating the conceptual distinction between the various Romance languages/dialects and causing it to be documented via phonetic writing.

"ANGELVM GALLIAE CVSTODEM CHRISTVS PATRIE FATA DOCET"

Yeah, I actually am not entirely sure about what this means, but it still caught my eye.

By the time we finished in the Pantheon, it was lunch time and Kristal and Bonnie were sweet enough to indulge my gyro craving by taking time to go get some.  It turns out I was right about it existing near the Notre Dame Cathedral, but I had gone the wrong direction along the Seine.  This time, though, we had success!  Even better, we got to enjoy it on the Batobus on our way to the metro to go to a YSA LDS film festival in Nogent.

All in all, I am quite happy with my weekend--it was busy and full, but relaxed and exciting to my taste.