Day two!

Well some pretty exciting things happened today. First off, I met one of my roommates, Fleur, who is from Madrid, Spain. She's super nice and I'm sure we'll have a great semester together. Our other roommate has moved back home (somewhere about an hour away from here) while she's taking tests of some sort, and she'll probably move back in a month or so. So I haven't met her yet.

Today we slept in and then hung out at the residence for a while before meeting up with Tiff and Mindy for some sightseeing.

This is the view from my window. The buildings here seem to be mostly triangular or square/rectangular so that on the inside people overlook a courtyard. It's kind of nice because then everyone can have windows. The circle column of the building is one of the staircases. I'm guessing it's to save on space, but it also seems that the staircases are spiral, which so far has proven to be a bit dizzying!

We met at one of the nearby churches, and since the door was open we went in to take a look around.

The windows were beautiful! Unfortunately it wasn't bright enough to get really good photos.

This is the door where we came in, and there's an organ up on the balcony/

There's a large dome at the front of the church with stained glass windows all around.

Looking up at the dome and ceiling.

We went to see l'Arc de Triomphe to start out our afternoon. It was huge! I didn't know you could go up inside it until we got there, and then we got in for free because we have student visas :)

Yours truly :)

The view from the top was amazing! Notice the Eiffel Tower?

This gives a good idea of the way the streets work in Paris. They seem to just go wherever was easiest to put them, but a general pattern is the triangle streets. There are a whole bunch of roads that connect to this huge roundabout (which has NO lines painted to say where the lanes are!) and from the top of the arch it kind of looks like the spokes of a wheel going out into the city. It was pretty cool!

And then our third stop of the day was at another church, Sacré Coeur, which also gives a good view of the city. Once again, there were a lot of stairs to get to the top, but it was so nice to be out walking in relatively warm weather! It was starting to get darker at this point, so we didn't stay for too long. Mass was also about to start so the dome and crypt were both closed to visitors. I plan on going back for sure though--it was beautiful :)

Walking up the stairs to the church.

This is the view from in front of the church. I read somewhere that the view from the dome is the second best view in Paris, so I'll definitely have to go back!

And a close up of the church. As you might expect it was beautiful inside, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. Guess you'll have to come visit and I can take you there :P

Also, today we bought crepes as a snack. There's vendors all over the place who make them while you wait. I got mine with Nutella and banana, and it was one of the best decisions I've made so far in Paris! Delicious!

If anyone would like to send me letters (and I hope you do!) here's my address:

22 rue de Naples
75008, Paris
FRANCE

That's it for today!