A Paris. Day Two,

Started off day two bright and early. Around 7:30ish. Free continental breakfast = lots of baguette and nutella pour moi! Definitely not counting calories here. We commenced with a tour of Sainte Chappelle, a beautiful church with amazing stained glass windows, and the coniergie where prisoners were kept. Robespierre was kept and died there as well.

Before entering Sainte Chappelle, we all had to go through security. I forgot I had a wine opener in my purse, and that caused a small commotion with the scary french guards. Oops! Luckily the man I had to check the opener with just laughed at me. Silly American.

Before these sites, we attempted to visit Notre Dame. Ambivalently we couldn't go in because there was something going on with a cardinal. It was cool to see so many people outside, but I really wanted to see the inside! Anyway, there were so many people there for it that they overflowed outside, and when they chanted their catholic stuff (for lack of a better word), it was haunting with so many people! The directors of USAC were with us, and they told us they had never seen anything like it before.

These sites were in the morning. We ate lunch wherever we felt like going, and after that we took the metro to the opera house. I was blown away. I was expecting the opera house to be very stunning, but the place ended up being one of my faves (second only the centre pompidou, museum of modern art). I'll post some pics at the end of the post. The phantom of the opera was inspired by this opera house. There really is an underground lack under the opera house. The story was inspired when a chandelier fell because they blamed a phantom. Ta-da. There's also a giant ballroom there, which the ballroom for Beauty and the Beast was inspired from. You'll see the resemblance in the pics.

After all these, I was pooped. A friend and I stayed behind for a little shopping and wearily went back to the hotel for some much needed rest. It was hot, and the metro is like 10 degrees hotter than the outside with little to no air circulation. I felt like I had at least a couple of layers of sweat on me at the end of everyday. Gross.