Ahh, tourist heaven. At least it was today at Notre Dame. Haven't heard that much American English spoken in over a month. It was crazy.

We arrived in Paris last night, got our carte d'orange to ride the metro, and had one heck of a time finding our hostel with all the rue du blah blah blah in circular formation around some small street on neither of our maps. Sigh, but we made it, hiked up 4 floors, thankful we had sent home ten pounds of stuff, and found nearby markets for food stuffs. Then we read and passed out around 10 after trying to remember all the french and spanish we had ever learned in high school. :)

After rushing downstairs for the free breakfast, which consisted of corn flakes and bread with jam, we revved up to visit the Catacombes and Notre Dame. Now I must have a disclaimer in this blog that I have been to Paris before with my family and so I will probably not recap all the amazing places and pictures that I took before. But like I said, we did visit the Catacombes, which I had not seen before, and it was absolutely insane. Basically, there are three underground quarries below the city where millions of peoples bones lay stacked meticulously and artistically after they were exhumed from overcrowded cemeteries in the 18th century.

Hopefully some of my pictures will come out, but just try to envision thousands of led and arm bones stacked in the most morbidly beautiful way possible, with skulls centered and set in formations, lines or hearts or even a representation of a church steeple....crazy! It was about 1.6 km long and under the sewer and metro systems, so about 130 steps underground they said. It was a trip.

We hopped on the metro again and headed up to Notre Dame to climb the staircase to the top. Also something I didn't do last time. The steps were steep and it was cool to see how the steps had sunken spots in the center of them where millions of people have placed their feet to climb to the top. The view was somewhat dimmed by the mass amounts of wire fencing around all levels, but still big enough to get your camera through for an unobstructed view. Unfortunately it was pretty overcast so the view was as clear as it could have been. I'm just happy it wasn't pouring like it was yesterday evening!

For me, I figure I'll spend this evening and or tomorrow reading my latest Milan Kundera book at the Luxembourg gardens with all the other Parisians and tourists. Then maybe head to the Lafayette galleries and the adidas store to pick up a pair of athletic shorts-something I didn't pack but am desperately missing right now! After that, not sure what will be in store. Maybe another trip to the Louvre on Friday evening when it's free and possibly the Musee L'Orangerie, which I believe was closed last time I came.