Patrick

**recently updated**


Patrick is visiting me!!! Patrick and I were neighbors freshman year and remained friends throughout college. He is a Fulbright scholar teaching English in Chemnitz (k not sh...oops), Germany. He decided to come visit me in Paris during part of his two-week break. So far we've had a fantastic time! He arrived Friday evening from Brussels. I met him at the trainstation and after dropping his stuff off at home, we went to dinner in the Latin Quarter. From there, we met everyone else at Nanda's (they'd already gone through 5+ bottles of wine/champagne) and headed to rue Mouffetard. Beer Pong Palace was a let down the second time...too many americans, I think word of Paris' official beer pong table got out.

Saturday was a beautiful day. We got up semi-early and did a little bit of shopping at Les Halles, my new favorite rainy-day place. It's several levels of shopping!!! After working up an appetite, we grabbed lunch at a little cafe and had a wonderfully typical rude French waiter. I'm glad Patrick got to experience that day 1. sigh. Anyway, we then headed towards Ile-de-la-Cite. We walked through Saint-Chapelle, the chapel for the original Palace of Paris. It was sunny at that point so the light shining in the stain glass windows was fantastic. From there, we headed to Notre Dame. I convinced Patrick to climb the tower without me one day while I was in class. We were a little tired at that point so we did a typical Parisian thing and sat and had a coffee in the Saint Michel area. It's a good place to people watch. After that, I showed Pat Opera Garnier but we got there right at 4:30 when inside closed to guests. Then we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't climb up but we did walk around and take photos. I then drug him down the Champs-Elysees. He was very patient while I window-shopped at Cartier :-P At place de la concorde, we grabbed the metro home for dinner and a relaxing evening watching The Office.

Sunday was even more beautiful than Saturday. We got moving a bit slower and didn't leave till 12:30. We took a sack-lunch to Pere Lachaise and hung out there all day!!!! Please look at this album: http://scarolina.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107715&l=99ca1&id=12600427 We wandered around for about 4 hours till it closed at 5:30.





Did you see the black cat in photo 4? That little bugger jumped out of one of the 'little house thingies' (for lack of a technical word) and scared the crap out of me! Pat and I proceeded to take photos of him but he didn't leave.

From there we headed to the Latin Quarter and had Chinese for dinner. It was fantastic!!! Then we returned home utterly exhausted.

So now that I'm in class the next couple of days, Patrick has to fend for himself in Paris but I think he'll do ok. I don't have class Tuesday morning so we're going to go check out St. Eustache...yet another cathedrale before my afternoon class.

Here's the rest of my photos:
more february (now full)-http://scarolina.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106048&l=1b326&id=12600427

and

Patrick in Paris!(not full yet) http://scarolina.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107700&l=04e33&id=12600427


So I realize it's been two weeks but I wanted to finish up writing about Pat's time in Paris! Wednesday morning I didn't have class so we went to St. Eustache and the Pantheon. St Eustache was built between 1532 and 1640. The inside was beautiful! From there, we wandered to the Seine, at a quick lunch. Pat had a croque monsieur...fancy ham n cheese! We then went to the Pantheon which was another church, now famous for its crypt. Famous important people like the Curies, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola, Louis Braille, et Jean Rousseau are entombed in the crypt. So that was our wonderful morning. Pat explored Paris on his own the rest of the time but we had a wonderful crepe dinner that night before he had to leave Thursday morning.

to see photos of the rest of our adventures:
http://scarolina.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107700&l=04e33&id=12600427