We need to talk about the breakfast in this Parisian hotel. A common thing found in all of our hotel breakfasts was sliced cheese and deli meat. Pretty good with cream cheese on a roll. Croissants were also ALWAYS available. In abundance. As was Nutella. Fruit and vegtables were also there. The coolest thing was a drink machine. It automatically takes oranges and makes awesome juice right before your eyes. Incredible. Needless to say, breakfast never disappointed.
Off to the Palace of Versailles we went! It was crowded, my friends and usually, I'm not a fan of waiting in lines. Who is? But how can you complain when this is the view from the line?
I know. SO MUCH GOLD. I LOVE GOLD. I think this place may be the most extravagant thing in the world. Let them have cake, am I right?
It was also terribly windy.
Another thing we need to discuss: Asians. I can confidently estimate that 70% of the people visiting Versailles were Asian, 20% American, and the remaining 10% anything else. It was insane. I never would have guessed that I'd see so many in the Palace of Versailles of all places. They were all over the touristy places of Europe we went to, but Paris especially.
Inside the Palace:
The beginning was honestly like a very fancy art museum. Large rooms filled with huge portraits. Some still life, some landscapes or scenes. But mostly, there were a lot of portraits. We had headphones and an audio tour inside here, too, but it was so unclear which way we were SUPPOSED to go to stay in the order of the tour, and it malfunctioned half the time. So, I'd just read the plaques on the wall, or stand close to an English-speaking tour-guided group.
Please enjoy some pictures:
You get the idea. Large, intricate, beautiful, and gold. It's really incredible to see it in person. Photographs can't really capture the amount of detail in each area.
We stopped in at a little cafe in the Palace and got some lunch.
The gardens outside are so vast, spacious, spread out, and beautiful. We wanted to see all of them, but wouldn't have time to walk through and see everything before we had to leave. So we rented a golf cart with the tour director and his wife and the chauffeured me and Amanda around.
There were many private garden homes and fountains, belonging to one of the good ol' King's many wives. The gardens of Versailles are not what expected. There weren't many concourses and beds of flowers and blossoms, but there was a lot of impressively tidy and beautiful foliage, shrubbery, trees, grass, fountains etc. It was really nice.
That night, we traveled to a nearby LDS church to go to the local young single adult institute class! This building was hardly recognizable because and it was so old! Built in the 1700's. At institute, our group sang "Our Savior's love" from the Hymnbook and "I Feel my Savior's Love" from the children's songbook. I played piano. I think it went well. During the institute lesson, they provided those of us who don't speak French with headsets and there were a couple of the class members who sat at the front and translated it for us. I sat in the row right behind the two translators, so I just listened to them. It was cool to be able to hear both the English and French, and a fun challenge to try and keep up with the french, or read it and try and guess which scripture it was. One of the translators wasn't bad looking, either, so that really enhanced this learning experience...
For those who are interested, this translator also played the piano beautifully.
The YSA group then provided us with dinner after the lesson. A couple of LDS businessmen who live in the Versailles area came and spoke to our group in the building about the economy in the area, the different lifestyle etc...
We returned that night to the hotel. And.... you guessed it. I slept like a well-behaved baby.
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