April 4th Friday

After our late night, Adrienne and I got up at 10:00am. I showered and got ready. We had to meet Caleb and his wife Dina for lunch. I had some yogurt to hold myself over.

We took the RER to the St. Michel stop. We met up with Caleb and Dina in front of Notre Dame. We waited for Heidi to arrive. Once we were all together we set off to find lunch. While we searched, Caleb and Dina told us about how unorganized the classes in Italy were. They were supposed to be on vacation for a few weeks but the program decided to start the next module early. It was strange.

We walked all around the island and couldn’t find anything that really spoke to us. We ended up wandering to Rive Gauche and found a little restaurant that was fairly cheap. I had the 7€ menu with a chicken tandoori sandwich, a fruit drink, and a tiny lemon meringue tarte. It was actually pretty good.

After lunch we scattered to our different desires. Heidi and I really wanted to go to the catacombs. We headed way south on the metro and arrived at the stop. We had to walk around the big circle until we arrived at the door. We showed up and then were told by the renovation crew that the catacombs were closed until the end of the month. Nooooooo!!!! We had tried so hard to get there and we wanted so badly to go! We were greatly upset. We decided to try doing something else. I let Heidi decide since she would be leaving soon and I still had many months ahead of me. We decided to go see the St. Denis Basilica.

This was located in the very north of Paris. We had to take a very long ride on the metro to reach it. We got off the metro and walked toward the basilica. As we walked around the corner we were struck with the beauty of the façade. We got out our cameras and took pictures. Seeing this, a cheeky French youth came over and started waiving a small baby squid at us. Heidi crinkled her nose and said “Non! Non!” I swatted at him and said “Laisse-nous tranquilles!” I was super pissed off. We decided to delay no further and make our way into St. Denis.

I believe the entrance to the basilica was free but to get up close to the tombs and carvings near the back it costs €4.50. The inside was very beautiful indeed. St. Denis is where the kings and queens of France are buried. I was very excited to see some familiar names there. I got to see Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Perhaps the oldest resident there is Clovis I. He lived from 481-511 and was the first king of France. It’s a pretty star-studded group.

There was an impressive statue of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette side by side. Most of the tombs have a sculpture of the person on top of it. Walking around it really did make me realize how much history France has and how much they try to hold on to it. They’ve collected most of the bodies of their royalty in this basilica. Their kings date back to the 5th century. It was very impressive how much detail and work went into building some of the more extravagant tombs. Heidi and I noted the contradiction to what our catacomb visit would have been. The catacombs have collections of bones piled in deep stacks in underground tunnels. These tombs had extravagant carvings in a huge open church lit sometimes by the colorful reflections of the sun through stained glass. I guess the royals and citizens had a sendoff reflecting how they lived.

After our amazing visit to St. Denis, Heidi and I made our way to one of our now former professors’ office. Heidi had a book to return to Padis. It made me kind of nervous because we had both submitted our 9,000 word works to him. When we arrived in the office he had us sit down and we talked a bit. I really liked Padis as a professor and I enjoyed his class. He has been to the states and he says that the only classes he teaches at Sciences Po are those with foreign students. Apparently he’s not as fond of the French students/French style of teaching.

After our fun talk with Padis, Heidi and I headed home on the metro. I arrived home and made some dinner. I made some chicken with carrots, red bell pepper, garlic and rice. It had been a long time since lunch and I was hungry. I had some wine with dinner and it made me sleepy. I ended up taking a short nap. When I woke up, I scheduled the next day with Heidi. I went to bed around 3:00am.