Notre Dame & Dinner

Even after three full days in Paris, I'm still not over my jet lag. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. today and decided to take a sleeping pill to fall back asleep. I managed to crawl out of bed at 1:00 p.m. and met up with some friends to do some sightseeing in the heart of Paris.

First, we went inside the Notre Dame cathedral, which to my knowledge is the most famous one in Paris. Yesterday, we had delicious hot chocolate at a café across the street, but today we actually toured the nearly eight-century old structure. It isn't like Westminster Abbey in London, which features a courtyard and a bunch of tombs and artifacts, but it is nonetheless a spectacular building. It is a classic cathedral, complete with stained glass windows, a bunch of crosses, Jesus images and nativity scenes. It was also free, so it gained an automatic plus in my book.

After getting a snack at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near Notre Dame (I had a galette aut fromage), we made our way to the Opéra stop on the metro because we had some coupon to get a good exchange rate for changing money. Unfortunately, the coupon was worthless, but the view wasn't. Right off the metro, we saw yet another set of beautiful buildings, nothing short of the rest of Paris' beauty.

Finally, after a long afternoon, we all went our separate ways and I prepared dinner for the 10 of us. I made pasta with homemade tomato sauce, sauteed zucchini and cherry tomatoes, and everyone brought bread, cheese, cookies, and five bottles of wine (yeah, we finished all of them). Dinner was great. It was nice to have a relaxing night and hang out with everyone on our program.

Tomorrow, we're doing some scavenger hunt thing with Abroadco. I don't know exactly what it entails, but I'm sure it will involve taking the metro and going all over the city, which I'm always down to do. Once again, another day of great food, great wine and beautiful sight seeings in Paris. Getting jealous?