On our second day in Paris we
woke up (both a bit sore from the awful mattress) and left for another day of
adventures. We had a train to
catch that afternoon to Amsterdam, so we had to decide what we really wanted to
do with our day. In the morning we
went to see the Opera House of Paris.
Even though it was raining lightly, we made the most of it and enjoyed
seeing the beautiful building and the fun neighborhood surrounding it.
Kristin and I in front of the beautiful Opera House
The rain was picking up, so we went to
the Musée d’Orsay to take shelter and see some more art. We saw lots of impressionism, a few Van Gogh’s, and great
sculptures. I always love the
setting of the museum the most.
The museum used to be a train station located in the heart of the
city. It was eventually converted,
but the architecture and some elements, like the large clock, remain to remind
visitors of its history.
For the last outing of the day,
we took the metro towards the Mosque of Paris. I loved it so much on my last trip and figured that Kristin
would enjoy visiting it. The
tiles, colors, and atmosphere are impressive. It has such a calm and serene feel to it. We then walked over to the tea garden
and enjoyed some sweetened mint tea.
It was great since the weather was still a bit on the chilly side.
The tiles of the mosque
On our way out of the neighborhood, we stopped by a pattiserie. Kristin had only had croissants at breakfast, and I couldn't let her leave France without getting to pick one yummy baked good. We thought that since we had a 5 hours train ride ahead of us, it would make a great snack. Kristin picked a lemon tart, and I had my favorite chausson aux pommes (filled with apples).
We headed back to the hotel, grabbed
out suitcases, and were off to the train station. Despite technical difficulties, we managed to get on the
train with about ONE MINUTE to spare.
We sat down to the announcement that our train was delayed fifteen
minutes. So maybe the slight panic
attacks were maybe not completely necessary, but moral of the story is we made onto the
TGV.
An awesome Haussmann building
The TGV ride was enjoyable after
we decided to move out of our assigned seats into a small, empty cabin
area. We weren’t going to put up
with the screaming children and their unintersted parents for three hours. We relaxed, watched the countryside,
did some reading and napping until arriving in Amsterdam!
Country side of the Belgium!
Welcome to the Netherlands!
Nap after a long day
During most of our 10 day trip we
are staying at people’s apartments in different cities. They usually have an extra bed or
bedroom and their places are well located and less expensive than hotels. In Amsterdam, we stayed with John. He was a super nice Frenchman who had
been living in Amsterdam for a year now.
His apartment was a five-minute walk from the train station and really
close to basically everything else.
That night he came and met us and showed us the apartment. The stairs were really something to
see, and getting our big suitcases up was even more intimidating!!
We had a
nice dinner at an Argentinean restaurant close by. Tons of people were out and about, and it didn’t even get
dark until about 10:30-11PM. We
slept super well on the comfortable bed!
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