Sarina's Parisian Adventure Day 3

Since it was going to by nice out all day, we decided to spend our day living like royalty at Versailles. We headed out and took the RER train to Versailles. The palace is outside of the Paris city limits but you can take a train to Versailles and walk to the Palace from the station. The RER is a bit more complicated than the Metro but luckily we were able to just follow all of the tourists. I took note of a group of American girls and followed them. When we got on the train and I noticed them get off before our stop I urged Tim that we should get off. We went up and asked them if they were going to Versailles and to my relief they said yes and that we were on the wrong train!

 When in doubt go with the crowd! If you are a neurotic freak like me, trying to navigate your way through a foreign country is beyond stressful. Luckily,  if you go to a tourist hot spot, you are not the only tourist! Some one one will speak English and some one will help!

So we got on the next train, got off on our stop and we followed the mass of people. The town was really quaint and charming. Then we turned a corner there it was, the Palace of Versailles. We were greeted by a big statue of Louis XIV. Looking at it I thought, "No wonder the French people revolted." A sentiment that was repeated while walking around the palace. But before that we had to get tickets!

Considering an investment in French real estate. What do you think?

The line was crazy long, after waiting on line for like 40 minutes Tim noticed a sign that said "Ticket Machine" and he went got the tickets and we left the line. Boy did we feel a bit dumb. Anyway, we made it ! The first thing we wanted to see was the garden, and this ended up being where we spent most of our day. We lucked out because there are only certain days of the year and times of the day that the fountains are on. The gardens were grand and vast. The pictures really don't show how big it actually is! It just keeps going! And there are more paths and hidden gardens throughout. We love the gardens so much that we only saw one wing of the palace. It just wasn't as impressive or amazing as the gardens.

After a long day walking around the gardens, we needed some rest! We went back to the apartment and relaxed for a bit. We then decided that we would have our fancy dinner that night. So we dressed up real nice and went to a restaurant in the Latin Quarter. It seemed like a nice place but unbeknownst to us, it was the equivalent to a sports bar. We were there during a soccer game and got to watch Europeans yell at the TV, so that was cool. As for dinner I was excited to try something very French, snails! It comes out piping hot and you get a special clamp to hold the shell as you use a tiny fork to scoop out the good stuff. I knew this was going one of two ways, either really good or really gross. Luckily it was delicious! If you love sea food then I recommend Escargot. I really enjoyed scooping up all of the sauce with some pieces of bread.. so good! Our main course was also delicious.

SNAILS!

After dinner we walked around a bit and ended up in front of the Notre Dame. I read in our guide book how after the sun goes down, the courtyard in front of the Notre Dame is taken over by street performers. We saw some guys doing roller blade stunts and break dancing but the coolest bit were the fire twirlers!

After that excitement we took the metro back to our apartment to rest up for another exciting day.