What was the average?

oday was another incredible day. We started off with breakfast, music lecture, and then we all took the metro to the Paris Opera House. They ended up postponing our tour by about an hour because of confusion with our reservation, but our bus driver Freddy was able to negotiate with them. We had just enough time to explore the exterior of the Opera House and hang out with other members of our group. The tour was definitely worth the wait! The inside was absolutely extravagant! We got to sit in the main auditorium, see Box No. 5, tour the Grand Foyer, and here lots of stories and history about the Building. It was absolutely fascinating.

From there we had about 2 hours for lunch before our Art excursion to the Pompidou Center. We spent some time in a little bakery shoppe where I ate the best baguette of my entire life…no joke J Then we met up with everyone to tour the Pompidou Center with Dr. Medina. The museum was full of modern art, and it was very difficult to take seriously, to say the least. We saw several Dali paintings, and many many things that, in my mind, shouldn’t be considered art at all…like urinals, for example. We bonded a lot as a group though, my favorite part of the whole visit was when Will tried to argue with Dr. Medina that the New York City painting by Mondrian wasn’t any better than a piece of plaid. Leave it to tech students....

It began to rain pretty hard by the time we were finished at the Pompidou, so we headed back to the hotel for a little while to regroup and pack for a little while. Molly and I ended up just sleeping though. Definitively some much needed rest. About nine we all got together with plans to head to Sacre Coeur to watch the sunset over the city, rain or not. As we all left the hotel, however, the sun came up so the four of us decided to go up the Eiffel tower instead. Definitely a good choice. The line was very short and we boarded the elevator just as the tower began to sparkle. By the time we got to the top it was almost dark, which made taking pictures difficult, but the view was still absolutely spectacular. I had no idea how tall the monument actually was; you could see everything in Paris and far beyond.

We got many many pictures under the tower, and headed home for the last time. We leave tomorrow at 8am headed towards Florence, Italy. It will take us two days to get there so we will be stopping in Anase tomorrow night. I have also heard rumors that we will be spending a little time in Dijon since it’s on the way…but we shall see. Aurevoir for now!