An Evening Dash

Today we went to the Pantheon museum which has an amazing crypt that has so many famous people buried there such as Rousseau and Voltaire. For those who do not know, Rousseau and Voltaire philosophers who were always disagreeing with each others ideas. At the crypt in the Pantheon these two amazing philosophers were across from each other with tomes as different as their personalities were! There was also a really interesting thing there that was supposedly one of the first things that helped people realize that the world spins. It was a really cool thing to see the pendulum swinging back and forth over the dial.

After that museum, we brought into small groups and we went to the Luxembourg gardens. We got to watch some kids playing with sail boats in the fountain there. Since it was such a gorgeous day we spent some time there walking around and enjoying the views that the garden could offer us.

After a quick lunch, we hopped aboard the metro and took it to the business district of France where the Grande Arche at La defense. We had some fun taking pictures of it and got to see some great views from there as well. We could see the Arc de Triomphe from there which was an amazing view. On the way back to the metro station saw a sign for a Monoprix and thought we'd go see what sort of things they had there and when we walked in, we discovered that there was not only a Monoprix there but a mall! even though we did not stay long enough to buy anything, it was a pleasant surprise to see. Then we got on the metro and headed home for dinner.

After dinner, we decided that we had enough time to go see the Eiffel Tower up close and lit up. So off through the metro we went again. When we got off the metro we hurried to get to it as fast as we could because at the top of every hour after dusk the tower lights up for five to ten minutes. We made it in time to see it glittering and got some really good pictures of it. Then, amidst the pictures we saw lightning from behind us and we realized that there was a storm quickly approaching. So we half walked half ran under the Eiffel Tower, stopping occasionally to take a few more pictures. We made it to the metro just as the first few drops of rain began to drop. When we made it back to our stop close to our apartments, it was sprinkling pretty good and we got inside before it began to rain more. It was a wonderful excursion to have even with the rain this wonderful night!