Easter Morning. Woke up to the smell of onion and korean cooking. Really not quite the same as brunch. We had made plans to go to Easter Mass at Notre Dame at 11:30. We knew we'd have to get there early, so we set out and arrived near Notre Dame at about 10:30. We grabbed some banana nutella crepes and headed to Notre Dame. A messy breakfast for sure. We got to Notre Dame and found a long long line.
It was fine, until we reached the front of it and they stopped letting people in. Then it became a mob. Of people trying to get into church. Well, I'm glad to see christainity is prevalent but all the Christeasters shoving and pushing to get into Notre Dame was not very "Love your neighbor as yourself". Especially when these people began pushing and shoving Laura who was for the record, still on crutch. I got a little aggressive after seeing the pain on Laura's face, so I stuck my arm out behind Laura and began giving anyone who tried to shove her from the back the stiff arm. 
We finally got into the church after much chaos and we found some seats. It was an exhausting experience though, and not really the relaxing and rejuvenating experience church is supposed to be. 
There were two other problems with Easter Mass. One, I don't speak french. So when the Arch Dios of Paris was doing his thing, I had no idea what he was saying. Other than the Lord's Prayer because I could tell from the rhythm that's what he was saying. Two, I am not catholic. I did enjoy the atomsphere and it was absolutely beautiful in there. But it was definitely not Pastor Gordon and sitting next to Les. I said some prayers and it reminded me of Tuesday mornings at St. John's with Katie. But the singing was beautiful, the organ was amazing, and the choir filled up the church with heavenly songs of Alleluia. Alleluia is universal. Laura and I decided to leave before communion to avoid the masses, which was still very difficult, and we headed to a little cafe for some overpriced french fries. Which I may start calling freedom fries because they charged 6 euro for a little plate of them. Claire and Stacy met up with us, and we left the cafe. At this point, I was sick of crowds and people, so I didn't care where we went, as long as I could have some space. We decided to head to the Arc de Triumph to see the eternal flame and the tomb of the unknown soldier.
The eternal flame has only gone out twice. Once in 1998 when a Mexican peed on it after they lost the World Cup. Once when some Australians decided to roast hot dogs on it. Ah so classy. I'm sure the French loved it. After soaking up the Arc we decided to do some window shopping down the Champs Elysée. Not finding anything we could afford, we decided to head back towards the Louvre to find somewhere to eat. But before we could make it to the metro stop, it started hailing on us. Yep, legit hail. The Parisian weather was not our friend.
We got off near the Louvre and found more rain. We found a corner restaurant but I was not satisfied. The wait staff was not friendly and they wanted us to sit outside (it was heated) with all the smokers. Being surrounded by smoke was not how I wanted to enjoy my expensive Parisian meal. We finally found a place that had an open table and ending up getting hamburgers. Not that good, but it was food. After lunch, we headed towards the river and found a cute little bakery. The girls loaded up on chocolate treats and we headed on our way. Stacy didnt know how to pronounce the name of the treat she wanted so she took a picture of it and showed it to the lady. Resourcefulness, I like it.
We headed back to the hostel so Stacy could grab her stuff because her flight was later that evening. We said goodbye to her and we all took a little afternoon nap. It was a good nap, the type when you wake up and don't remember where you are. Laura was still in pain from all the walking, so we let her rest and Claire and I took a trip up to the East side of Paris to the Sacre-Coeur, another famous Parisian church. There were plenty of steps to get out of the metro and my legs were still burning from climbing Eiffel the night before. When we emerged from the metro, we climbed up the hill. The view was ridiculous. The whole city at dusk. The area that we were in was very authentic, narrow streets, cobblestone. Lots of crepe stands. Street performers. We found a nice spot to look at the Eiffel Tower from and waited for the light show to begin. (Claire hadn't seen it yet).
We decided to go into the Sacre Coeur and finish up our Easter day like we started it, praying. Best part was the woman in the pew behind me singing "What if God was One of Us". Reminded of my childhood. I decided to light a candle for Jodi, hoping she was looking down on me, and knowing I was thinking of her. It's times like these I wish I could call her and tell her about them, so I lit a candle instead so she knew. After all, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
We emerged from the church to lit up Paris. Claire haggled for some little Eiffel Towers for us, and we headed to get Claire a crepe. We walked through the windy streets and there were a bunch of artists sketching people. It was a really cool neighborhood, and I loved the relaxed atmosphere. I was sad we didn't come sooner, it looked like a delightful place to eat dinner. We took the metro home, and after multi-transfers found our way back to Little Korea.
We were both really thirsty so we sat in the kitchen and drank some glasses of water and made friends with the other inhabitants, namely two guys from Texas. It turns out one of them, I think his name is Mark, is studying in Vienna this semester and knows a bunch of the U of I people we know. Small world for sure. We said goodnight to our new friends and crashed.
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