Skirting the Issue, and a very golden day!

Finally, another long-awaited Parisian post, but first, a note on London men.

They are creeps!! At least a lot of them are, or at the very least, a lot of them in our part of the town are.  Today was warm enough to go out in a skirt with bare legs (55-60 degrees during the day, sunny skies, GORGEOUS) so I did when I had to go get groceries.  Not only did I get honked at twice (in a totally respectable knee-length skirt with a cardigan), but a cab driver rolled down his window and asked if I wanted to take a ride with him later.  Ew, sketch.  Why does this bug me, after getting hit on multiple times in Paris?  I don't really know.  Mostly because it's so asinine, unnecessary and unflattering on both ends.  I guess I need to keep the tights on for the time being.  Sigh.  

Anyway, I digress.  We're up to Paris Day 3: Versailles!  

Team Hot Route (formerly known as Team Tuscalonis) departed for Versailles around 11:30 am after a leisurely and lovely morning in which the ladies took cold showers (Claire's building was having the heaters worked on, which we didn't learn until the day we departed) and Charlie made us breakfast and tea.  What a man, ladies, what a man.  The train to Versailles was fast, cheap and easy, much like its former residents...from what I knew and later learned on Wikipedia, it sounds like the Bourbons didn't worry about messing around at ALL.  We arrived on a beautiful sunny, if blustery-cold, day.  The castle is absolutely unlike Windsor in every way on the outside...palace describes it better than castle.  To me, a castle always implies moats and stone and dungeons and fortresses; a palace is somewhere with expansive gardens and excessive windows and ornamental fences, not defensive walls.  Versailles is the epitome of a palace.  Gold EVERYWHERE.  Windows EVERYWHERE.  Gardens EVERYWHERE.  I already knew I was going to like it a LOT.

Too bad the ticket-vendor had to sour me on the experience right away!  We had been informed by Peter that it was possible to get free admission to Versailles with our student visas; I asked accordingly when we were purchasing tickets.  Not only did the man we were buying from totally deny us, but he was a complete and utter asshole about it.  After I attempted to explain that our visas had been accepted at the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre (a petite white lie), he gave me the snottiest, snootiest look ever and said, in the most patronizing tone I have EVER heard in my life: 

"Madame, this is not the Musée d'Orsay, this is not the Louvre.  THIS...is Versailles."

To hear him talk, you would think I had marched in there in a fannypack and cowboy hat and demanded rudely in English to have tea with Marie Antoinette herself.  I was speaking fluent French and made a perfectly reasonable request, to which he responded with utter rudeness and snobbishness.  It was my first experience with real French xenophobia and it completely put a damper on the rest of my day.  We instead paid the fee of 15 euro to enter, then ate our lunch in a café overlooking the gardens, which cheered me up a bit.  Nothing like Nutella and Bonne Maman jam on baguette to give you a little sugar rush and make your day brighter!

We finally entered the palace for real and picked up our handy dandy audio guides!  The palace itself was beautiful.  Fantastic parquet floors, marble, gold, and carving everywhere, and ceilings of every room gilded, painted and decorated to the nines.  The chapel was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen.  This was becoming a theme with my spring break...

After walking through a random photo retrospective on Versailles over the past 150 years (umm wtf?!) we finally reached the State Departments.  Much prettiness.  A lot of art.  A lot of gold.  A lot of really expensive decoration and furniture.  I was loving it, although I have to say the interior was almost a bit underwhelming compared to Windsor...and compared to the beautiful views of the palace gardens!  We finally reached the Hall of Mirrors and it was...well, everything I thought it would be...enormous, mirrored, absolutely majestic.  It was also, however, totally crowded with tourists.  I suppose that's how it would have been back in the day as well, only everybody would've been wearing awesome gowns and jewels.  Haha...that's how I always imagined it.  Silly me.  :)

I may or may not have taken a Myspace mirror pic in the Hall of Mirrors.  But I'm embarrassed about the fourteen-year-oldishness of that so it's not going on my nice blog.  :)  The State departments continued and Coleen and I saw Marie Antoinette's rooms, including the bed where she gave birth to her children in front of a bajillion-and-two members of the court:

We then headed outside to walk around and explore the beautiful grounds.  It was a fantastic sunny day and we had a really good time walking around and exploring!  The gardens weren't in bloom or anything but there were buds on all the trees and I bet the exterior is absolutely stunning in the summer.  

There are three other chateaux on the Versailles grounds...the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon and the Hameau of Marie Antoinette.  We walked out quite a ways to go visit those as well; I really wanted to see them as they were famous as being Marie Antoinette's favorite personal retreats from the busy and public life in the main palace.  Once we got to the Petit Trianon, however, we were dismayed to discover that each of the three attractions cost an additional fee!  At that point, everybody was so sour on the previous ticket-vendor's attitude that I didn't even bring up paying more to see the rest of the chateaux.  I guess it's just an incentive to go back someday when I have lots and lots of spare change...after all, who wants to do and see everything?  Then there's nothing left to live for!  It's just like with Cinque Terre...since we didn't make it to Monterossa, the fifth town, I have a reason to go back.  Now I have one for Versailles as well!  :)

After some more wandering around the garden, and some awesome/moderately embarrassing Team Hot Route photos in front of the Grand Trianon (it's PINK! I was in heaven!), our group walked back to the main palace to catch the train back to our Parisian home for the week.  We ate our dinner and met up with Nicolle, Siobhan and Julie later...but that's a different story for a different post, as it's getting late here.  Bonsoir, chéries!!  Bisous!  (Goodnight and kisses, dear friends!)