3 feet from glory!

Saturday night-2 of my friends and I met a couple of guys. Nothing serious, just general conversation. While conversing, one of the guys told us that he works for Disneyland in Paris. He explained that he could get 3 people in for free when he goes to work. He invited us girls to go! If we wanted to get in, we had to meet him at Disney at 11am on Sunday. We exchanged numbers with one of his friends who said that he would probably accompany us. Sinead and I were so excited. Unfortunately, Carli couldn't come along because of prior commitments.

Sunday morning- At 9am, Sinead and I meet at the RER (train) stop in our town. It was going to take us about 1.5 hrs to get to Disney. This way we had a 30 minute cushion, in case something went wrong. We got on the train and waited for the guy's friend to call us. Why couldn't we call him, you might ask? Well, both of the families we work for provided us with cell phones, but we have to pay for additional minutes. My family gave me 16 minutes every 2 months. Basically, the phones are for emergencies. Because things were mighty hectic with the parents being gone last week, my credit ran out on Friday. Sinead didn't have credit either... and everything, I mean everything is closed on Sunday (except Disney, of course)! We started to get a little nervous that he would be a no show and that it wouldn't work out. Then we got a text message saying, "Where are you?" The problem was, we couldn't text back. He was supposed to call, not text! We make our train switch in Paris and tried to find a store to buy credit. No luck. We continued our journey just hoping that we might find luck later. When we get off the train, Sinead immediately spots the guy who works at Disney. We were so excited! Everything was now going our way!

We passed through security with no problems and got in line to enter the park. Our "friend" handed his pass to the ticket collector. They exchanged some words in French and then he told us to move aside. By the facial expression on our "friend," we could tell something was wrong. For some reason or another, last Sunday was considered a blackout day, meaning that they could not bring guests into the park. Just our luck. We waved goodbye to him as he entered the park for work, and we headed back to the train station for our trek home. We stopped at a store in the station and bought some food for the ride. As we drowned our sorrows in baguette and Coca-Cola Light, we decided to spend the day in Paris.

I asked Sinead if there was any particular place she wanted to go. She told me that she had never been to the Notre Dame. It just so happens, that was my favorite part of my trip last year! We decided that we would make the most of the day, while we continually tried to convince ourselves that Disney would have been a bummer :)

Notre Dame was just as beautiful as I remembered. We even got to attend the Sunday mass. Even though the service was in French, it felt good to be there. Sinead lit a candle and then we went to the little garden/park next to the church to eat our packed lunches. While we were there, we noticed people playing on this revolving disk. It is so hard to explain, and I know it doesn't sound like a ton of fun, but it was! My camera was dead by this point, but Sinead took a picture for me. As soon as I get it, I will upload it! Even though we didn't make it to Disney, we got to go on a ride! It started getting colder, so we walked to a nearby cafe for espresso and a crepe.

After a little bit of window shopping, we headed home. When we got back, we went our separate ways. I wasn't ready to go to my studio yet, so I explored my town a little more. I have been so busy since I've been here, that I haven't had a lot of time to really walk around. After walking for about an hour or so, I stumbled upon 2 free expositions that were housed in the same building. Since I love the word free, I went inside. One of the expositions was from the painter Paul Vera. It was really interesting. A lot of his artwork involved oil paintings on fabric, and one on cardboard! Unfortunately, I don't know a lot of French yet, so reading the information about him was difficult. I tried looking up info on the internet, with very little success. If you know anything about him (ahem, Maggie Smith), I would love to know!

The second exhibit was all about wine! There is a little vineyard in Saint Germain-en-Laye, where they make one type of wine. They produce so little that it's not available for purchase. Although I could not taste the wine, I was allowed to smell it. They had different scented oils, which you would smell first and then the wine second. The oils would bring out different aspects of the wine.  The rest of the exhibit included the materials they used a hundred years ago to make wine. It was pretty interesting stuff.

When I got back to my studio, I immediately went to my computer to see what other events, especially those involving classical music, are available for free. Most of the arenas are in churches, which typically only show events for the month. Since September is almost over, there weren't many left that I could attend. However, I will definitely go back at the beginning of October, so I can take full advantage of the freebies!