Hot Day outside the City

So I'm a dinkus.  I totally forgot to even include a reference to the title of my last post, "Hot Day in the City".  Well duh, it has been a really hot past couple of days here in Paris.  Like almost unbearable.  I've got this mindset that's sort of like "I lived on a tropical island and in Florida so what's hot for the majority of people is mild for me".  Wrong.  I've been dying of this heat.  I've been thinking of this constantly and why I could easily manage Okinawa and Pensacola's heat but not Paris, which roughly has the same climate as Boston.  Lame.  The answer is simple: air conditioning.  There are a select few buildings in Paris that have air conditioning.  My apartment, classrooms, and even stores go without any form of air conditioning.  But it isn't even buildings that need air conditioning the most, it's the metro that takes the cake.  Imagine rush hour in a small metal tube beneath the ground jam packed with way too many people, oh and yeah, don't forget to include the European's lack of personal space.  Yeah, the image is sickening for me too.  Especially since I've lived this scenario multiple times in the past week and a half.

So yesterday we decided to escape the hot city and take a little trip to Versailles.  Well, guess what?  There is no air conditioning there either.  But that fact probably would have been irrelevant since we spent the majority of the day outside.  Versailles is notorious for it's gardens and ridiculously over the top stylings in gold.  It really is amazing and absolutely beautiful.  However, throughout my day at Versailles I kept having this feeling of deja vu.  Sure, I've been to Versailles before, but the whole day felt like something else entirely: Disneyworld.  Ok, maybe Versailles isn't the happiest place on Earth, but yesterday fit all the other criteria: Hot, loads of people (especially crying babies), and LINES.  It was insane.  There were lines everywhere.  Kaley and I thought we were being smart by getting there shortly after opening.  Wrong.  There were people everywhere.  We waited in line for an hour to buy our tickets.  Then after we bought our tickets we had to wait in an enormous line to even get inside the chateau.  The worst part is that it took us forever to even find the end of the line.  There were people snaked up and down the expansive courtyard in front of the chateau.  The only time I've ever seen so many people is truly at DisneyWorld.  We waited in that line for another hour and then finally got inside the chateau where there were, you guessed it, even more lines just to get into the rooms.  There were so many people that the only thing I could get a decent picture of was the ceiling.  So yesterday I took a ceiling tour of Versailles (they are very beautiful and elaborately painted though).  There was also a special exhibit going on yesterday, which probably added to the crowds of people.  It was called "Thrones though Time".  There were famous thrones displayed all throughout the castle which was really cool.  It would have been even cooler if I'd gotten to see them without having to squeeze between hundreds of sticky sweaty people to even read the plaque.

Next came the gardens.  We had to stand in line (again!) to buy more overpriced tickets to get in to the gardens.  They were so expensive because there was a special exhibit outside too.  It was called "Musical Fountains".  I thought it sounded a little lame, but I bought the pass anyway.  The gardens were even better than the chateau for a number of reasons: personal space, shade, and ice cream.  I don't think ice cream has ever tasted so good on that hot day outside of Paris.  Truly.  After ice cream something even better happened.  We walked on down to the huge land-made lake and were able to sit down and put our feet in the water.  The water was cold and it was heavenly.  I'm pretty sure Kaley and I sat there for almost 45 minutes just watching people in rowboats and ducklings swim all over the place.  It was so nice.  Other people did enjoy this more though with many women deciding to take in the sun by taking off their tops and sunbathing.  Only in France...It was about this time that Kaley and I decided to head back.  However, while we were walking back up towards the chateau this powerful music began to play and Voila!  All the fountains turned on and were synchronized to this wonderful classical music.  It was amazing!  I was so wrong.  The musical fountains were not lame at all and I was completely mystified.  Of course, this meant that we now had to go around the entire gardens again and take pictures of all the fountains in action.  Just our luck, but still so beautiful.

Overall, our trip to Versailles was hot and crowded, but with some seriously beautiful sights and a fountain show that made it a good day.  Thankfully, after we got home a huge thunderstorm rolled through and thoroughly cooled down the city.  We stayed in and friends came over and played games most of the night while the storm raged on outside.  It was a good day.