On Saturday I finally went to Versailles with my friends Mary and Jenna, and Jenna's friend Kelly who was in Paris for the weekend. From Paris, Versailles is only a half hour metro ride, so we got up early and headed to the castle when it opened at 9AM in an attempt to prevent waiting in line. Apparently if you want to beat the crowd you need to show up about 2 hours prior to the castle's opening as we had to wait over 1.5 hours just to make our way past security and into the compound. The castle itself is situated smack dab in the middle of a small town (well obviously the castle came first but still...) and as such is a little awkward with its huge golden gates and gold rimmed roofs and windows. Once we made it onto the grounds we got audioguides and started the tour of the manor - which is HUGE. The memorable rooms for me were the King's Chapel, and of course, the Hall of Mirrors. You here about Versailles in history class, but you don't really understand it until you see it with your own eyes. Marie Antoinette's room was also interesting as we got to see the door she used to escape the castle during the Revolution. After the tour of the house we wandered the grounds which must be at least 10 times the size of the castle, and wandered down to Marie-Antoinette's village - which she created so she could discover how a peasant lived. The village is quite charming- it actually reminds me a lot of Belle's hometown in Beauty and the Beast. My favorite part of the town were the animals- but the buildings were quite incredible as well. There is a small stream that runs through the village where people were looking intently into the water. Being a fan of ducks I assumed that there must be a really cool duck down there- but turns out that there was a cluster of literally hundreds of large catfish-type fish. It was absolutely disgusting and reminded me of when the fisherman force fed the dying fish the dead fish at the dock in Marseilles. Overall, I had a great time exploring the compound - we had a wonderful day weather wise, and the fountains were on which is amazing since they only go off on certain days during certain time slots. However, despite the marvels of the castle, I must admit that it was really not my favorite French castle. It was super crowded and hard to move around and see everything, sometimes we would have to wait upwards of 20 minutes just to get into an adjoining room because of the amount of people. Case and point - at one part during our tour of the castle there were so many people that I accidentally placed my foot under a wire and set off the alarm, after which I promptly ran away. However, it was a worthwhile venture for sure.

Saturday night was La Nuit de Musée in Paris where all of Paris's museums stay open late and all exhibits are free of charge (some museums even stay open until 2:30 AM). My friend Ellen and I decided to go to Les Invalides, the national "army" museum where Napoleon is buried. This museum is probably my favorite museum in Paris - it is absolutely amazing. In addition to Napoleon's tomb, the museum also has one of the largest World War I and World War II exhibits in the world and it is truly spectacular. There are countless army uniforms, memorabilia from concentration camps, video footage, newspaper articles from around the world, etc, all displayed in a remarkable way. After the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., this would probably rank as the best and most moving museum that I have ever been to.

In other news I have only 11 more days left in France. Where has time gone? It seems like I just got here - and now I'm procrastinating studying for finals. If anyone has any souvenir requests let me know, and I'll see what I can do.