At long last, a recap of Paris! I'm in Poland!

There is no possible way that I could capture everything about my stay in Paris here, but I will include a few pictures. If you want to see more, ask me when I'm home.

I'm doing this now from Poland because I'm disturbingly jet lagged and just need to keep myself awake, but moving doesn't seem to be an option at present.

This is part of the garden right behind the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries.

I spent a lot of time in Paris in gardens. They were the perfect places to watch people, relax, and eat---a few of my favorite things.

This is the inside of an old train station. It's now Musée d'Orsay, which is more modern than the Louvre, but not modern modern art. Think objets d'art and impressionists.




Here we have yet another garden: Place des Vosges. I really liked walking around the neighborhood that this is in. It's in La Marais, and is quite and beautiful. I liked the Mouffetard area for the same reason, but that wasn't as close to my hotel room.

It took me three tries to finally get into Saint Chapelle. The first time I was too late. The second time the line was atrocious. The third time it was raining and the line was small as a reflection of that.

It was worth the wait to be surrounded by light like this. I went on a cloudy day, as I said, it was raining, which allows for the stained glass to be read. I would have liked to stop by again on a sunny day and be bathed in colored light.

I climbed to the top of Notre Dame and the hill that Sacre Coeur is on (twice). This is the view from the former. Climbing the 422 steps was painful since there weren't any places to sit down like at Sacre Coeur. I survived. Somehow.

Now, behold! The quintessential Eiffel Tower picture. I enjoyed using my sepia and black and white filters on this monument. There was no climbing of the Eiffel Tower this time. The lines were long, it was expensive, and I've done it before.







THE CATACOMBS! I've been waiting a long time to see all of these bones. I wanted to see these the first time I came to Paris, but my group was lame.

Anyway, lots and lots of bones. The anticipation to see the bones mounts as one walks forever around the former quarry and then walls and walls of bones.

Finally, my favorite Parisian garden:
Jardin du Luxembourg. It's a bit on the touristy side, but it has wonderful places to sit and watch people. There are lovely flowers and statues all over. I quite enjoyed my time there.

That is Paris. Now I am in Krakow. It took me three flights to get over here. I got one hour of sleep. I am too exhausted to go out and roam around the city, but I can't go to sleep since it's about 3 p.m. here. I walked around the city for an hour to get from the train station to the dorms, so it's not as though I've seen nothing of Krakow. Because I was pulling around a suitcase and had three maps in my hands, I haven't gotten any pictures as of yet. It's not a good idea for me to go out right now because nothing is really making sense. I've been up for about a whole day at this point. I got a single hour of sleep on the plane because there were too many screaming babies.

So far my impressions of the four people I have met that are associated with this physics conference are that they don't care to be nice and meet others. Maybe I'm not the only one jet lagged? One guy criticized how the United States sends different people over every year. I don't see why that's a problem. I guess he doesn't want to make new friends. Hopefully, things go better than those encounters.

Now the rest of the day will involve working on my speech and settling in to this awful room. It's only bad because four rooms of two or three people each have to share two sinks, one toilet, and one shower. Brilliant.