My most beloved Chartres. Don't you adore the blue and let's just talk about the dips and ridges in the stone. So much character, so much faith and so much beauty. I couldn't get enough of the imperfections in the stone, especially near the glass. It felt so right that the thing that man created to glorify and imitate God was still imperfect. It made me love them and Chartres even better for trying.

I fell in love with this man's boots, oh ok him as well on the tippy top of

the dome of Sacre Coeur, where I thought I might puke and die from peur.

Isn't the city jolie, even and maybe even especially with the haze/mist (we'll pretend it isn't smog). I was proud of myself for being brave enough to prend cettes images. It was just a surprise, I thought I was going down to the crypt, but I ended up ascending 300 winding stairs to the dome. Not a grave up there, but lots of professions of love and other such profundities scratched into the hundreds year old dirt on the interior of the dome.

I have un moment before we start our group meeting to discuss Versailles. Yes, at long last my pilgrimage to the Petit Trianon will be complete and I might die from I don't even know what from . . .star struckness? Yes, the star has been dead for hundreds of years but what can I say? Je l'aime! But in the seconds before we start I'll show you a few petites choses from this week. I'm falling, yes I am falling but Paris keeps calling me back again.

Chartres today. Oh our holy mother of pearl! It is la vraiment charment ville in all of the world. The cathedral is one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen in the whole of my life. They're cleaning it right now and the difference between the clean and the dirty is so intriguing (I'll put pictures up on Sunday). I fell in love. I sat in the chapel de Saint Sacrement and contimplated life and love and God and it was the most perfect Moyen Age moment. Besides, our Chartres expert was one of the most adorable and knowledgeable Brit transplants I could ever hope to meet. He knew so much. And I fell half in love with him as soon as I found out that he moved from London to Chartres because he loved the cathedral and want to study it and just be near. "Don't say you've seen Chartres. I've been here for 30 years and I'm still seeing it." I mean really? Don't you want to bottle that kind of curiosity and passion? I sure do and I'm first in line to buy as soon as someone invents it (including if I invent it). Then I died in a salon de the when I bought the most beautiful tart aux chocolate.
And I found out how much I despise huge groups of Americans and standing around in the metro. As much as I am fascinated by people in the metro, I hate looking like an American dumb dumb pants just standing about. Ah, but now I must away to a petit boulangerie to purchase my daily baguette!

Mais oui, le tour Eiffel! I saw it and Paris must be my city because at once I was in awe that I was actually seeing the iconic symbol of France and it felt like the most perfect and natural thing in the whole entire world. See:

Bonjour from Paris! It's day quatre in the voyage magnifique. I already feel like Paris and I are a pretty wonderful pair. I love the architecture and the history and the metro (ok, I adore the metro, partially because I get to practice my French manners . . .namely, my smile code mastery. I've gotten incredibly good at not smiling at strangers and making eye contact without the impulse to smile.) I lalalove watching les parisiens. They all look so good all the time. I feel like I've walked into art. It's not perfect but it's endlessly interesting and beautiful. Paris and I are going to be the best of friends, I've already felt anno

yance with loud English-speaking Americans, so I think I'm on the right track.

My first real up close Paris encounter was with the most fabulous block of graffiti I could ever have hoped to see in Europe.

On my second full day here, I went and saw Notre Dame, Le Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle (as part of one of the guided walks for my class. they're

great because they give you a general part of the city to explore and then you go at it). I cried at least 5

times that day. First because I was so happy I was able to ignore all the people asking me if I speak En

glish. And then when I walked into Notre Dame and touched on

e of the huge pillars. If you go, you must do this. The stone speaks to you and it's like you feel the sweat, tears, pain as well as the faith and devotion that's gone into the building. Just look:

Anyway, perhaps it's a bit overdone or touristy but I don't care and I can't help it. If this doesn't give you a nice first taste of the city, I don't know what will. I'll travel log a bit more plus tard, parce que I'm off to spend the afternoon in the Louvre!

Project Runway is the most wonderful contest show on all of televisiondom. I'm watching Nina Chat on the reunion show (which is always a dishy delicious tid bit of yumminess) and BAM! It hit me. Tomorrow at 5:13pm I will be an hour into a million and a half hour transantlantic flight to Paris. As in France. Holy moley. I could probably die, I'm a Paris-neurotic with a cray cray mix of emotions in my longing for France heart. I mean I went to the store to buy sunscreen and I sat in front of the fifty kinds of spf for more time than is necessary for any normal human being to stand in front of any aisle anywhere. All because I was thinking about the fact that I wouldn't just be slathering that business on my little Ginger shoulders under just any sun or on any beach but under the Mediterranean sun on a beach in Nice. As in France. As in the south of France. Don't worry, I finally chose Banana Boat spf 50 aloe vera (good thing that I still had enough wits about me not to choose Coppertone . . .a rash on the beach in the south of France . . .not pretty) and now with an absolutely brimming heart (still full from a semester of discovery, elementary and lovelies) I say:

Paris m'attend parce que je t'aime!