Note: Journaling is a great way to build your stories. When you keep a journal you can record details that would be long forgotten if you let days pass. Then when you look back at your pages, you relive those moments and your stories emerge. Sometimes journals can be stories in themselves.

__________________________________________

At the station 8:45, not many people. I see a nice couple, she is looking at a Versaille’s page in a tour book. I sit next to her. “Vous allez au Versailles?” I ask her. “She says “oui.” “Moi, aussi,” I say.

“Do you speak English?” she asks. We start chatting and she and her husband explain it is the train called VICK  we must take, someone told them. They are from Quebec. We chat companionably and get on the train together. They are across from me and start looking at their guidebook. I switch to the window seat across, leaving them room for him to put his legs up and more room for her.

I pull out my journal to do some writing. Then a loud accordion player starts up in the space between the cars. Everyone is sleepy, the car has been quiet, peaceful. All the people look up, startled. After a few moments, they keep on with another tune. Then, of course, they come right on through the car with a cup for donations, still one is playing. They don’t get many donations for their noisiness. And when they move on to the next car, the quiet of a sleepy Sunday morning returns to our car.

We arrive and I follow my Canadian friends, catching up with them. WE approach the castle. They say they have their tickets. I say I do too, from the Internet. I am thinking I have to go and get an actual ticket though. But I see a sign that says Internet and leave my new friends. “Have a good day!”

Wrong turn, the Internet sign, so I wander away looking at the long line forming across the courtyard coming out of the castle. Where do I go?

I go up front, and to the left, there is some kind of entrance with no line. I approach. The sign says Eau de Versailles. Ah, that’s me, the fountains, I have a ticket to everything from the Internet.

There are no people here. It is about 9:45, maybe 10 or so and I walk right up to the booth, no line, with my papers from the Internet. It’s OK, the ticket woman, waves me right through and I am in the gardens of Versailles, virtually by myself, on a beautiful Sunday morning. The sun is shining. It is quiet. I imagine this must have been how it was during the time of Louis and Marie Antoinette, a quiet morning with the sun shining on the gardens. I can hear birds singing. So green such an expanse, magnificent, really.

I wander down the garden pathway and meet an attendant where you rent a bike. There is no one around and she spends many minutes with me pouring over the map, showing me where things are and introducing me to the Gardens. She tells me, you can walk and when you are tired, you can come here and we will give you a bike and then you can ride.

I appreciate the tour that she has given me on the map and I happily walk on. At 11 a.m. all the fountains are turned on. The symphony music plays loudly in each Garden, tailored to that particular Garden. The water sprays into the air. The people crowd closer to the steps. They look out at the vast expanse of lawn bordered by walking paths. And at the three center fountains, water rockets into the sky, cascading over the bodies of angels and cherubs. It is peaceful even with more people there, just because the gardens are so vast. At one Garden the water dances to the symphony. I go to all the gardens, take pictures of the fountains at each one.  I eat my lunch of cheese and bread that I brought in a quiet corner watching a fountain dance and spray.
 

Later, I walk to Marie Antoinette’s home, Le Petit Trianon. It is small and beautiful, plain really. It is a retreat. Marie Antoinette was from Vienna, born into a king’s family. She never imagined there could be any other way than a monarchy and probably neither did 99% of the people living during that time. She did theatre just for herself and entertained her friends and even some of her servants. She was egalitarian and didn’t pander to the tastes of the court, drawing about her as friends the people with whom she had rapport rather than those with appropriate rank.

By then it is 3 in the afternoon and I’ve not even seen the Palace. I could take the train back right now, but I think, how can I say I went to Versailles and never went into the Palace. It has become crowded by now and it is very warm. I exit the gardens, where there is a long line waiting to get in, and there are swarms of people all over. Crowds are in lines to the restrooms. I look at the courtyard and the line to get into the Palace stretches the length of it. I go to the front of the line and show them my papers. Yes, this will let me in and yes, there is time, even though it closes at 5 p.m. OK I get in line. By the time I send 3 text messages to Jack to tell him that my trip to Versailles was a great success, I am at the front of the line. Of course I am a very slow texter.

I tour the Palace. It is wall-to-wall people all crowding the ropes to see all the rooms. It is an exercise in extravagance. The Hall of Mirrors is beautiful and I ask someone to take my photo.
  


Customarily, the King and Queen dine intimately with family while a gallery of spectators watch them eat.


The throne, "looks a bit worn out," the British woman next to me said.    

Finally I have seen it all and I am ready to leave. My feet hurt, and  I am very tired. Whew.

I walk through the town and stop to have a café au lait and use the restroom and sit for a moment, then go to the train. I never felt alone all day long, although I was in so many ways. No one familiar around me, strangers were always helpful. I always attempted my French and I felt warmly treated.

Forty minutes later I am at my stop and since it is so beautiful and sunny I don’t want to go home yet. I want to eat dinner out. This is a downside of my apartment. There are no simple, cozy restaurants nearby. The ones nearby are whizzing with tourists, or fast food places, since it is near the Tour Eiffel. So I decide on one of the whizzing with tourists ones but I get a table toward the back where I can still see all the people on the street, but am somewhat sheltered from it all. I want just a salad. I don’t know what to choose. The waiter helps me, “see in English,” he says. I choose the one with the smoked salmon that he suggests and a glass of vin rouge, red wine. I like this because I am just a short walk from my apartment where I can drop over afterwards.

Hundreds of people go by while I am sitting there quietly enjoying my dinner and writing in my journal, all nations are represented, it is near the Champs de Mars, Tour Eiffel station. Next to me a very handsome French couple. He is swarthy, she petite with a pony tail, very stylish, tailored navy blue coast, red lipstick, pale pink scarf. He orders pizza. I can’t see what she is having.

When I am finished, I turn my head and the waiter is there instantly to take my plate. “Café au lait?” I ask, “decaf.” “Yes, yes,” he says. He has kind eyes. “Of course,” he says.

In front of me a Muslim woman with headscarf, a family with young teenagers. The train runs on a bridge in my view above the intersection. It couldn’t be busier, yet I feel quiet in my corner. The couple with teenagers, he takes out his iPad and he and his son work on it. I think they are looking for directions. As soon as one person gets up from one of the tables in front of me another sits down. It is Sunday, sacred, nothing is open, except this restaurant, it seems.

A mother/daughter sit down, both blonde. The daughter slight as nothing orders a plate of mussels and pasta. Mom looks lovingly at her. Mom has white wine and pizza. After dinner I go home to my sunny apartment and pretty soon, it is evening and I am asleep before I know it.

You can continue to read about my Paris trip here: Day 9 http://tellourlifestoriesblog.com/2011/05/27/monday-april-18-2011-champagne-tasting-with-susan.aspx