Stephanie in the City of Lights: Les Galeries Lafayette & l'Arc de triomphe

Bonjour tous!
It's been cool and rainy this weekend, and I'm starting to have homework for my classes, so I didn't get out as much as I have past weekends--in fact, I stayed in all day today doing work, except this morning when I did my laundry--but yesterday afternoon I decided to do a bit of indoor sightseeing, as it were, so I headed to Les Galeries Lafayette! For those of you unfamiliar with it, this is one of Paris's most famous and prestigious grands magasins (department stores, literally "big stores"). People come from around the world to shop there (particularly Americans and Japanese--they even have a special Japanese welcome desk there) and I heard more English (British and American) than French while I was there! So that was a strange experience. I, of course was not there to buy--Prada, Yves St. Laurent, Gucci are tempting, but un petit peu out of my price range--but to window shop. Think: fur, and lots of it. But the trends there also seem to indicate even more frills and ruffles in our future, as well as accessories in bold, funky colors (lots of purple, yellow, orange). There were a few rather less pricey brands as well (like Levi's), but it was all very posh. The building is equally as interesting as the fashions: it covers nine floors, from the basement up, or ten, if you count the rooftop as a floor, which maybe you should because you're allowed to go out on the rooftop for a lovely view of the city. Furthermore, there's this very famous stained-glass dome in the middle of the building which is quite lovely to look at.

The dome was too big to fit into one shot from the ground floor!

a few of the several stories supporting the dome

views from the top: the Paris National Opera (Palais Garnier)

Somehow, I never get tired of la tour Eiffel!!

That's Sacré-Coeur in the background--the view in real life was better.

After I'd had my fill of window shopping, I decided to head towards the Arc de triomphe end of le boulevard des Champs Êlysées. (La place de la concorde is at the other end, but it's a long boulevard, and it was drizzly, so I decided to leave that end for another time.) The arc is a monument to the French army, started by Napoleon (I) and finished by King Louis-Philippe, and it's quite stunning! You can go up inside it and out onto the top, so of course I did, after a rousing climb of 284 steps. (But it's free for students, so that was good.) You get a great view of the Champs Élysées from there, as well as the whole rest of Paris! And after all that climbing, the drizzle and the breeze were quite refreshing! Perhaps the views weren't as stunning as they would be on a sunny day, but I didn't have to wait in line and it wasn't crowded at all--two major benefits to going on a gray Saturday afternoon!