♫ Do you hear the people sing? ♪

I only have three days left in Paris. That's so weird... When I first got here, I felt like it was going to last an eternity. Now it's almost over. We still have one week of bus tours and one week in Nice... But like an old friend once told us, the time is slipping away like gold dust.

Today we did one of the last walks. It wasn't really that interesting of a walk to be honest. lol. We went to a museum and saw more furniture and paintings. Well...ok, I guess it was a little cool. The mansion that housed the museum was the home of some 19th century art collectors. (Or maybe 18th century...I forget which century it was.) They had a bunch of collections of art. My favorite part was probably the music room and the staircase. There was a great hall where guests would sit and listen to the owner play his organ, and a top balcony where the accompanying musiciens would sit. The staircase was very detailed with marble and iron and gold. I thought it was cool, because a lot of the paintings and frescoes on the ceilings, as well as the fireplaces, were actually shipping to them from Italy and other places around the world. They were part of the art collecting the family did.

Nearby the house is a park where there are tons of ruins. The funny thing about these ruins is that they were built to look like ruins. lol. Built in the 1800s. So, not really ruins at all. There are Egyptian looking ruins, Greek, Roman. A bunch. lol. The part was really pretty. It had flower trees and lots of green grass kids could play on.

After the walk, we came home to work on homework, then we went to Les Miserables! Whoa. That is all I can say. I think it was so much more powerful this time seeing it because I've been walking the streets where these little revolution attempts happened. I've been to Saint Michel where the students would have planned their revolutions. I've walked the bridges and the pathways, visited homes, seen the schools. This may not be a true story, but stories like this actually happened.

And it was this revolutionary spirit that made France what it is today. The French are passionate, if nothing else. Passionate about liberty and equality. They want their voice heard. They see it as their right as Frenchmen. And how can they not see it that way? Thousands upon thousands of their countrymen have died for freedom. Thousands. When most people think of passionate French, they think of the suave man in the baret with the handlebar mustache. But they forget the student and common worker with a gun, fighting for rights they know all men deserve.

Of course, the force of the play was helped by the fact that the cast was amazing and the set was almost hard to believe. It's so detailed, you almost feel like you're in the city. And each little town in the play looks different. It's believable.

Basically....go see Les Mis in Paris if you ever have the chance. It's a truly inspiring experience (even if you've seen the play many times before.)