'I see dead people' & 'Literature kills Architecture'

I couldn't decide between titles for this post so I decided to use both quotes, since they sum up the day so famously. We finished Paris by touring the Catacombs, the morbid part of me just couldn't resist a mass grave. It did not disappoint, and was actually quite sobering.

You start your walk through the catacombs with the warning 'Stop, this is the Empire of the Dead'

You walk through quite a bit of tunnel to get to this sign, but this is where the real stuff starts. I thought a smaller section would be open to the public, but Matt and I walked fairly fast and it still took us 15 minutes to walk through all the bones(sorry for the blurry pictures, it was wicked dark in there).

After the catacombs, we picked up our rental car and headed out into Normandy. We stopped in Etretat(one of Matt's cities he served in and saw a cool cathedral(I know, a cathedral in France? Blows your mind huh?) and I ate some seriously delicious quiche. Seriously delicious. I must learn to make them.

This is my 'yum' face, but I think it just turned out as my 'creeper' face(and let the 'Kristal got ready in a public bathroom/shower' pictures begin! I thought I had seen the last of those for awhile after China... guess not)

Next stop was Rouen, where they burned Joan of Arc at the stake. There we saw the remains of a church built for her, and the newer one. Also, another cool, massive cathedral. It was while exploring all these awesome old buildings that I became sad that no one really does this anymore. Oh how wise you were Victor Hugo... literature really did kill architecture... big time.

The cross in the top left is where they burned Joan of Arc, the big black roofed building is a church, (Matt is unsure if it's dedicated to her, and I'm too lazy to find out) and what looks like piles of rock are the ruins of an old church (once again, we're unsure if it was built specifically for Joan of Arc... but why else build one in that specific spot if not for her?)

Then we finished the day arriving in Le Havre (Matt's first area) and meeting a couple ladies in the ward, one of whom was nice enough to lend us her house.