Chartres: There's A Cathedral There (It's Kind Of A Big Deal.)

(It took a lot of tourist websites for me to give up trying to get that pronouncing-the-r/not-pronouncing-the-r balance just right and just say "shart." Sad, but at least I successfully bought a ticket from the train person.)

This weekend the people I hang out with basically all the time went to AMSTERDAM. WITHOUT ME. I mean, they did invite me. And I said no. Anyway. I spent the whole weekend by myself, which was actually quite nice, since I will be on the road for the next two weekends. But after catching up on all my television on Friday, I decided it was time to man up and go to Chartres by myself for the day on Saturday.

On the train! The tracks are blurry because I was so scared I couldn't focus. Get it? Focus?

It was surprisingly terrifying. I think if I were home it would be really fun and exciting, but since I'm in France and nothing makes sense to me and it's hard to communicate even the most simple requests such as "coffee" or "train ticket" or "baguette," it was just super scary to not have anyone to back me up. Even if the people I'm with don't speak any French and can't help me out of a tight spot, I really rely on having people around to commiserate with if I totally screw up my verb conjugations or whatever.

But I set my alarm for 6:30 and I made myself get up and make coffee and get on the metro. And guess what! I successfully purchased a ticket from a lady who didn't even have an English flag on her sign! (The English flag means she speaks English. But she DIDN'T. But it was FINE because I speak FRENCH.)

They had a bunch of scaffolding up, which put a serious damper on my photo ops.

It was a perfect day in Chartres, and it was really just a lovely experience. The sun was shining, I spoke French to people, some of them spoke French back, some of them spoke English and were actually excited to practice their English. I got a tour from the (in?)famous Malcolm Miller, who was every bit as knowledgeable as I'd heard, but not nearly as crotchety. And I took some photographs that I'm pretty excited about. If you've ever tried to take a picture of stained glass and been like, "DUDE IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL IN REAL LIFE BUT THIS CAMERA JUST WON'T GET IT RIGHT," then perhaps you'll know why.

I feel so successful now.

Like, you don't even know. These pictures have validated my existence.

I actually think it's nice how hard to photograph stained glass is. I feel like it's something that you just have to experience and try to remember, because it will never look as good in a picture as it does in your eyes. Sacré Coeur, you show up, take a picture, and it looks just as beautiful on paper. You don't even have to stay. You can just take a picture and then go home to look at it in the comfort of your own home. You don't even have to go! You can just look at this picture that I took for you!

You're welcome.

But with a stained glass masterpiece, you're never going to get the same thing out of a photograph as you will from the real thing. It must be something about the way the light slants through, or the contrast between the glowing colors and the shadowy cathedral. But you really just have to sit down and look at it for a while.

You can also try to take pictures of it, like I did. I don't really practice what I preach. But I swear, after I took the pictures I sat down and stared at them for a long time. And trust me, my memory is prettier.