SECTION THE THIRDTH: Paris

(Before I start the story about Paris, I wanted to let everyone know that the elevator in my building is now FIXED. It took about twice as long as they'd said it would, but now it works! And there was much rejoicing.)

Paris.

Paris, Paris, Paris. I cannot tell you how excited I was to go to Paris Easter weekend, all by myself, with just my backpack. I was SO EXCITED. We had Easter Monday off from school, so that meant I had four glorious days to spend there. I left Friday morning on the TGV (bullet train), but about an hour into the trip something happened and we were downgraded to a regular-speed train. It was a good thing I had plenty of time to get to my hostel, because I got into Paris about an hour late. The hostel was gorgeous- it actually is one of three owned by the same people, and it used to be a private home. It’s within walking distance of the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame, which was fantastic.

I saw so much that first day. I had planned out what I was going to do, but I deviated from the plan a bit. I went and saw Notre Dame, which, to be quite honest, was a little underwhelming. It was beautiful from the outside, but there were really far too many people there for me to enjoy being inside.

Something that I really loved was the Panthéon:

Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are buried here, and so are Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie and Pierre Curie and some of the most famous resistance fighters from WWII, among others. I also found this on a wall dedicated to “Martyrs of the Revolution” who died in 1830 and 1843:

If you can’t see it, it says “DAUBERT, Nicholas François, born at Vanvres, died age 33 (Seine).” Clearly a long-lost relative. I love having a French name.

At the Panthéon I ended up buying a 4-day Museum/Monument Pass, which I only mention because it was the best decision ever. Not only does it save you money on museums, it lets you skip the long ticket lines (and they are long) and best of all, if you get to a museum late in the afternoon and only have an hour or so there, you don’t feel like you wasted your money because you can go back again. I did that with the Musée d’Orsay. So if you ever go to Paris, get the museum pass. Here ends the lecture.

It was raining when I went into the Panthéon, but the sun was out when I left, so I decided not to waste the sun and went to the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is pretty much just across the street. It was goooooooorgeous. There were quite a few people there, too- most notably, some crazy woman doing what seemed to be a cross between yoga and interpretive dance in front of the Luxembourg Palace. I tried to get a picture of her, but I couldn't do it without her noticing me. And I didn't really want to make the crazy lady mad at me, so I didn't try. After that I went to the Museum of the Middle Ages- there’s an intact Roman bath there I wanted to see, but it ended up being closed. The rest of the museum was pretty cool, though.

By the time I left that museum it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I wanted to get to the Louvre because it’s open late on Friday nights. So I grabbed the metro to the Place de la Concorde. It was here that I made an incredible discovery: there are a lot- a lot- of tourists in Paris. In fact, I think I read somewhere that at any given moment, approximately 9.5% of the people in Paris are actual Parisians. Another 4% are Frenchmen who commute to Paris to work, and the other 86.5% are tourists. And of those tourists, about 45% are Americans, and most of those are bored-looking high-schoolers.* The end result is that you can’t really take any pictures without other tourists in them, nor can you move without inadvertently getting in someone else’s picture.

*Statistics may or may not have been made up on the spot.

There were little boats you could play with in the fountain. You can't see the kids, but they were having a blast pushing the boats around.

The Louvre!



I spent about three and a half hours in the Louvre, and it was fantastic. I saw so many amazing works of art I thought my head was going to explode. At the end, though, my feet were hurting and I’d been carrying around my huge backpack all day, so I decided to head out. Unfortunately, it took me about a half an hour to find the way out. My map told me where to find the Greek and Roman Sculptures and the Egyptian Exhibit and that was all well and good, but I could not find the bloody exit. I kept following these little green signs that had a running man on them (which are usually the exit signs) but they ended up being the emergency exits. So basically, not only did I get lost in the Alps, I got lost in the Louvre. I have a great track record going here. Now all I need to do is get lost in Lyon and I’m set- except, wait, I already did that.

It had already been dark for some time when I left the Louvre, and there was a gorgeous full moon. I tried to take a picture of the Louvre with the moon over it, but every attempt came out blurry. And just as I was about to try one more time, my camera shut down and a little message appeared on the screen: Change your batteries. Argh.

After the Louvre and my desperate search for the way out, I was pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel. My roommate ended up being a girl from Thailand who spoke decent enough English. The thing about some Asian languages, though, is that they don’t make a distinction between l and r. So this girl asked me how long ago I’d alived in Paris, and I thought she was asking me how long I’d lived there, so I said, “Oh, no, I don’t live here, I live in Lyon.” She shook her head and said, “No, no, when did you alive? Alive? Aaaalllivvvve.” And that’s when I realized that she was asking me when I’d arrived. I had to work really hard not to laugh, because, really, she had no idea that she was doing that. She also called me Sala all weekend. On of our other roommates, a girl from Puerto Rico (or it might have been Costa Rica) who now lives in London, had a really hard time understanding her.

The next day was Saturday, and it was another full day. I went to the Hôtel des Invalides, which is a huge, gorgeous building that has a big green boulevard in front of it that stretches all the way to the river and the equally gorgeous Pont des Invalides.

The Museum of the Army is found here, and Napoleon is buried there (and in case you’re wondering, yeah, pretty much everyone and their mom is buried in Paris- that’s why they have the Catacombs). Not far from the Hôtel is the Rodin Museum, which was beautiful. I saw the Thinker! It’s huge.

This was one of my favorites:

When I left the Musée de Rodin, it was raining again, so I decided to go to the Orangerie, the museum where Monet’s Water Lilies are on display. It didn’t open till 12:30, though, so I had to wait in the rain for about a half an hour (but I was the first one inside because of my museum pass- hooray!). While I was in line I met a really nice Australian couple who had just arrived in Paris that morning- talk about jet lag, their flight was 20 hours or something insane like that. I love meeting random people in random places. The sun, of course, came out right after we went into the museum.

I made good use of the setting on my camera that lets you take long pictures.

They also have other works in the rooms below the Water Lilies.


I love this one.

After that I went to the Musée d'Orsay. Here's one of my favorites from there:

Ok, so that was Saturday. Sunday was Easter, so I had decided to go to Versailles. Good idea, but apparently every other tourist in Paris had the same idea. It was fun, but way too crowded. The place itself is so utterly overwhelming that I got tired just looking at it. It was a fun way to spend Easter, though.

On my way back into Paris I got off at the Notre Dame metro stop and decided to walk around for a while because it was still light out. As I was walking I stumbled across this:



Shakespeare and Co! For those of you who don't know (I didn't- I just thought it was a cool bookstore...), this bookstore is pretty awesome and famous. The original was located somewhere else and authors like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald visited it (Hemingway mentions it in A Moveable Feast, too). That bookstore was shut down during WWII, and this one was opened in 1951, and now the daughter of the original owner (of the new store, not the old one) runs it. It's kind of the focal point of the literary community in that part of Paris. It's an amazing place. I went back Monday night for a book reading, which made me feel very hip and cultured. haha.

Speaking of Monday, my last day in Paris was pretty low-key. I was tired of rushing around trying to see everything (though that was fun while it lasted), so I pretty much just wandered. I went to the Sacre Coeur but didn't go in because of the massive crowds. I went and found Victor Hugo's house, but it was closed so I couldn't go in. I was pretty disappointed about that. I also visited the Picasso Museum, but I don't like Picasso- I just needed a bathroom (and I had my handy museum pass, remember?). So I went to the bathroom and wandered around pretending to look at the art until I thought a sufficient amount of time had passed for me to leave. The lady at the coat check still gave me a dirty look, though- I guess I didn't stay long enough to convince her.

It was raining on Monday, though, so there was only so much wandering I could do. So I went into one of the churches near the Place St. Michel and sat for a while. It was wonderful, because someone was playing organ music. Organ music on a real organ in a church with amazing acoustics- I was so glad I had gone into that church.

I left Paris at about nine in the evening and got back into Lyon close to midnight, exhausted and content. I had an exam the next day, though, so I couldn't relax for very long. I won't tell you the results of that exam, but you can probably guess. : )