June 26
Ahhh, Paris! City of Love, Romance, and Crazed World Cup Fans. The weather, I must say, is great. So many little details... I keep thinking this is going to be one of those non chronological day things. Let's start off with now. I'm sitting outside a musuem who's name I do not even want to attempt to spell. Ah, a sign - Musee de l'Orangerie. It's a French Impressionist musuem - one of many in Paris and I, crazed fool, plan to see them all! Buhahaha.
Yesterday (ah ha Omouse remembered she had to tell you all about that first) I got on a train... backtrack, first I called a taxi for 5:15 am. When it arrived at 5:20, the driver said I was lucky because he had been running 10 minutes late. I didn't tell him I asked for 10:15 because I knew it would be late (because they always are) and I didn't have to catch a train to Ashford until 5:42.
I arrived at Ashford and had tea and a roll for breakfast in the spiffy Eurostar departure lounge. The train ride to France was about two hours and I felt cool riding for my first time through the Chunnel. It was dark. Not much to see.
Arriving in Paris, I took the wrong turn out of the train station and wandered through what looked like the Indian part of town... not so nice view of Paris. After that minor setback I walked to the hostel which sent me to another hostel across town. Vanessa, a girl from DC was going hat way too so we braved the metro together and came out unscathed. While sticking our stuff in a locker at the hostel, we met another girl from Southern CA and we all decided to go out and sight see together.
Our first stop was Notre Dame... they didn't seem too impressed. I'd been there before and I was still impressed, so impressed that when I loaded my camera, I put my map down on a bench and when I ran to reclaim it, the map was gone. Sigh. Now I only have 2 maps instead of 3... but it was the best one. During my travels I think I've become a paper collector. Shiny brochures, tickets, reciepts, postcards. I've got stacks of stuff that I don't know if I can part with.
After Notre Dame, we took the Metro to the Champ Elysees and walked to the Arc de Truimph (snapping pictures and darting cars). Then off to that ever present tower. Pamela wanted to go up... until she saw the prices, so we just sat there and looked at it. We suddenly noticed a large number of crazed World Cup Fans and armed to the teeth military police. But they were behaving themselves, if not being just a bit obnoxious. Several of them were carrying around a huge blue and white flag and a camera crew showed up. One of the guys with the flag asked me to take a picture of him and this other guy with the film crew. So I suppose this guy is some sort of foriegn celebrity and apparently I was right. He had a blue sport's jacket and a long floppy Beatles like haircut... which was actually a wig. I know, because he tipped it at me like a hat. I giggled.
One of the film crew walked up and asked us if we could do an interview with this guy. We giggled appropriately and said okay. He then proceeds to tell me to sit on the bench and I realize this interview just includes me and not Pamela and Vanessa. Wonderful. He gives me some lines to say and they shoot it. (they stopped and restarted after the Argentinian flag guys manage to tramp and wave through the background.) It went something like this.
Guy: (rattles in Spanish-what I understood...) Here in Paris love is everywhere. It doesn't matter what different types or cultures. (etc etc...) Where are you from?
Me: Los Angeles
Guy: I love you
Me: I love you too (he told me to say this)
Guy: (rattle rattle) Coffee?
Me: Sure.
(We get up and walk away together while guy looks back at the camera with a thumbs up sign.)
And that's how I made my debut on National Argentinian television.
Now I'm going in anti chronological order again. On our walk from the Arc de Triumph to the Tower, we passed right by the place where Princess Diana was killed. There were messages in all language etched and written into the ledge. The Statue of Liberty Torch has become a memorial to Diana. Flowers and notes, crowds of tourists, and even a film crew were there.
We got back to the hostel late after touring and Pamela and Vanessa still wanted to go out and eat. I was dead tired and already had food in my room for dinner. Can you say Paris in a really tight budget? So I went down to the restaurant and borrowed some hot water and had a nice filling meal of pasta and mashed potatoes in a cup.
I got back up to my room and they were just going out. And they convinced me to go with them even if I wouldn't eat. So at 10:00, the three of us set out to find a restaurant which proved to be nearly impossible. After an hour of wandering around we finally found two French restaurants. They looked at the menus and decided to go eat at McDonalds. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. Now if they had wanted McD's to begin with I would have been happy... but no, we had to walk around for an hour before reaching the conclusion that we really don't find French food that appetizing. Ack.
On the way back to McD's we stopped by a small restaurant and bought the water I had been thirsting for the whole time. This French guy in the market who hardly spoke English tried to tell us he was from Sunset Beach, CA while his friends poited madly at the Union Jack footie shirt shouting "English! English!" It wasn't until we were leaving when they shouted "American! American!"
At McD's we sat outside next to some Brazillians who spoke a little English and little French. Pamela did a little friendly flirting and we laughed at her.
Okay... today Vanessa left for Ireland and Pamela is going to Disneyland Paris. I, however, as I mentioned before, am on an Impressionist hunt. I started out at the Louvre where I wrote this poem which pretty much sums up the experience.
The Louvre
I have this theory
that the Louvre is exactly like Harrod's
Endless vaulted ceilings full of
really expensive stuff.
I wander in
with some idea of what I want to see
determined to pass up everything else.
And what do I end up doing?
Looking at rotting tapestries,
statues without heads,
and bulging bronzes of Herakles.
Herakles and the dragon
Herakles with the stag.
Herackles in flagrante
but I won't say with who.
And now I'm in a room full of
wood furnishings in "Objets d'art"
a section color coded in
an ugly grey magenta.
Why do they place what I want to see
on the top floor?
I'll get lost in the Louvre.
My sweat will glue me to this
fake leather seat
and I shall crust to a dull white
and little obnoxious school children
will break off my fingers
and less mentionable parts of my anatomy.
When I finally did get to the top floor and the right section, most of it was closed. Omouse=not a happy camper. They did have 2 or 3 Monets on display, but after 3 to 4 hours of wandering around tourist laden galleries I went outside and sat on a ledge of the fountains near the pyramid where some old French guy tried to pick me up. He asked me if I was with a group and I said yes. Omouse = not stupid. I took a walk through the wonderful gardens by the Louvre that were closed in January when I was here. Damn has it really been 6 months? And now it's only days until I go home... No I'm not counting them yet.
At the end of the gardens is the museum that I'm sitting outside of which had the most glorious Monet paintings. The rooms were oval and huge paintings of waterlilies ran the entire length of the walls. Simply amazingly beautiful. Tell me if I slip into cheese but my hand is hurting and the tree shadows have surrounded me even though I've moved my chair. Now I'm off to the Musee de modern art. It's 5:00 and it's the only museum open until 10. I go see it and then back to the hostel for a late dinner.
******
Well. .. so much for the musuem... it apparently wasn't included in my musuem card so I wandered around a bit. The Pompedu center is the ugliest piece of architecture I've everhad the misfortune to see... I can't describe an other way but ugh! The streets around it were nice though. There was the strangest fountain I'd ever seen. I think they were basically metal and painted sculputres that shot out water. One was a pair of bobbing lips and another was a twirling hat. There was an Asian guitar player having a busking 60's sing along and a contortionist who wasn't all that exciting.
Some scruffy girl tried to pick this guy's pocket on the Metro, and although the conversation was in French I was pretty sure what he had told her. What scared me was I'd been watching her the whole time and hadn't seen it. She'd gotten a little too close for comfort to me so I moved and put her in my full view. I don't plan to "lose" anything on this trip... but I did decide to try out the hostel's Mexican food. In fact I'm there now waiting for my fajitas and quesadillas which are only 50 francs... I figure that's only 5 Pounds which is pretty cheap for a restaurant meal... see I'm even thinking in Pounds rather than Dollars. I'll probably go on a spending spree when I get home. Taco Bell here I come!
Tomorrow I'm off to Versailles... okay so I'm pulling at straws here but I seem to be missing one of the books Mel gave me to read. So what do I do now? There's a movie on at 9:00 so I should be pretty occupied. Larry Flint - Free and in English... can't beat that.
Oh you can. It's been preempted by 2 World Cup Madnesses. If I didn't like football before, I sure don't now.
June 27 Versailles was the main object of my tourism today... along with a turn around the Victor Hugo House. What to say about Versailles? It's big but somehow with the crowds of tourists it didn't seem too glamourous. One thing I noticed was that several tour groups were all wearing small earphones. Their guide talked into a mike that went straight to their ears. That way he/she didn't have to scream and annoy the other guests and the entier group could listen no matter where they were in the room.I think I spent more time in the gardens than in the palace. I've seen more colorful and prettier gardens, but these were huge. They turned on the enormous fountains for 20 minutes while I was there. There must have been some sort of hooting range nearby because they tried to drown out the constant drone of gunfire with piped in French Baroque music.
After wandering around through the main gardens for an hour or so (okay so I didn't spend the whole time wandering. I sat on a bench and just zoned for 20 minutes. It's nice traveling alone and not having to entertain everyone if you just feel like sitting and staring at a pond.) I went on a really long walk over to Marie Antoinette's Hamlet where she used to pretend she was a shepardess.
Quaint little thatched roof cottages in the park with wish ponds and a farm. It was cute. Oh, and I forgot to mention the brides. I think I counted at least 10 of them... and not a single one of them knew how to walk in a hoop skirt. Disgracefull. Apparently it's a popular wedding picture spot in Paris... if you don't mind the tourists. It amused me so much I wrote 1.5 poems while sitting on a bench and watching them go by.
On the way back into Paris on the train I met a couple from Chicago who were delighted by the fact that I was studying abroad and traveling on my own.
I took the Metro to the Victor Hugo Musuem. I have never seen so many busts of the same man in my entire life. If you are a French sculptor, you must be required to pay homage to Victor Hugo. Victor had this habit of always taking his photograph with his hand on this head. Strange... and Mrs. Hugo? Boy was she ugly. She drew well though. I loved the drawings she did on her daughters. My favorite things were the old playbills and posters of Les Miserables. I actually saw the original drawing where they got the Les Mis. logo. I think I might just have to read Hunchback now.
When I got out of the musuem it was raining and I didn't even have a sweater. I was a light rain so I wasn't too worried. I headed back to the hostel to a room where... gosh, I actually get to spend two nights. One of my roomates is from Margate, UK which isn't very far from Canterbury, and a guy is from Japan. It's only 9:45 but I think I'm off to bed. I have nothing really better to do. I took a shower after dinner and I'm bushed. I've already read my guidebook and I even resorted to reading about Prague. Oh yeah. Yelling and screaming from down below... I suppose that means someone scored a goal.
June 28 I seemed to have squished an entire lot of stuff into such a day. I think I might be able to plaster a wall with all the postcards I have of Monet now. I had to be choosy... there were so many and they were on the expensive side. 10 for $8 or so... but they are my main souvenirs.I started off at the museum that opened the earliest - Pablo Picasso. I'm not a particular fan, but it was interesting to go through the gallery and see the progression of his art. I might be more of a fuddy duddy to say I like his earlier work more than his mixed up ones. I did enjoy most of the scuptures. They made me want to try my hand at creating goats and lopsided heads.
Next, I hopped onto the Metro and headed for the Musee d'Orsay... which I enjoyed more than the Louvre. It was smaller and only concentrated on 1845-WW1, which is largely an Impressionist era... which means Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Pisarro etc... I think it had a bit of something for everyone. The building itself is an old train station and the architecure inside is beautiful. The whole thing was well laid out and I didn't feel like I was lost as I did in the Louvre. At one point you could go outside on the balcony where the view was of the Seine, the Louvre, and the Tullieres Gardens. Up on the hill you could see what I think was Sacre Cour. I never did make it up there. (Gives me an excuse to go back to Paris.)
After several hours in the Musee d'Orsay, I headed to the Musee Marmatton, a Monet plus some other strange stuff musuem. The Monets were wonderful... one right after the other. There was a Roenne Cathedral picture here too. In the d'Orsay, there were 5 cathedral paintings all in a row, each one sporting a different color scheme and angle. I love the way the paintings experiment with color. When you stand close to the paintings, they seem to be a mad scrawling of colors... only when you step back can you see the whole scheme well. Like, Van Gogh, the thickness and texture of the paint is amazing.
After purchasing 10 postcards I headed to the cemetary. Perre Lachais - now one would think it would be at the Metro station Perre Lachais. Nope, but I didn't discover this until I had walked the entire length to the next station after following the signs. Sigh. (Victor Hugo stop wasn't the location of the V. Hugo Musuem either.)
Anyway, by the time I got to the entrance, it was 5:30. I ran into Audrey (my roomate) and she told me she had just got back from photoing Oscar Wilde's grave and was now on a search for Jim Morrison. I headed in the direction of Wilde's grave and got a bit lost. I finally just saw a group of people and decided they were looking at someone famous's grave. It just happened to be good ol' Oscar. I must say the think was ugly. People had graffittied on the back and kissed the front. I took a picture and then headed back to the map. Jim's grave was on the opposite end of the cemetery and I only had 15 minutes left before closing. Oh well. Yet another excuse to go back to Paris.
I took the Metro back to the hostel even though it was only one stop (because I was tired dammit!). and zoned in my room for a while. I talked to Audrey for a while when she came in, and then our new roomate came in (a female French Canadian about to specialize in internal medicine.) We all went down and had dinner together since we'd all bought our own food. I think the hostel guy will be happy when I leave and he doesn't have to heat up water for me. Now I have been tempted to walk down to the ever present McD's where they have this thing called McFlurry. Vanessa recommended it and I'm in the mood for ice cream!