Sunday, November 16, 2003

Un Jour à Paris We left Germany at the ungodly hour of 1am bound for Paris.  Not by plane, though, but by bus.  That part of the trip was memorable for the lack of sleep I got.  Maybe half an hour during the five hour trip.  Note to self:  next time snag a window seat and hold onto it no matter what. We arrived early in Paris for our breakfast reservation at Le Vauban, home of the biggest croissant I ever had in my life.  Big as my shoe, I swear. The cafe was right across from our last stop and meeting point for the night, the Hôtel national des Invalides.  Also from there I got my first view of the Eiffel Tower.  Not a bad start to the day. After loading back on the bus, we took a quick drive around the touristy areas of Paris.  First stop was a photo opportunity for the Eiffel Tower.  Lots of photos got taken, including one to prove I was there.  This one is probably the best of the bunch of the Tower.  Also took the first of many naked female statue photos.  If you're into marble nudity, Paris is the place for you. Also drove by the Arc de Triomphe, the Academie Nationale de Musique, and a whole host of other places, all of them incredibly ugly and difficult to look at as you can tell by all these hideous photos.  But I did, and took these pictures so as to effectively warn you off from ever visiting such an unattractive city that no one would ever, ever, ever want to visit. Eventually we made our way to the Louvre.  We had a few hours to spend there, which to be honest, doesn't even allow you time to scratch the surface.  I'd always heard about how big the Louvre is, but wow -- they weren't kidding.  I'm not going to link to all the photos I took there, but you can view a lot of them in the Paris gallery I created on Smugmug.  Here are some of the highlights, though: *  An incredibly life-like recreation of my abs. *  The Venus de Milo - this attracted a huge crowd which was a source of more facination for me than the actual work of art.  I got a huge kick out of watching the people pose for and take pictures, meanwhile very few of them actually taking the time to just stop and look at the statue for awhile.  This same phenomenon was repeated wherever something famous was on display.  If you weren't a famous statue or painting, you got pretty much ignored. *  Victory - also had a big crowd, but I didn't snap a picture of it. *  The Mona Lisa - which if you fought through the camera-wielding crowds, you might actually get to see.  By the way, how must it feel for the other paintings in that room to have to be hung by the Mona Lisa?  The whole time I was there, no one even glanced at the other paintings.  *  Saw plenty of plagiarizers.   Don't these people have any shame? Eventually the croissant wore off and I needed to grub-up.  Being the sucker for Chinese food that I am, I fell for the food court trap at the Lourve and had perhaps the worst beef dish ever at an Oriental place. So I finally left the Louvre, which did I mention was big?  I mean really big.  I mean friggin' huge.  I hoofed it over the bridge over the Seine to the Musee d' Orsay.  That place is nice if you're into Impressionistic art, which I sorta am, but not in a big way.  But if you like your Manet and Van Gogh, definitely check it out.  Also had lots of statues, most of them butt-neked. After awhile I got bored of the Musee d'Orsay, so I made a few phone calls to rub-in, ummm...I mean let some folks know that I'd made it to Paris.  Then I caught the bus back over to the Rodin museum.  Rodin is the guy who made The Thinker, which is probably all that most people could recognize by him.  Personally, I liked the sculpture of the pink girl much better.  Very haunting looking. By the way, outside the Rodin museum was some dork holding up the wall.  He scared me, so I scooted on back to the Hôtel national des Invalides to check out Napoleon's Tomb. Yes, the Napoleon.  He of the short stature and hand in his vest.  His incredibly expensive looking tomb (which the guide said was made up of seven coffins nested inside one another made of different materials), rests under an even more incredibly expensive looking dome -- the same golden dome you could see in the other pictures from the outside.  All-in-all very impressive and made me realize I'll be lucky to get a pine box when I croak. Outside the tomb, I could see that the Eiffel Tower was all lit-up and putting on a show.  The photograph doesn't do it justice, but it had sparkly lights going crazy all over it for about ten minutes.  Very neat looking. Finally we loaded back on the bus, drove around Paris for a bit at night to see Notre Dame before heading back to Germany.  We did make one last stop before hitting the German border.  We ate at a roadside cafeteria called L'Arche near Verdun (yes, that Verdun), where again, I had one of the worst meals of my life.  One of these days I'll learn to carry my language dictionaries when I go on one of these trips. Overall it was a fun trip, which gave me an idea of what Paris is like for when I decide to visit again.  A train ride is only about four hours from here, so sooner or later I'll just have to gather up the courage and go.  Courage and a good French dictionary. Related site: Photo gallery with all the rest of the pictures in it from this trip. 3:58:19 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.