museums galore

Today's impressions:

-Overwhelmed
-Hot and stinky
-Where are all the rude French people?
-Nobody warned me how many people would be at the Louvre
-Seas of Asians!
-Holy crap the Louvre is HUGE
-Kristy is totally getting hit on by those Indian guys!
-I'm tired

Let me explain...

After going to be last night after 1am, our 8am alarm going off came WAY too early.  However, it did wake me up from a very weird dream where I was having car trouble on the way to work and the guys from Studio C all showed up and were trying to help me...

But anyway - we both decided to put the snooze on and sleep for another hour.  Then we drug ourselves our of bed, got ready for the day, and headed out on our day of exploring museums.  We were late for breakfast down in the lobby but they were nice enough to let us go in anyway and get something quick to eat.  So nice!

We're getting better at navigating the metro, which is nice.  We took a couple different trains this morning to the Orangerie.

This is where they have a permanent display of Monet's Water Lillies.  In fact, the museum was built specifically to house these incredible paintings.  Kristy really wanted to see them, but I didn't really care.

Until I got there.  Then I fell in love!  The paintings were incredible and so peaceful.  I just wanted to sit in that room forever, just experiencing the tranquility.  The colors were beautiful and I've never experienced that kind of connection with a painting before.  I bought a magnet of my favorite one so I can have that reminder all the time.

After The Orangerie (which is at the far end of the garden connected to the Louvre and is a very cool garden to walk through), we went across the river to the Orsay.  This building is really cool! (I feel like I'm using that word a lot, but I don't know how else to describe things).  It used to be a train station, but is now an art museum.  We saw a lot of really beautiful statues (so many naked bodies!), and lots of incredible art work.  We had lunch at the cafe (a really yummy chicken salad baguette), then made our way over to the Louvre.

We crossed over on a bridge where couples can came, put a lock on the bridge then throw the key into the Seine - symbolizing their love never ending.

We sat and just took in the moment - sitting on a bridge, overlooking the Seine, in Paris!  Still can't believe we're here!  I told Kristy that being by water is very calming to me.  I don't really like being IN the water, but I love being BY it.  It's so calming and there is a feeling to the Seine that is hard to describe.  It's an incredible experience to just sit and listen to, and feel, the river.  While we were sitting there we saw a girl try to pull a con on some other tourists.  They were standing, looking at the locks on the bridge, and the con-woman walked behind them then bent over and acted like she was picking up something they'd dropped.  She tried to act like it was their ring she had found on the ground then when they said it wasn't theirs, she tried to sell it to them.  Kristy and I were both watching and laughing because we'd been warned about all the tourist scam artists that are here.  The con-woman walked away after an unsuccessful con and we went back to watching the river.

Finally we got up and walked over the rest of the bridge (passing our con-woman again who was trying to pull her con again and this time the people bought it!), and headed to the Louvre.  I guess I didn't really understand what the Louvre was before this.  It was not what I expected based on TV and movies.  It's not just the giant glass pyramid.  It's a palace.  A HUGE palace - where the French royal family lived until Louis XIV moved the royal residence to Versailles.  The palace is freaking huge!  But it's not partly being used as the museum.  I don't know what they used the rest of it for, but the scale and extravagance of the palace is a bit overwhelming.  To quote Kristy, "No wonder they beheaded their royals."

Our museum pass let us bypass the long line to get into the museum, but once we were inside there were SO MANY PEOPLE!  It was overwhelming.  Also really hot and humid throughout the whole museum.  I guess it's hard to retro fit a huge, ancient palace with central air conditioning...

We shuffled along with the hordes (literally hordes!) of people and tried to see the few things we both wanted to see.  We knew we weren't' going to be able to see everything, so we had to pick and choose.  They had a cool exhibit showing where archaeologists had dug down to the original medieval foundations of the palace.  That was really neat!  Then we went to see all the Greek and Roman statues.  So many nipples and penises.  Oh man.  They were beautiful, but, yeah...the craftsmanship is amazing and always astounds me.  I'm in awe of the talent of the artists.  I also love how curvy all the women are.  I was born in the wrong century!  Several times we got separated by seas of Asians.  So many Asians are on tour here.  We shuffled along to see the Venus de Milo and then braved the crowds to try to see the Mona Lisa.  The room where she is displayed was PACKED and the closest we were able to get to the painting was about 100 feet because of everyone else trying to see it.  It was kind of disappointing, but also really cool at the same time.

After that we were so hot and tired that we decided to be done.  We were museumed out.  We stopped on the way out to get a snack: some water and ice cream from the cafeteria in the museum.  That went a long way towards restoring our good humor.

Saying good-bye to the Louvre, we hopped on the metro once again and made our way over to the Eiffel Tower once more, where we took a boat tour of the city down the Seine.

While on the hour long tour of the city's sights by water, Kristy got hit on (the whole time) by three Indian (Middle Eastern) guys sitting next to her.  It was cracking me up.  They took pictures with her and were obsessed with her blinged out $10 Walmart sunglasses.  They wanted to take pictures wearing the sunglasses.  It was really funny.  One kept telling her she was "very, very beautiful" and that they loved her hair.

After the ride was done they invited her to go to the Eiffel Tower with them.  She said no.  We both laughed about it, but really hoped they wouldn't follow us off the boat.  Luckily, they were part of a huge groupl that left one way and we were going the opposite direction.  We got back on the metro and came back to our hotel (after stopping to get some more bread and cheese for dinner).  We had a funny talk with the night clerk who's been on duty each night we've been here.  He taught us how to say our room number (424) in French.  We found out he's Greek and wishing he was home on the Greece coast right now.  When we told him we were going to Rome on Saturday he said, "I hate you."  Then told us we'd love it and have a great time.  He's awesome.  So far everyone we've met over here has been great!  I don't know why they have the reputation for being rude.  We have yet to meet a rude French person.

Whew!  I'm tired.  We've got to get up early tomorrow because we're going to Versailles.

Steps walked: unknown because I forgot to wear my pedometer today.  Sad!

New favorite quote (that we heard on the audio tour of our bus ride): "Be mysterious, be in love, and you will be happy." - Paul Gauguin

day deux

First of all...I'm still tired from being awake for 36 hours and only sleeping for 2 on the plane over here yesterday.  BUT!  I'm in PARIS!!  So, I'm trying hard not to complain.

Last night I took and shower and went to bed about 11:30pm.  We got up this morning about 7:15, got and ready for our day of adventure.  We went down and got breakfast from the hotel in the lobby.  I had a croissant, some really good cheese (maybe brie?), a slice of ham, and some fruit.  I'm having a very hard time keeping to my gluten-free and vegan diet over here because everything is SO GOOD and I just want to eat it all!!

After breakfast we walked up the street to the metro stop where we took two different trains to get to the catacombs.  SO COOL!  We got there about 45 minutes before they opened and there was already quite a line.  But once they opened we go in quickly.  The catacombs are in a former lime quarry (mine).  Back in the day (end of the 1700's) they needed more room in the city's cemeteries so they dug up all the bodies that were in the cemeteries and stacked them all down in this quarry.  There are 6 million skeletons down there.  It's a little bit overwhelming, and a very solemn experience to be down there, to see all those bones and think about all the people who are down there.  (I hope it's not too hard, in the Second Coming/Resurrection, for those people to find all their missing parts!  Kristy said there's probably going to be certain angels assigned specifically to these 6 million people to help get everything sorted out.)  To get down into the quarry/mine you take this really tight spiral staircase down about a million miles (only slightly exaggerating) and wind your way through all these dark tunnels.  Then suddenly you come to this big open space with all these big arches and that leads you into the actual catacomb part with all the bones.

 

 

After walking through the (what seemed like) miles of tunnels, we climbed the steps up and out and we got back onto the metro.  On the way we stopped at a crepe stand and got our first real Parisian crepes!  We both got one with nutella and bananas.  So good!

We tried to find a smashed penny machine for Kristy that she had looked up the location for online before we left the States.  It was supposed to be at the big tall sky-scraper" Tour Maine-Montparnasse.  But we couldn't find it.  You could pay to ride the elevator up to the top, but neither of us wanted to pay for it (we realized later that our Paris Pass would have gotten us up there, but we didn't know it at the time.)

Next stop: Notre Dame.

The craftsmanship and architecture of this magnificent building left me in awe.  There is a crypt (not sure why they call it this becuase there's no dead bodies down there...) down under the square in front of the cathedral that has some of the ancient archeaological finds of the origins of Paris from the initial Roman take over.  It was fascinating to see these origianl foundations of the city.

Out side the cathedral is "point zero" - the center of town and where Paris originally started.

Once inside I was blown away.  It is just as amazing inside, if not more, than it is from the outside.  We spent a lot of time walking through and admiring the majectic beauty of this church.  We sat for a few minutes in the center section just taking it all in.  We wanted to be there when they did mass, becuase neither of us has ever been to a Catholic mass and thought it would be interesting, but the timing didn't work out.  Bummer.

 

Next, we walked around the cathedral, admiring the gardens.  While we were walking there was the fattest pigeons I'd ever seen in my life milling around on the grass.  There were rows of apartments on the other side of the river across from the cathedral and I was jealous.  What an incredible view to have everyday outside your window!

 

We went across the street to a memorial that has been built to honor the French victims of the holocaust during WWII.  It's a very nice memorial right on the river.  Very solemn.  They don't let you take any pictures, and you don't want to because you know how special and sacred a place it is.  After that, we walked across the bridge to Ill St.-Louis.  We had plans to go to a grocery store we had located on a map last night, pick up some things and have a picnic for lunch.  But, the store was closed.  Bummer!  So we walked back over to Notre Dame and ended up eating at a cafe on the north side of the cathedral.  We had some Fanta and Croque-Monsieurs (basically just a toasted ham and cheese sandwich), both of which were really good and hit the spot!

After lunch we walked down to Sainte-Chappelle.  While we were waiting in line it seemed like the French military was scrambling every jet they had.  We kept watching as groups of three or four different fighter jets and military aircraft flew overhead.  There were probably 30 or 40 planes that flew over in the 20 minutes we were standing there.  Kind of unnerving.  We began to wonder if France has declared war on someone and we should perhaps be a little worried...One of the guys standing next to us in line heard us talking about it and said not to worry, that they were "just praciticing" for Bastille Day (French Revolution) on Sunday.  I'm still not sure I believe that's what was going on...

Once we got inside the church, however, I forgot all about the military fly-over.  The AMAZING stained glass windows take your breath away!  The windows and carvings in the stone walls depict the creation and other scenes from the Bible and Christian history like Adam and Even getting cast out of Eden, Cain and Able, and Noah and the Arc.  Again I am left speechless and in awe of the workmanship of those ancient craftsmen.  This chapel only took 5 years to complete which is incredible.  Notre Dame took 200!

After the Chappelle we went to the Conciergerie, which is the prison where everyone (including Marie-Antoinette) was kept and tried during the French Revolution before being sent to the guillotine.

After that we were done with most of what we wanted to do for the day.  We went back to the metro to head back to our hotel.  It was rush hour time on the metro.  All the trains were PACKED, so we ended up sitting down there for about an hour waiting for one we felt comfortable getting on.

We found a small market a couple blocks away from where we were staying.  We got some bread and cheese to have for dinner.  Yummy!  I ate an apple I had brought from home as well.  We rested for a bit, letting our feet recover from walking around all day.  My feet hurt!  Despite having good shoes.  We are walking so much it's crazy.  I brought my little fitbit walking pedometer to keep track of how much we walk everyday, just because I'm curious to see.

After resting for a little bit we walked up the street to the Arc de Triomphe.  We used our Paris Pass to get us entrance up to the top.  So cool, but SO MANY STAIRS!  The theme of today has been: never-ending spiral staircases.  Good grief!  No wonder Parisians are so skinny.  The view from the top of the Acr was awesome!  And I'm proud of myself for making it up there.  We saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up-beautiful.  We were going to try and do the bus tour we did yesterday afternoon and see the city sights at night, but they stopped running the tours at 6:30 and we weren't done at the Arc until 11pm.  Oh well.  While we were up there we watched all the crazy traffic down below in the circle surrounding the Arc.  Apparantly there are so many car accidents there every year that the insurance companies here don't even argue about it and try to figure out who's fault it was, they just split the costs 50/50.  One guy we were standing next to said there needs to be a reality show where people have to learn to drive in Paris and survive driving in the circle around the Arc!  LOL.  I told him that was a great idea and I would totally watch that show!

We finally walked back to our hotel, stopping at the little grocery store again on the way to by Kristy a Sprite and we got some Nutella to put on the bread we bought earlier.  There is Nutella everywhere here.  They love it!

Exhausting day, but we're having so much fun!  I can't believe all the things we've seen and done.  Tre Manifique!!

Steps walked today: 18,261 (not counting two hours this morning before the device refreshed itself at midnight AZ time)