Goodnight, Paris

On Saturday, we got up and out at a decent hour. We had pain au chocolat and coffee from the bakery in the mall thing between our hotel and the metro stop. We took the metro to the Cite stop to start our historic core of Paris walk at the Notre Dame. In the metro, we saw a nice blond family that looked like they were going to church. Apparently so was the rest of Paris. There was some huge event with chairs outside and tons of cardinals or something. I think it was an ordination of a whole class of priests from all of France, or something. We tried to look it up on our phones, but that's all I could figure out. It hadn't started yet and didn't look like it would be done anytime soon, so we checked out the back of the church. I showed Jane the flying buttresses and read from Rick Steves about the church. We took pictures (including a recreation of one from the last time I stood at that spot) and then continued our walk, figuring we would hit Notre Dame at the end.

The next stop on our walk was over the bridge to Ile St. Louis,  a little island in the Seine with a lot of charm. It was early and sleepy, but we walked around and saw someone swimming in the river with some kind of police boat escort. We stopped at a cafe for a crepe and journaled a little. Next, we went over to the St. Chappelle. We got to skip the line with our passes, and started in the bottom. Then up to the top floor. It was AMAZING. How did I not know about this place. The deal is that apparently, the King (Louis 4, who is now a saint, go figure) had it built quickly from 1242 to 1248 to house the crown of thorns.  Its totally wall to ceiling stained glass, and its freaking cool. 6,500 square feet of stained glass. The Crown is now at the Notre Dame and is only shown on Fridays in lent. Rick Steves appears to be suspect as to its legitimacy. I really loved all the stained glass. Its way too hard to read the stories depicted, and I don't know how the illiterate people were expected to pull that off, but its still really awesome. Also, since it was built so quickly under one architect, there is only one theme and style going one, which is what we call "harmonious". But we have many fish to fry here, so we headed next door to the Conciergerie.

The Conciergerie is a portion of the big palace that includes Sainte Chappelle and a bunch of other no longer standing or otherwise allocated buildings, including the current Palais de Justice, home of France's supreme court (Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite). The Conciergerie is the prison that was used a lot during the Revolution. Marie Antoinette seems to be its most famous inmate. We saw the main banquet hall or whatever and some other stuff before making our way to the prison section, which has been recreated too look as it might have then. They also have Marie Antoinette's cell and chapel, which aren't totally the original, but close enough. We learned some about the revolution and how they guillotined everyone.We were a little fuzzy on the details about the French Revolution so I looked it up. Only the French would canonize one King and execute another. The next stop on our walking tour was the Cite Metro stop (which we had come out of). Its one of the few art nouveau subway stops left, and its got interesting, curving iron work. The flower market there is quite big, but sort of enclosed, so we didn't see it right away. We wandered through, but obviously weren't going to buy any plants, so we headed over to the gay section for Sushi.

We wandered around the area by my instincts and found everyone setting up for the parade in the late afternoon. We watched someone putting up huge balloons with a broomstick in front of a bar. We found a stretch with some sushi restaurants, and I picked the crowded one. We have definitely learned the value of following the crowd on this trip. It wasn't too expensive and very nice. There was a nice gay couple next to us and the guy next to me had a TINY dog on his lap. We chatted with them and found out they were from Florida, and that they come to Paris every year for the tennis open, but this year they got an apartment and are staying the summer and working from here (they do computer stuff). We had a really nice time talking with them, mostly about travelling and being young and trying to do it on the cheap, and about where they were headed etc. They highly recommended the Rodin museum, saying it was very peaceful in the gardens and that the little dog was named after Camille Claudel, Rodin's student and lover. When it was time to go, they paid our bill! The older one had told us about how he had traveled 25 years ago when he was our age and had gone 3 days with out food and only had cigarettes, and some woman bought everything he ordered and then ordered him food to go, and that he was passing it on and that in 25 years we can pay for some one's lunch in Paris. It was so sweet, and especially nice because we were still hungry. We decided to get falafel again, since we were near by, and shop a little before going to the Pompidou. We still couldn't find the Jewish street, and we failed at shopping again, even though the gay guys said there was good shopping in the Marais. It was Saturday so the two best falafel places were closed, but I stood in line at another one while Jane looked for shopping possibilities. We eventually got our falafel and ate it on the way to the Pompidou, which is messy. We finished on a bench by the crazy modern art fountain there, and then headed inside. Before going in, we sat and watched a street performer artist paint wildly fast and upside down. He flipped it over and it was Obama. Interesting. It was already quite late, maybe 4, but the museum is open late, so it was ok to go in.

The Centre Pompidou is a really cool building that I remembered from my previous trip that I thought Jane would like and that houses the National Museum of Modern Art on the top floors. The building is exoskeletal, and all the workings are on the outside, like the pipes and staircases. They are color coded based on function. Its neat.  We started on the bottom of these, the 4th, and there was a huge exhibition called "Elles@centrepomidou" or something. It was all about women in modern art and the feminist art movement. It was really interesting. They had exhibited work by the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous art activist group that we brought to Skidmore during VDay and I had wine with. There was some pretty strange and far out art, and the exhibit was huge and we started to glaze over. We were speeding too much time trying to see and understand everything. We made it upstairs though, where the permanent collection was (we should have done this first and were bummed that we were out of energy) and successfully saw the whole thing. There were lots of great paintings and pieces. We really liked it, but it was ARCTIC in that museum and I was actually freezing to death. We had spent hours and hours and it was so cold I was blue. We left at about 8 or so, and went outside to sit down.

In front of us sat a couple of guys with their dinner. They eventually turned around and talked to us. They were Algerian and we tried communicating with them for a while. Jane and I both got nervous but didn't know the other was nervous when we found out they were Algerian, because of the movie taken. Jane realized that in the movie it was Albanians that were the bad guys not Algerians, so later when I was like, "Awesome, this is good, we are chilling with Algerians," she told me she had the same thought and it was fine. Ha. It would have been fine regardless, but it was amusing. They kept asking us what we were doing that night and we kept saying we didn't know. They were pretty nice though. I told them I wanted to find a cheap internet place, and one of them, Medi, said he'd find one and come back and tell me where it was. This seemed inefficient, so we walked with them a bit. We went back toward the gay neighborhood, which was an amusing topic of conversation with a language barrier and middle eastern guys, and then they finally asked someone about the internet. Apparently we were way too close to the center of things to get anything cheap. Yacine had to pee so wanted to sit down somewhere and have a cup of coffee. We hadn't eaten yet, so we thought this was a fine idea. We found a cafe place nearby and hung out with them. Jane had a croque madam and I had penne with goat cheese sauce and sun dried tomatoes. It was so good. We had a blast laughing and talking with those guys. They thought we were so great and beautiful. I was the translator for Yacine, whose English wasn't as good and who was talking to Jane mostly. Medi had better english, and he and I communicated pretty easily with my French and his English. Yacine would randomly try to teach us words, and we'd find out halfway through learning them that they were Arabic. We cannot learn Arabic in French! Way too confusing. It was really fun to try to communicate with them and I felt really good that I could be a translator! They told us about Algeria and how we should go there (no way, its in the desert), and other stuff. Yacine would break into Arabic song sometimes, and also got his pronouns messed up in funny ways. "me" (pointing to me) and "you" (pointing to himself) at one point, and "moi, moi, moi, et moi" (pointing to each of us) at another point. They spent a lot of the time we hung out trying to ascertain whether or not we would meet up with them the next day. We evaded a lot, saying we didn't know our plan. This was true, since we thought we were going to Versailles anyway, but we also had spent enough time in the Marais neighborhood and didn't want to commit our last day to them. Eventually we took the Metro home, since Medi and I had headaches and were falling asleep. They said something about escorting us so we didn't get stolen, but we told them we were fine. We took pictures and they hugged us a lot before parting ways. They LOVED us and it was hilarious. We had exchanged emails so we could keep in touch, even though we wouldn't be able to understand each other. Yacine told Jane to write in perfect English since he'd need to  put it into an online translator program. It was funny. We got home at 12:30 or one and went to bed.

The next day was Sunday, and we decided we wanted to go to the internet place near our hotel and blog, since we weren't having any luck finding affordable internet when we were out and about in Paris. I was cranky again, and we got dressed and went to check out the internet place. It didn't open until 10, which was annoying since it was 8:30 or so and we were up, so we went back to the hotel so I could shower. We got ready for the day (we had just gone down in our PJs with out all our stuff). So we went back down toward the internet place to look for something to eat. We walked into the center of the district we were staying in on the edge of Paris, Bangolet, and nothing was open. We wandered around and found people at a restaurant but the man said they were only serving coffee and juice, no food till noon. As we were walking away, we went by another place and checked it out. The guy in front asked if we wanted something and we told him we were looking for breakfast. He said to come sit down and so we went to the outside bar and sat, but the bartender gave us a drink menu. We asked about food and he said he couldn't do that yet. So we walked away. Then the first man, who apparently was the chef or something, chased after us and said yes come back its fine. We were MORTIFIED. It was clear that this place was not open yet and that the guy was just helping us out. It was also clear that it was a nice place and that we had no idea how much we'd be paying for this adventure. We talked to the bartender guy a little bit after we had our cappucinos and he pulled a croissant out of a bag. I pointed to it and tried to ask him where he got it, since we couldn't find anything open, but he put it on a plate and gave it to us. I refused to eat his personal breakfast, and was even more mortified than before. Eventually a basket of fresh, hot mini pastries arrived and we had a nice time, but it was so awkward. The people were very nice and a girl tried to speak English to us, and I'm sure they weren't embarrassed, but we sure were. We left and made our way back to the internet place where I put an hour into the blog and Jane looked at hostels in Amsterdam. We went back to the hotel to pee on our way to the metro station.

I had emailed Emily Gouillart, my friend who was born in Paris, for insider tips. She recommended the Latin Quarter to us, specifically Rue Mouffetard. We went to the Rue Monge square metro stop, and there was a big market. We walked through and got a few falafels (very salty) and some little meat turnover things to tide us over. Then we went and saw the Goulliart apartment and made our way to Rue Mouffetard. We did some shopping along there that was quite nice. Jane got a scarf and we tried on funny hats. After a little while, I wasn't feeling well and Jane decided we needed to eat. We found a sushi place (we were so over ham related food) and ordered a bunch of food. We talked about what we wanted to do and how late it was and consulted Rick Steves and made a ridiculous plan. We would hurry over to the Pantheon and see it since it was close. Then we would take the Metro to the Rodin Museum, since we hadnt gotten there yet and it closed earlier than the others. We would have to hurry through it to get to the Notre Dame via metro before it closed. We calculated out the times and figured we could pull it off if we were really lucky.

And so we raced to the Pantheon. It was the place where Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth with his pendulum. It hangs in the middle. There are lots of big statues, including the Monument to the National Convention that says "Live Free or Die" in French. Must be where New Hampshire got it. It was really big and we took some pictures, but its a neoclassical Reconstruction, and we were on a time line, so we hurried on. We booked it to the nearest metro, which wasn't all that near, and took it to the Rodin Museum. We did the museum first and the garden after, since its open later.

The Rodin Museum is located in a mansion in which he lived and worked. He rented rooms there, as did other famous people, like Henri Matisse and Isadora Duncan. The Museum is pretty user friendly. We got to see everything, which was great, and we didn't linger too long like we usually do, which was kind of refreshing. The sculptures were amazing, really full of emotion and movement. We saw the work of Camille Claudel also, who was fantastic as well. Rick Steves said Rodin is the best sculptor since Michelangelo, and I wouldn't argue the point. It was super interesting and really conducive to going through quickly, since he made many models of the same thing so you could see things more than once. We did the garden according to the map and pretty quickly, since the museum had closed and we had an hour till the Notre Dame closed. We could see how the garden would be really nice if you had some time to spend there and the weather was a little better.

We took the metro back to Cite and went to Notre Dame next. It was Sunday evening, so there was mass, but we could still visit the church around the edges of the people. We couldn't go all the way up to the front, but that was ok. It was fun to hear the music and I really liked watching the cantors, since I've done that. They lead while conducting, but its not actual conducting and it seemed to me to be very unhelpful. We hung out in the church for a bit before going outside to examine the facade. Using the book, we found all the things he mentioned, like the story of Adam and Eve and we found St. Francis and St Denis too. It was pretty crowded, and we were pretty tired. We headed over toward the Palace and St. Chappelle and found a place to eat. We got big bowls of onion soup and shared a piece of quiche and some salad. Jane was pretty sick at that point, and so we decided against a boat tour and headed back. We watched a bunch of bike tours go by and thought about how they'd be fun, but annoying because you stop every two seconds. We headed back to the hotel and and crashed, since we had to be up early for our train to Amsterdam.

We got up at 7 AM to take the metro to the Train station. We started heading to the train station we came in to, but I realized that might not be right. We figured out the right station to go to and got there almost in time. There was a HUGE line to get tickets and we definitely were going to miss the 8:30 train. That was ok, we figured, because there were trains every hour. Au Contraire, mes amis. They were all full till 4:30. We were so bummed. That meant we would loose a day and not get to Amsterdam till 9 something. And it was really early and Jane was really sick and could have used the sleep. Oh well. We found the bag lock up at the train station and paid for that and went back out. We wandered out of the station and found an internet place. We stayed there for half an hour because I didn't like it. Jane dozed while I tried to blog. Then we kept going and found another place and I stayed there for a couple hours, and Jane dozed there too, and then woke up and journaled some. We then left to find food. We were apparently in the Indian section or something, and we found a covered walkway with TONS of Indian restaurants. We were hungry and the guy convinced us to try it. I ordered something that I knew I liked, spinach and cheese and also a chicken combo thing involving rice and a coffee for Jane. I told them we didn't want spicy and he said that was fine, but when the food came it was really hot. Jane was a trooper about it though, and it definitely cleared out the sinuses. The coffee was espresso, and Jane did very well with it.

After lunch, we had some energy and decided to head back to Rue Mouffetard to see what we missed. I had to pee and we found a public street toilet. This was an experience. They are really nice and clean and free, but I couldn't figure out what to do. Apparently you dont flush, you just leave and the entire place is sanitzed after you go and before your friend's turn. I'm not sure, but I think the floor sinks down and swallows everything and the whole thing is sprayed down or something. It was VERY interesting. So we started walking around again, but it was really hot and we REALLY didnt want to miss our train and it turns out we had seen most of the area. We stopped for a gelato from this artisan gelato place that makes your ice cream into a flower. It was really fun and hit the spot. I was exausted, so we just sat and at our ice cream in the place out of the sun and watched the girl make the flowers and all the peoples flavor combination choices (I had raspberry and lemon sorbet). Soon it was time to head back to the station and get our bags out of the locker and find our train. And so we did.

On to Amsterdam!