Paris Continued
The next morning we woke up and decided to go on the free walking tour of Paris. At first I wasn’t excited because walking meant more blisters then I could afford to have, but in reality I was excited to do something free. We met in the lobby with a group of twenty or so other students/people near our age and had a meet with our tour guide. His name was Hally (hal-ee) and he was from Canada. He helped us onto the metro as a group, which we had already become pros at doing and we went to the archangel of Saint Michael’s fountain I believe and waited for the tour to get started.
We walked everywhere, our group stayed with Halley and he showed us Notre Dame, the river, a cursed place where these knights unjustly died, a bridge of faces, we had a brief 2,000 year history of Paris, we saw the outside of the Louvre, the beginning of the Champs Elysees, the obelisk again, After that we continued on and saw the Eiffel tower, and then ended in the big and little palaces. Overall all it was a whirlwind tour and though we learned many things…. most have been forgotten or a least the names of some of the things we saw.
Phil, Kristen and I decided we wanted to get some French onion soup so we started walking back to the Champs Elysees and one of our roommates that came on our tour saw us, so we invited Diego along because he was by himself. This Turned out to be a good thing because it balanced out our group and allowed Phil to talk to a boy for once. Diego was quite nice and was very ready to offer to take our pictures if need be. We walked back up the Champ Elysees and saw the Arc de Triumph once again, and turned down the street to where my card had been destroyed and found the little café where the soup was served. It was ten euro for a bowl of soup so Kristen and I split it and Diego and Phil each got themselves some crepes. It was a bit pricey but hey one has to get French onion soup when one is in France.
We then set off on a journey to go to see the inside of Notre Dame. It was a short metro ride away and we then went inside. It was very dark inside and you would think that when you visit the site where the Hunchback story was set there would be a little more too it. Something I learned about touring is that the famous places aren’t always the best or most beautiful places to see. Sometimes it baffles you to realize why anyone would consider the site you are at the “must see” place of the city. However, the Cathedral was still grand and I wanted to go up to the top but you had to have exact change and only twenty people could go up every ten minutes and there were at least a hundred in line. So I opted to not go and will probably have to return to Paris at least one more time in my life.
We then set about to go to the famous little white church on the hill that overlooks Paris. This was near the Moulin Rouge and we climbed many stairs to see the city. It is quite a big city Paris and it was nice to see it from afar. This was also the hill were the movie Amelie was filmed which I had happened to see this summer so it was kinda nice to have watched it before going there. We were hungry once again when we went there and went back to the Champs Elysees to buy Phil a coat and to eat. We ate at Quik Stop fast food restaurant and had a European burger, which wasn’t too bad, and actual French French fries. Haha so that was quite funny but we continued on and made our way back up the Champ Elysees and then we went back to our hostel for a little bit. I tried to call bank of America collected and that failed miserably and then finally emailed my Mom to have her sort it out because I was fed up with everything.
After washing my hands of the whole credit card disaster we decided to go back to the Eiffel tower once again, but this time I wanted to go up at night. I would decide to go up to the Eiffel tower when there was a bomb threat, the tower was closed for a bit and I got in line and the man next to me go interviewed for the International Press about the bomb scare, so I was so close to being famous yet so far away. I eventually made my way up there and looked out and saw the city at night. Paris is a city of the night, it can be dreary during the day if the sun isn’t shining but at night things seem so much more romantic and looking out over the city I had one of those “your up on the Eiffel tower at night” moments it was spectacular. I spent a half hour or so going up there and then went back down where the others were waiting for me, but I really enjoyed my experience.
We then went back to our room and went to bed, waiting to see what the day would bring.
We awoke once again to find ourselves in the Saint Christopher’s Youth hostel in Paris. It’s interesting to wake up and find yourself in the City of love. However today was the day we were to depart, that meant gathering our bed sheets and packing our backpacks that would be permanently attached to our backs throughout the entire day. That is a stress in itself as my backpack often is stuff to the brim and sits uncomfortably on my shoulders. Yet we persisted onwards and found ourselves checking out and walking up the road, with a quick stop into a pastierre, which means bakery in French. I bought a croissant for breakfast and a pain de chocolate which is basically a chocolate croissant along with an interesting green glazed cake which turned out to be a sort of strawberry shortcake, not quite as good as I have had in the past but it was still quite good for being French.
We had also brought Diego along because he wanted to see the Louvre as well. We used the metro once again to get to our destination. We popped out from underground and after walking a short distance entered into the Louvre and saw the glass pyramid dome that encased the entrance to the museum. I felt for a moment that I might see Nicholas Cage wandering about or a thief trying to scale through the glass pyramid in search of the Holy Grail (for those of you who have seen the Di Vinci Code.) We had to wait about a half hour to get through security but finally we made it. One trial we have experience through this trip is the promise of the various discounts with our ISIC cards that we all bought. However the Louvre failed to recognize our cards and we entered without the student discount, which was a bit of a damper to my spirits. Yet we proceeded anyway.
Long story short, the Louvre is huge and the Mona Lisa is small. Since we are young we always consider the Mona Lisa to be a huge amazing portrait. Yet it is just an average size average looking women in a frame, behind bulletproof glass. I have just never seen the appeal to the Mona Lisa; I know that there are books, theories, and studies of the concept behind the masterpiece, which tell us about the genius behind Di Vinci. Yet I was unimpressed, this entire experience has shown me that there are greater more aesthetically pleasing works of art then the famous ones. Yet through all that there is still something to be said when gazing at the Mona Lisa, the fact that I was standing there looking at something that is awe inspiring to so many was a bit surreal.
There were many other works of art in the museum, including the headless angle, and the armless Greek statue, which is so famous. (Remember in Hercules how Hercules throws a discus and knocks off her arms?) I thought that was cool to see. We walked about seeing the various time periods and artwork, and after about two and a half hours we all agreed it was time to go. I am not a museum person so it was quite a stretch for me to even be in a museum for more then an hour, so it was really a sort of a feat for me to last that long. So for all those out there who would chastise me for shortchanging the Louvre, let me tell you if one spent a solid minute looking at each display it would take about nine months. So in the time it would take me to give birth to a child is the time it would take to look and read every exhibition in the Louvre. So I thought I did a fairly decent job of giving the Louvre an overview.
After we exited the Louvre we set about to find some food, which we did by gracing McDonald’s presence. I cannot begin to tell you how good a cheeseburger tastes after you have been dining solely on bread and cheese and mouthfuls of water, even in Germany we usually just dine on various pork dishes. So tasting beef once again was a good thing. We stayed for a good forty-five minutes resting our legs and talking to Diego. Once we were through we said goodbye to Diego as he was off to Versailles and we had to catch another Ryan air flight.
Phil wanted to go see the grand Arch, which we hadn’t seen yet so we took our second to last metro and entered a very different looking Paris. We had been used to seeing artistic buildings and beauty in each building we passed. So when we entered up from the Metro we saw the arc. This arc was nothing but modern day metal. Nothing fancy or ornate, we had entered the business district, which was just plain marble, and I felt like I was in a forlorn city in the United States, so we took some quick pictures and left immediately as we didn’t want our experience of France to remain in the beauty of it, instead of the industrial sell out this area of town has become.
We boarded our last metro and headed to the Ryan Air bus stop that would take us to our third airplane ride to Ciampino Rome. We had about an hour to spare however, and went to a small restaurant and ordered Crème Burlee; Kristen had a weird olive cake and juice and didn’t like it. However, Phil and I quite enjoyed our Crème Burlee and it was fun sliding our spoons on the top of the custard and listening to the melted sugar top crackle. I had never had crème Burlee before and was very pleased by my first experience.
The next bit is boring and we spent an hour and a half on a bus to get back to Beauvais and finally after about three hours we were sitting on our Ryan Air flight heading to our last stop on our whirl Wind journey. My slightly bitter experience with France was over. But to be just there were many moments that made up for the trials I had gone through. So overall I would give Paris a B, somewhere to see but you won’t find me readily willing to go back, although I do want to return to Franc to see Versailles and Normandy and I heard the South of France is quite amazing as well. So I bid Adieu to Paris and looked forward to being greeted as Bella in Rome.
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