I’ve officially been in Paris for two days now, and I feel
like I’ve pretty much seen the entire city. The plane ride over wasn’t too
bad…although I couldn’t sleep at all on the second flight so I’ve been pretty
jetlagged since I got here.
After we landed, it took a while to get on the charter bus
and get to the hotel. The bus driver is Belgian but he wore a cowboy hat and
demin jacket to make us think he was American I guess. We’re actually staying in
the northeast suburbs of Paris near Gare de l’Est. It’s about an hour walk into
the heart of the city near the river but it’s not too bad. I’m actually
surprised how big Paris is. It sprawls a huge area, and it seems like there’s
so many residential apartments and condos. Every building is between 5-8
stories tall with shops on the first floor and apartments above that. The
architecture is similar to New Orleans, although all the rooms seem pretty
small and everybody has a balcony garden. There are hundreds of cafes and
tourist shops everywhere. Whoever planned the layout of the city must have
loved spaghetti because that’s exactly what a street map of Paris looks like. I
actually don’t like the layout of Paris too much because it’s really similar to
New York city. It feels more like a bustling tourist town than a real European
city. There are tons of ethnic districts – it’s a really diverse city. Earlier
today was walked north of our hotel out of Paris and ate at a café in a local
area. That was much cooler because no one spoke English and basically everyone
was a native. We did a little shopping there and had a beer at the café. One
guy knew English, but the only thing he knew to ask us about America was “do
you still talk about 9/11?”
On the first day, we arrived at the hotel and immediately
started walking around the city. We probably walked 12 miles over 7 hours of
wandering around and I was so tired after the plane ride. We saw so much of the
city, including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame cathedral, and
tons of other old monuments. The Eiffel Tower was just as expected, huge and
impressive. It’s amazing it was built so long ago and is still in such good
shape today. Apparently they have to repaint it every 8 years, but it takes 4
years just to paint it by hand. We didn’t spend too much time here, but last
night we went back. We ate dinner at a little café outside the park where the
Tower stands and waited for it to light up at night. A bunch of us just sat on
the lawn with bottles of wine and watched the Tower as it lit up at night and
gave a light show every hour. That was really cool, and kind of made us realize
that we really are in Paris sitting around a bunch of French couples on dates.
We came back around 1:00am and I finally got some good sleep last night.
The Arc de Triumph was also huge and impressive. It took
forever to get to it because it’s in the center of a 10 lane turnaround with
hundreds of cars speeding around it. Another thing about Paris is all the
drivers (especially moped riders) are nuts and drive by no rules. So we finally
found a tunnel that took us under the street to the Arc. It was incredibly
massive with really intricate carvings about Napoleon’s conquests. It even had
some of the names of cities that he had taken over. It was about a 2 hour walk
to get to the Arc, but we went through the rich district on the way. There was
one street with tons of Louie Vuitton, Gucci, Porsche, Mercedes, and other
stores. There were about 200 people standing in line just to get into the Louie
Vuitton store. People in Paris definitely love their high class brands.
After that, we walked to Notre Dame cathedral and got to walk
in while about 500 people were attending Mass. That was really interesting
since I’ve never really seen a true Mass. Located in the center of an island in
the Siene River (spelling?), Notre Dame is by far the most beautiful church
I’ve ever seen. It’s incredible what religion inspired people to build in the
past, and also how well it has been maintained until today. Notre Dame has
massive stained glass windows with great gothic architecture. Ryan is lighting
a candle in memory of his mom at every church we visit on the trip.
In comparison to Notre Dame, we went up to Sacre Courn today,
which is a church on a huge hill north of Paris. It’s the highest point in
Paris (closest to God they say). At night, it is illuminated to watch over the
city of Paris. This was really similar to Notre Dame, although the architecture
was less angular and the colors were brighter. This one had a beautiful
painting of God overlooking the congregation on the inside of the dome. We also
visited Sacre Courn when a Mass and funeral were going on. We paid 8 euros to
visit the crypt below the church and walk up the dome to see the highest point
in Paris. The crypt wasn’t too interesting – a lot of intricate graves below
the ground with a central chapel that housed some of the bones of an old Pope
(his bones are scattered across various churches in Europe). Then going up to
the top of the dome was scary but really cool…it was about 400 steps up through
a tiny spiral staircase. We didn’t go up the Eiffel Tower, but this was
probably better because it was the highest point in Paris. We’ve surprisingly
had great weather the whole time we’ve been here, and today we had a cloudless
sky to see the city. There are artists all over the city, especially on top of
the dome, who just sit down and sketch a scene of the city all day.
Earlier we went to the D’Orsay museum, which is the second
largest museum in Paris. This was pretty interesting, and even this place took
3 hours to walk through. We saw a lot of Impressionist and Realist works, such
as Monet, Manet, and a huge Van Gogh exhibit. They also had hundreds of
beautiful sculptures and artifacts (mostly from European/French history). One
of my favorite paintings was called Detaille Le Reve. However, this museum paled in
comparison to the Louvre, which we visited Friday night. I had no clue how big
this place was – it used to be the palace of Louie XIV, while Versailles was
his summer vacation home. So the Louvre had miles and miles of museum
artifacts, but the building itself was incredibly beautiful because it used to
be a palace. Before that, it used to be a medieval castle and we toured the
foundation of the old castle. The entrance to the Louvre is under a large glass
triangle, so the museum is both underground and in the massive palace
surrounding the entrance in the courtyard. I almost liked the D’Orsay better
because the Louvre was frustratingly huge and confusing. It was nearly
impossible to read the maps, so I just stayed with our art teacher and walked
through all the painting exhibits, which took two hours in itself. We saw the
entire history of art – from 0 AD to 2000 AD. There were canvases that we over
60 feet tall and 80 feet wide, pieces that took the artists their entire lives
to paint. We also saw the Mona Lisa, although this was very unimpressive. It
was really small and surrounded by hundreds of people – it didn’t seem any
better than some of the other works in there.
You could definitely spend two weeks in there and not even
see everything the Louvre has to offer. Unlike the D’Orsay, it houses art,
scultupres, and artifacts from all around the world. After art, we ran through
the sculptures (like Venus de Milo), the Egyptian Artifacts, and some North
American artifacts like the Code of Hammurabi.
On Thursday, we toured the Opera Garnier in Lafayette (the
third biggest Opera house in Europe). It was built by Emperor Napoleon III and
is probably the nicest building I’ve ever been in. Apparently it was built just
to show off French opulence, so even the floors cost $3,000 per square meter.
It had 33 different types of marble and gold imported from 20 countries.
Everything was so incredibly detailed, it was amazing. The builder was a young
architect who was never even invited to a show in the Opera because he was
“poor” and not worthy of entering the building that he had spent 15 years
building. This is where the Phantom of the Opera started – once during a show a
woman was killed because a counterweight fell off a chandelier (it was rumored
to have been thrown by the Phantom). Apparently the Phantom lives in a lake
beneath the Opera and has permanently reserved balcony box number 5 for his own
viewing. The owner also deposits 3,000 euros per month for the Phantom in
exchange for a peaceful ghost. Back in the 1800s, women were not allowed in
most of the Opera house. The men would meet their wives with gifts in the
balcony seats, then the men would stay and sleep with the dancers (who were all
prostitutes) after the show as their wives were escorted out. It was really
just a gathering place for the richest people in France, nobody really cared about
the operas themselves.
After that, Ryan and I went to the biggest cemetery in Paris
to see the graves. That was unlike anything in the US; the cemetery was massive
and really, really nice. It was opne of the most peaceful places besides some
of the tourist taking pictures of the graves, which I thought was odd. Most of
the graves were above ground with a small “chapel” above them for the family to
mourn in.
After that, Ryan and I had a typical French dinner. It took
2 hours, so we got our fill of French dining culture with bagettes, cheese, and
espresso. We just ate outside a little café in downtown Paris. I ordered salmon
but was surprised when I got 3 little slices of raw fish…still ate it though. We
sat next to a guy in a berette who was sketching the city and rolling his own
cigarettes while eating. All the food here is REALLY expensive, even a
McDonald’s cheeseburger is 10 euros. So far, the people have been really nice.
Most people understand some English so it’s pretty easy ordering, but you feel
really dumb when you try to speak French then they speak perfect English. I’ve
picked up a good bit of French and was able to have a small conversation with a
teacher in Paris today.
The last place Ryan and I visited was the palace of
Versailles. This was an hour train ride out of Paris and was probably the least
exciting thing we did. We paid to go inside but accidently made a wrong turn
and left before we could see some of the famous rooms like the Mirror Room. But
the palace overall was unimpressive compared to other things we have seen. The
outside was pretty with lots of gold, but Opera Garnier was definitely nicer
inside. This was Louis XIV’s summer vacation home, and he must have been a
really conceited guy because there were hundreds of paintings of him in
different conquests and victories. We also toured the garden, which was
impressive because of its size but not as pretty as I expected. It was a lot of
the same things (foundatains, bushes, square trees, and statues) over a couple
miles of land. It took Ryan and I an hour and a half to walk through about half
of it. The Apollo fountain and Dragon fountain were really cool though. It must
have taken thousands of workers back then to maintain the entire garden.
You know you’re in Paris when:
- People dress either really nice with expensive
brands or dress very poorly. They have no department stores, everything is
really expensive or really poor quality.
- Everyone smokes cigarettes.
- You spend 2 hours eating a meal and have to beg
for the check.
- The metro station maps look like spaghetti and
everyone runs in the metro. Nobody pays for the metro, they just hop the fence.
- Clubbing ends when the sun rises.
- You can get a McBagette.
Today we arrived in Baden Baden and spent a day here. The
entire landscape of France was just green countryside and farms. Baden Baden is
really nice though. It is just your typical small, slow German town. It is
quite expensive because it attracts tons of rich tourists with the bath houses,
spas, and the nicest/oldest casino in Europe. The town was small but
beautifully kept up. Everyone was very friendly and knew some English. Also, it
seems like everyone has a dog here and they brings their dogs everywhere (even
in McDonalds and into the spas). I didn’t see one cat in the whole city. We ate
dinner at a small café in the center of town. The food in Germany is the
complete opposite of France. It is full of meat/carbs with hefty portions. I’m
pretty sure I lost five pounds in France because there was no meat and the
portions were tiny, but german food is great. At dinner, we tried the pork
steak, wienershnitzel, and boar meat ravioli brats. It is just assumed that
everyone gets a beer with dinner here – we weren’t even asked what we wanted.
After dinner, we went to a biergarten and tried some of the best beers I’ve
ever had. The beers here are heavier but taste so much better than America. We
spent a few hours here and got a free round because our waiter liked how long
we stayed. The beer definitely has more alcohol but its not as bad as I expected,
although it did hit our friend Pat pretty hard. After this, I just went back to
the hotel and got some sleep because Paris wore me out. Today we are driving to
Munich but skipping the museum on the way.
You know you’re in Baden Baden when:
- You can take your dog anywhere.
- Everyone assumes you want a beer with your meal.
- The baths, showers, and streets are beautiful.
