Day out in Paris

DAY 3

Ok, my turn again. I think our jet lag has finally ceased. We stayed up till about 1 am last night planning for today and talking to our kids--love gmail's video chat. Neither of us had any trouble falling asleep and we ended up sleeping in till 10am. I know, we're in Paris and we should wake up early and get out there, but we ARE still on vacation.

Our first stop today was the Louvre. We had seen it in passing yesterday on our way to the Eiffel Tower, but I still wasn't ready for how huge it is.

The inverse pyramid

Outside the entrance

We decided to start with the Mona Lisa. It wasn't too hard to find the painting, there are signs that guide the way. There were probably 100 people all trying to get a glimpse of her when we showed up, and there are ropes that keep the crowds back about 15 feet. Very cool painting though.

From there we headed to the Venus de Milo. In the Louvre near certain famous pieces of art are information cards that tell about the piece of art. It was interesting to see what this statue could have been at one point. There were about 7 different renditions given by some renowned sculptor with her in all different poses.

The Venus de Milo, Wendi, and random guy

We read in our France tourist book how to avoid museum fatigue. We filled our water bottle before we left home and had some protein bars handy for the trip, but nothing really helps when you walk up and down stairs and browse art all day. But we loved it. We loved the paintings, the antiquities, the sculptures, and the weird renaissance weaves. We loved seeing the school kids out on field trips and admiring the art. We loved the young students who were sitting in random places sketching the different sculptures. It was a great experience.

These 3 statues all depict some masculine event. Wrestling a stag, embracing a woman with foot on a centaur, and victory over the boar. Oh yeah, and the guy is naked doing all of them. Now that's a man.

Ouch

One funny thing before I move on. We both had to use the bathroom near the end of our visit, and the women's bathroom had a long line (typical). As I was washing my hands some lady burst into the men's bathroom and made a b-line straight for the stalls and went in an open one (it was the huge handicapped stall). I kinda chuckled to myself, maybe she really had to go. About 10 seconds later a random guy comes in the bathroom and just like the lady went for the stalls. He pushed on a few until he found an unlocked one...the handicapped stall...and went in...I heard a scream and saw the poor man stumble backwards out of the stall. An angry french hand reached out and slammed the stall door and then I heard her toying with the lock for about 30 seconds--I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that the lock was broken, because what woman goes into the men's bathroom and doesn't lock her stall door? Anyways, I was outside when she came out, and for the record she didn't wash her hands and walked straight into the cafe...

After the Louvre we headed back over to Notre Dame to see if we could go to the top. We had to wait in line, we climbed over 400 stairs up the medieval stairwells, and it cost €16, but we got up there. It was an amazing view and the gargoyles were great. Paris is freaking huge.

Notre Dame stairwell

On top

Gargoyle

Our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe, the biggest roundabout in the world. It started being built for Napoleon, but construction stopped when he started losing battles. They eventually finished it, but it took them over 20 years. Fascinating stuff. I had to include the blurb about it because every time I told Wendi that we should go see the Arc she would give some sarcastic or whiney reply. "You don't even know what it is, you just want a picture in front of it..." or "Why? It's just some tall thing..." So I looked it up and gave our visit purpose.

Our book gives many recommendations for fun shops to visit. One place we decided to visit while we were over near the Arc was a cheese shop: Fromage something...er other. Wendi fell in love when we got to the street it's on (rue Poncelet). It's a little market street with many vendors selling all sorts of things. Wendi said it was everything she had ever imagined in a little market in Paris, so I'm glad we went. The fromage woman didn't speak any english, so it was real interesting trying to buy cheese, and to be honest I don't even know what kind we ended up getting, but it's good and stinky so I'm happy. There was also a small chocolat shop up the street. Fortunately, the girl who worked there spoke great english, so it was much easier buying chocolate.

Leave it to the Americans to not learn the foreign language and just hope/expect the foreigners to know english. And then in turn we expect foreigners to know english when they visit America or else we get annoyed. I have been so impressed by how polite and helpful everyone has been. What a great place.

Oh, and I have to say something about the metro: best thing ever. You can get anywhere you need to go and it's not even hard to navigate. We haven't gotten lost once or needed to ask directions while riding. Wendi and I were running for a train today because I heard the door alarm starting to ring (which means that they are closing). The door literally closed in my face as I was about to step on--but at least I made some parisians smile, and Wendi too. I love the metro.

We finished the night dining at a bonafide french restaurant. It really was quite an experience. Our waitress didn't really speak english and she couldn't get her head around the fact that we wanted water from the tap. In fact, when she finally did bring out some tap water she had put in a glass flask, and she only filled our cups up half way, so I seriously thought it was some hard liquor--or so I hoped as I sipped it...but it was water--the tap water is great btw. Our waitress was also surprised when we didn't want wine with dinner, or coffee after, but that's just how it goes. We had a great time anyways.

So it's looking like this will be our last night here. Our faltmate, David, doesn't have availability tomorrow night and we don't really feel like moving to a hotel--but we could change our mind, we'll see. It's been a great day and I love Paris.

Mmmm, croissants