The Most Beautiful Day in Paris

Last week was riddled with homework and endless trips to the Louvre for my art history class. We are studying classicism and neo-classicism right now, and went to see the works of David on Thursday. I also went there on my own to gather information for a paper I had to write about Nicolas Poussin. I've been there three times now, and have yet to see the Mona Lisa. I have to do that.

Thursday was really exciting, because Brett came to Paris with his study abroad program. I met him at his hotel room Thursday evening, and we tried to see Gran Torino, but I got lost (as usual) and couldn't find the movie theater, and we accidentally missed the show. Instead, we went to the Seine to walk from Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris to the Notre Dame. It was a beautiful night, and the sky was crisp and clear. We walked to the Notre Dame and ogled at the creepy gargoyles staring out into the black Parisian sky, then wandered back to the Latin Quarter where we went to a jazz club that used to be a dungeon from the middle ages. The music was good, but the place was packed and we couldn't get a seat anywhere. It was just a tiny musty cave with a ton of people from wall to wall.

After the jazz club, we ended up wandering around some more and then we had to take our public transportation back to our separate places for the night. The next day, Brett had a bunch of lectures and class stuff to go to, and I slept in and lazed around in the apartment for most of the day. I decided to buy plane tickets to Glasgow, in order to go on a big adventure to Loch Lomond for a weekend. The tickets cost me 10e round trip through RyanAir. I'm heading there at the end of the month, and will be sure to report back with lots of pictures of the bonny bonny banks.

Friday afternoon, I went to the Galeries Lafayette again to try on some really expensive perfume. I was really just killing time to meet up with Brett, and he called at about 4:30. I met him at his metro stop again, and we went to a hotel that we rented for the night. It was a really nice 4 star hotel that Brett got on Priceline.com for dirt cheap. It wasn't in the most happening area, but the room was really nice; much better than our vagabond hostel last time. The only trouble we had was that the hotel was a chain, and we accidentally tried to check in at the wrong hotel. The first hotel we went to was near the Eiffel Tower and actually really close to my apartment. When they couldn't find our reservation, I was really worried. We finally had to look up Brett's confirmation email on their computer, and found out we were at the wrong hotel altogether. So we left and trekked it to the other one, which took forever on the metro.

I feel like I spend the better half of each day on the metro, so when I get days off, I tend to stick very close to home, to avoid getting sucked into that underground abyss. I'm starting to get pretty familiar with the subway. I know that at one stop, there happens to be a lot of blind people with canes or guide dogs. I suppose there must be a school near here, because I don't think I've gone a day in Paris without seeing a blind person. I talked to my friend the other day about how wheelchair inaccessible this city is. It would be impossible for someone in a wheelchair to take the metro, which would delegate them to the bus, and I don't think that is even accessible. I never saw a person in a wheelchair in Paris, until yesterday when Brett and I saw a troupe of retirees wheeling over to the Eiffel Tower. I actually got a little excited to see my first wheelchair in Paris.

Anyway, I digressed. Brett and I made it to our hotel room, then left and tried to find dinner nearby. This was incredibly difficult, because I wasn't familiar with any of the metro stops near our hotel. I just took us to random places hoping there would be food there. First we went to the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette and other nobles had their heads chopped off in the street. No food there. Then we went to the opera, with it's golden winged angels resting on each corner. No food there, but we were tired of the metro, so we walked down a street near the opera and finally found a grocery store. There, we bought some ham and cheese sandwiches, a baguette, some laughing cow cheese, champagne, and chocolate. It was all very Parisian.

After eating our dinner on a park bench, finishing with the baguette and cheese, we went to Trocadero, a pristine viewpoint of the Eiffel Tower. We sat there drinking our champagne and eating our chocolate and watched the Eiffel Tower twinkle, as it does every hour on the hour. It was exciting waiting for the little lights to twinkle. I felt like it was the fourth of July. When they started to twinkle, everyone around us gasped and said "oooooh". It was a magical experience.

The next morning, we slept in, then we left for an open air street market to buy a picnic lunch. We went to a boulangerie(bakery), charcuterie(butcher), a fromagerie(cheese shop), and my favorite, a fish market. The fish market had a huge head of a marlin, or swordfish, I'm not sure which, in the front. After I saw that, I had to go inside. Brett and I saw lobsters on the counter still moving their legs, and tons of large dead fish spread out over ice staring up at us. I looked to the other side and saw a bucket of escargot that cost 60e/kilogram. I thought that was just a bit too pricy.

At the fromagerie, Brett and I stepped inside really quickly to "smell the feet of angels" as Rick Steves put it in his tourbook I bought. But to me, even the feet of angels still smelled like feet, so we left there quickly and headed to the grocery store to find the laughing cow cheese. We had no success for the cheese, but we did run into a crazy old French man who talked our ears off, and I had no idea what he was saying, so I just said "oui, oui, oui" and laughed along when he laughed.

After Brett and I bought all the food for our picnic, we left Rue Cler searching for a good picnic spot. Voila! Around the corner, the Eiffel Tower was in plain sight calling us to its base. So we picnicked in the Champs de Mars, under the Eiffel Tower. It was the most beautiful day I've seen in Paris. The sun was shining, and there were no clouds in the sky. It was warm enough to not wear a coat. It was the first time I saw people on the lawn of the Champs de Mars, and there were lots of people picnicking and laying in the sun. Brett and I watched a baby waddle around trying to play badminton with some adults.

Our picnic lasted a long time. We were there for at least an hour and a half. Probably two hours. We ate and ate and ate. First, ham and cheese sandwich(but Brett had chicken), and fresh tomato soup. Next, we had a baguette and the rest of our laughing cow from the night before. Afterwards, we had our fancy desserts that we bought at the boulangerie. I got a delicious raspberry tart, and Brett got a pudding filled donut called a divorce. Kind of a funny name, but still a delicious dessert.

After the picnic, we went to Montmartre to climb the Sacre Coeur, and check out the old windmills. Montmartre used to be an agricultural area, and there are still two remaining windmills that used to grind corn and wheat. The Moulin Rouge is not one of these windmills. That cabaret does have a windmill connected to it, but it isn't functional and is purely for decoration. The Moulin de la Galette was one of the windmills. That was turned into a cabaret at the turn of the century, and Renoir painted a famous work there: "Bal au Moulin de la Galette".

After wandering the crowded streets up to the Sacre Coeur, Brett and I walked through the gloomy cathedral, then lounged on the grass admiring the view from the top of the city. We took a tram back down the hill and went to a cafe to get some really expensive espressos, and so Brett could write a postcard to his sister. We stayed at the cafe for a long time playing war with my deck of cards. I was so close to defeating Brett, but then he came up from behind and took me for all I was worth. It was a sad day of war for me.

Next, it was getting dark, and we hopped on the metro to the Latin Quarter to take a walking tour from my tour guide cards. The walking tour wasn't the most exciting, because it was supposed to be a window shopping tour and all the shops were closed for the night. We cut the tour short, and headed over to St. Michel for dinner. Unfortunately, the place I had in mind for dinner jacked up their prices for some reason, and we ended up quitting that scene and having kebabs for dinner. It was cheap, but good, and we ate on the banks of the Seine again. Another exciting weekend with Brett, and soon he was off again for Germany. I said my goodbyes, and he boarded the metro back to his hotel for the night.

Today, I spent the whole day doing homework. Lots and lots of homework. What a drag, but it has to get done sometime. Tomorrow is the beginning of another busy week, and then Saturday I'm going to Basel, Switzerland for the day to meet up with Brett again and explore another little city.

Leah