Lots on Paris

So I had a few more days in Rome until it was time to head to Paris. I was pretty tired of the huge city and the mobs of tourists by then, so I decided to take it easy and just relax. I thought the best way to do this was to go to different parks and read and just take in the sights. I went to the zoo one day, and it was fun and everything. I didn't spend to much time there, but just sat down and read my book. The next day was more of same, only I sat down in front of the Coliseum, watching the masses of tourist go in and out. At night I would hit up my favorite gelato places and they grew to know me. I had several great meals too, but the gelato was the highlight. My favorite flavor had to be the sage raspberry. It was so good.
On the second to last day in Rome I decided it was time for me to go get my train ticket to Paris. I got there and had no idea where to go for help. I used the automated machine to help me but it just told me to go to the ticket office. The line for the ticket office had to be the longest line so I stood in that line for an hour and a half. Once I got help I found out that all the trains were booked to Paris for the next two days. Of course I was not happy with this but then the lady found a spot on the train the next day. What a relief that was. Afterwards I just wandered around and went to a few churches. The next day I was all packed, and thankfully my hostel allowed me to leave my bags with them for the day until I needed to get on my train. I wandered, and found a great place to sit and read by the Coliseum. Soon enough it was time to go to the train station and head to Paris.
The train ride was long but uneventful. I managed to sleep just about the entire way, which surprised me because I had quite an eclectic group of passengers in my cabin. I somehow lucked out and was assigned to the top bunk which was the best place, since people didn't climb up and down over you. The next morning I woke up just outside of Paris, and when we got to the station I had no idea what to do or wear to go. I had an idea where I was but how to get to the hostel was another question entirely. I walked for a while in the direction I thought I needed to go. Paris was not making a good impression on me that first hour. The city stank of pigeons and urine. In fact, one of the first Parisians I saw was a homeless man weeing in the street. Obviously I was not in the best places of Paris. Also when I broke down to get a taxi no one would take me, even when they were parked and waiting for a passenger. The first cab told me to go to a different cab and when I got to the window of that cab he sped off without anyone in there. I went back to the original cab and forced him to take me. I think they knew I was an American and they didn't like the looks of me.
The hotel that I finally got to was pretty nice for me. I actually had my own room and bathroom.......what luxury! I actually couldn't check in when I first got there so I just sat in this gorgeous garden outside this church nearby and read up on the city. After checking in and getting settled I decided to go explore. I found a great English bookstore and ended up buying a Fodor's travel guide for Paris. I then found my way to the front of Notre-Dame, and sat down to study up on Paris. I couldn't believe how many people were there at Notre-Dame. There seemed to be way more tourists than there were at any of the Roman tourist sites. Also those nasty pigeons were everywhere, and people were feeding them and allowing them to use them as living statues. I really hate those rats with wings. I stayed for a while and then decided to treat myself to a nice dinner. I consulted my Fodor's and found the closet restaurant that sounded good. Of course when I got there I found that they did not open for another hour and a half so I decided to walk to my second choice. I got there to only find that they were closed for the month of August. On to the third choice, where I found that they to were on vacation for the month of August. After the fifth try at finding a restaurant I realized that my first choice was now open so I went back and managed to get a table. The food there was amazing. I had a starter of foi gras, and then suckling pig for the main dish. I felt bad about ordering a baby piglet, but once I tried the first bite, those feelings vanished. It was really good. For dessert I had a gingerbread souffle with currant soup. I thought of my brother in law Jeremy because on our cruise several years ago he couldn't get enough of the fruit soups.
The next day I wandered around. I made it to the Eiffel Tower, but the lines were really long to go up into the tower, so I just kept walking. I then made it to the Arc de Triomphe. I spent some time there, but then headed to the more modern part of the city which was quite a bit further away than I thought. It was neat though, with all the large modern buildings. There was this one huge building that mimic the Arc de Triomphe but was quite a bit bigger. It was the centerpiece of the area. Of course, there was tons of modern sculpture around the square with some really neat fountains. It was neat to explore and see all the crazy things there. My favorite part was the giant thumb sticking out of the ground.
I hiked my way back down to the historical old section of Paris and found out that on Friday nights the Louve was open late and free, so I went there for a little while. In retrospect this was the best time to go, because it really wasn't so crowded (I didn't think so at the time). I rushed around not really taking my time because I was planning on coming back in the next few days. I saw all the big attractions, like Mona Lisa and everything else, but after two hours I was tired and not wanting to burn myself out on the museums I left. I tried to find a good restaurant in Fodor's but the one I chose was closed for August so I just went to the nearest cafe. It was pretty good and they actually had a really neat idea. My main dish was a lamb shank with a green bean salad all with a mustard cream sauce. However, when the dish came out I got no cream sauces just a big scoop of ice cream. They had frozen the sauce into and ice cream. It was pretty neat and was really good everything.
On Saturday I had planned to go to the Musee Orsay. It was said to be a really nice museum with a great collection. It really did have some amazing pieces that even I remember from my art history class. Monet, Pissaro, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, and on and on. Rooms filled with there masterpieces. It wasn't a huge museum and they packed the people in. After about 2 and a half hours I was tired of being pushed around and jostled by tourists having to get so close to certain paintings they couldn't even make out what they were looking at. Afterwards, I just wandered around, which is one of the best things to do in Paris. It brought me to several pastry shops and everytime I see one I have to see how good their croissants look.
Sunday brought rain, but I just put on my raincoat and went about my tourist business. I decided to really go to Notre-Dame and check it out from the inside. There was a long line to get in, but I waited patiently. I of course had forgotten it was Sunday and that they still had services there but it didn't matter to the tourists. They still were allowed to come and go and snap photographs. It is funny that such a big tourist attraction is still in use for what it was built for and that they have no problem just working around all the tourists. I couldn't go to a church that had strangers walking around shoving their cameras in every nook and cranny. It would be to distracting. However, Notre-Dame is beautiful and it was neat to be there when the organs were being played and the choir singing. Really, it is the only way to experience a cathedral like that. I then just kept wandering around the city. I made it to the Centre Georges Pompidou, which is there modern art museum/performance center. I didn't go to the exhibits though, I was having to watch my money. I had just heard you had to see the building because it was built to appear inside out. You could see all the air ducts and pipes and everything on the outside instead of being contained inside the walls. Really a different type of building you have to see.
Monday brought more rain, but that was fine because I was planning on spending the entire day at the Louve. I got there pretty early, and not 15 minutes after I got in line, everyone showed up. It didn't take long for the line to wrap around the building, and that building is huge. I really lucked out on timing my arrival there. The museum was packed, and I thought for sure there would be certain corners you could find where no one else would be. But man, was I wrong. People were everywhere, and crawling around like ants in an ant farm. That place is huge, with so many different corridors, halls, and huge galleries. The map really didn't help, and at times it confused me even more. Needless to say, I forgot about the map and just wandered around. After quite a long time, I think 8 hours with an hour and a half reading break, I decided to try to find the exit. I followed the signs, up and down and all around, but it still took me 45 minutes to get out of the place. Needless to say I got back to my hotel exhausted.

Tuesday I took it nice and slow, and realized that the slower you moved in the city and the less structure you had to your day, the better the day seemed. I went around wandering to the different parks and found small little stores that were interesting. I went to grab a bite to eat at this one hidden restaurant that Fodor's informed me of. It had obviously changed hands to an Indian family since the book was printed, but the name had not changed. It was a really interesting restaurant tucked away on a dark street. It seemed to not really be restaurant but more of a set of movie for a restaurant. It was decorated so strangely, it seemed to come out of a book. However, the food was really good Indian food and I had the best chai latte I have ever had there. Even better than the one I make.
That night I had gotten a ticket to go to the movie premier of Salt. It was going to be one of those red carpet events and even the star, Angelina Jolie, was supposed to make an appearance. I got there early and already people where everywhere waiting to catch a glimpse of the star. I stood there waiting for some time, but then decided to escape the mayhem and go inside and try to get a good seat. I ended up sitting in the balcony only a several rows up. The theater was amazing and really gorgeous. It almost felt like you were outside because they had plants everywhere and the ceiling was painted to look like the sky and it had those star lights in it. They had the screen showing what was happening outside, and it was really funny when the stars started showing up. There were quite a few screams when the true star showed up. Kinda funny. Angelina came in to the theater, got on stage, said a few words about how hard they worked on the movie and how much she loves Paris, and then she left. It was pretty neat though, and it was really a pretty interesting movie. I was afraid at first it was going to be in French, but I lucked out and all the French people had to read subtitles.
On Wednesday, I decided to go to Versailles. They had a metro train that went out there so I made my way to the closest station. On the way to the station I noticed tons of large white vans in this one area and people running all around. I took no notice, but then when I was suddenly in the middle of a crowd of people straight from the 1930's my interest peaked. It appeared that I had wandered into a movie set area, and all the extras were making there way to the set. I later found that they were filming Martin Scorsese's newest film “The Invention of Hugo Cabaret”. It is a big movie, that has Jude Law in it and Ben Kingsley, and it is actually Scorsese's first film in 3D. When I finally made it to the next metro station it was closed, and so was the next station. I ended up walking for an hour till I made it to the station that was open that would take me there. It was a long trip out there, but it was quite nice to sit down. Once I got there, there were more tourists there than any of the other places I had visited. It was mayhem. I immediately got in line to get my ticket, because I knew it was going to take a while. It was fun to people watch there because there were so many different people. There was one crazy looking lady with her kids that kept attracting my attention. She was wear animal print, had short bright purple hair, what looked to be a hot pink bird wing stuck in her hair, and then a matching pink boa tossed over her shoulder. I forgot to mention that she had the hue of fully ripe orange due to all the self tanner she used. She was one hot mess! All throughout the palace and also in the gardens I kept running into her. I tried to snap a picture of her without her knowledge, but they came out good enough to do her justice. It was very entertaining.
The palace though was really enthralling. Massive, and way over the top. It was hard to imagine a royal family, along with all the other counts and dukes and so forth, living in such a place. After touring the palace, I went to the gardens, which were just as amazing. The gardens were massive and they were immaculately cared for. I wandered around and after about a mile I made it to the country palaces. These were used just by the royal family when they wanted to escape, but they were still opulent and large. The gardens here were just as amazing, but what was insane was that Marie Antoinette had several architects build her a countryside village for her to enjoy. It include a picturesque watermill, farm, gardens, barn, and so on. It seemed to have jumped out of the pages of a fairytale. All the animals were there, including swans and rabbits, and the buildings were complete with the thatched roofs. It was something to see.
As the day was getting later I decided to head back to the city. I got on the metro with no problems and made it back. It was getting dark so I decided it would be a prime time to watch them light up the Eiffel Tower. I really hadn't spent much time in the city at night when all the monuments and buildings were lit up. It really is a different place at night.
On Thursday, which was supposed to be my last full day, I ran around trying to do the last few tourist things I really wanted to do. The biggest thing I had to do was the underground crypts. I had heard they were really neat and could not be missed. I got to the entrance and the line to get in was so long. I ended up waiting an hour and forty-five minutes before I got inside to buy my ticket. However, it was worth the wait and the crypts were amazing. They seemed to go on and on forever, and the bones of all the people were stacked everywhere. After entering room and room full of bones and skulls I could not imagine the number of people buried under there. It was really something to think about and after a while I began to think I was never going to get out, and that was why there were so many skeletons down there. It seemed quite easy to get lost down there. I made it out though, and I am sure that no one really get lost. I then just wandered around and tried to make the most of my last night in Paris.
On Friday, I was anxious about leaving, so I packed up and went downstairs to see if the hotel could keep my bags till I had to leave. They had no problems with that so I went to grab my last croissant and read in on of the parks. My plane didn't leave till 9 that night but I wanted to make sure I got there with plenty of time. I ended up getting my bags at 2 and getting on the metro to the airport at 3. It look a full hour to get to the airport, but even then I was there to early to check in. Of course, with all my bags I had quite a bit of trouble on the metro and the the gate that lets you out of the metro station smashed one of bags and went not let go. It took me several minutes to make it release my bag, and all that time people were staring and laughing at me, while the line behind me grew in size with impatient people. I just tried to laugh it off. Once outside the area where I was going to check I settled into a seat and started reading on of my books. I was deeply engrossed in my book when out of the corner of my eye I saw a white rabbit hopping around freely. It went under a cart and so I wasn't even sure if I had seen it correctly. I stared for a while, and then it came out again. There was not mistaking that there was a random white rabbit hopping around the airport. I was looking around for some sort of answer, and I thought maybe it was a publicity stunt for Alice in Wonderland, however, no one else seemed to care or even see the rabbit. I thought maybe I was going insane. But then after some time, it hopped away and later I saw it in a crate of some rich Chinese lady. It was one of the strangest things I have seen.
Finally 2 hours before my flight I was able to check it. The line was long and by the time I got up there I only had 20 minutes before they finished checking people in. They checked my passport and then suddenly asked for my visa. I wasn't sure what they were talking about and so I told them. They called several people over and they all were talking in French so of course I had no idea what they were talking about. It began to not look good and I began to realize that I was not going to get on my flight. They eventually told me I could not go to Australia until I had a visa from the Australian embassy. I had no idea I was supposed to, and they told me I had to wait to go there and fill out a form for the visa. Of course it was Friday and they were closed and wouldn't be open till Monday. The people were really helpful and told me what I had to do. I was mostly worried about having to buy another flight, but they were nice enough to change it to Tuesday without any fees. The Lord really blessed me. By then though, it was 8:30pm and I had no idea where to go. I had no hotel, and I really didn't want to go back into Paris with all my bags. I got on my computer and tried to find a closer hostel, but then I just ended up calling my old hotel. They had no problem putting me back up and so I started my trip back to my hotel. It seemed to take forever, and when I got there I was so weary. It had not been a fun day.
On Saturday, I researched about the visa and found that I could get it online. It took me a total of 15 minutes to get it. I wish I would have know that the other night because then I could have gotten it online and still boarded my plane. Oh well though, just a few more nights in Paris. I spent the whole day at the Luxembourg Gardens reading. It was a gorgeous day, and I was content with my good book and a warm baguette in the other hand. I had a good lunch at my favorite restaurant and then I went back to the park to read. Today, or Sunday, I did the same thing. So far that is my favorite thing to do in Paris. Just sit in the park reading, eating baguettes and people watching.
By the way, congratulations to my sister Janine and my brother in law Drew. They just had there first baby today. Welcome to the world baby Ari. I can't wait to meet you. Love from Paris