Mom in Paris
Trip Start
May 07, 2005
1
51
117
Trip End
Ongoing
Paris,
France
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
(Dave)
Kim and I arrived the night before Mom and Denis did so we could get our bearings and meet them at the airport. We ended up staying in a very nice quaint little room run by a nice Chinese man. We didn't have time to do anything but get some sleep before getting up early to go to the airport.
In the morning we decided that Kim would go to the airport while I brought our bags to the apartment that Mom had arranged. This made sense at the time but there were some problems. First off, the bags were heavy! My backpack is quite large. I handle it well because it's on my back and I can walk hours with it but I don't have much energy to carry anything else. Kim's backpack is much smaller but it is still quite heavy, perhaps 20 pounds
Jailed Gnomes
. It was a bit much to be lugging around. Then I realized that I didn't have the proper address to the apartment. I identified two possible places it could have been. In my attempts to locate it I befriended a Vietnamese man by helping him carry his extremely heavy luggage up three flights of stairs and he helped me make some phone calls. I waited for over an hour before going to an Internet point and finding the phone number of the manager. I called him, got the correct address, and waited. Minutes later Kim, Mom, and Dennis walked up with their story of how the train broke down. Little did they realize that I didn't simply have a relaxing time waiting, but rather was running around with too much luggage and not knowing if they were looking for me.The apartment turned out to be great. It was in a perfect location on Rue Vauvillers in the 1st arrondisement near the Louvre and Pont Neuf and Les Halles. There was laundry, a supermarket, and lots of cafes and bakeries nearby as well.
The first day we walked around the area above Les Halles (which is a big underground shopping mall) and saw the nice gothic church there. At night Kim and I walked around outside the Louvre.
The second night Kim and I had dinner at Le Ciel De Paris
Louvre at Night
. It is on the 56th floor of Montparnasse Tower and claims to be the highest restaurant in Europe. It had a very nice view of the Eiffel tower. The food was quite good and the price was what you would expect for such a view. On the way home from dinner after we got on the metro some guy got on and put up a curtain. He did some sort of preparation and then started playing a Pavarotti opera. On top of the curtain a puppet in a tuxedo emerged and started lip synching. I thought it was wonderful but found myself the only person clapping after it was over. Everyone else showed emotions ranging from mildly amused to mildly annoyed. He didn't ask for tips or anything.One day we met Dennis' sister for dinner. He hadn't spoken with her in years but since she was living in Paris he decided to call her up. She showed us a yummy vegetarian restaurant where I ordered some sort of fake meat that was good. It was nice seeing Dennis and his sister getting to know each other after so long. A few days later she took us to a suburb of Paris.
We did some of the required touristy things. We spent a day at the Louvre. My favorite was the sculpture of Cupid and Psyche. It was interesting to see the other two slaves that Michaelangelo had started. We saw the other four in Florence
Paris at Night
. I saw the Mona Lisa again. We were surprised at how aggressive a group of Japanese were taking pictures despite the sign that said no photos and the two curators ordering them to stop. After many warnings one curator actually confiscated a camera. The Louvre really is a huge and wonderful place that brings together so many different important periods of art. The Louvre has the "second largest" of many collections and I smugly realized that I plan to see the largest of many of those. For example it has the second largest collection of Renaissance paintings outside of the Uffizi, which we have been to. It has the second largest Egyptian collection outside of Cairo, which we plan to visit in two weeks.We saw Notre Dame. I didn't realize that it housed THE crown of thorns. It was a great church but I still prefer the cathedrals in Milan and Cologne.
We took a night cruise on the Seine. Paris really is lovely by night.
We saw Napolean's tomb. He is buried in seven coffins contained within each other. There were many more interesting details but google can relate more than I can write here.
Parisian Treats
We had a nice day at a market. We bought some smoked fish and good veggies and had a feast for dinner. We got some coffee so we could make lattes at the apartment. Isn't a latte the same as a cafe au lait? Then why do the French call it a latte?
Kim and I visited the opera house. It's a fantastic building. We almost saw an opera there but the only seats didn't have a view of the stage. Still, it was only 6 EUR to get in, the same price as to get in when there is no opera at all. And it was Vivaldi's Four Seasons which is one of my favorites. But we didn't have time. We've seen plenty of operas this year though -- more than the rest of my life.
On our last day we tried to visit the catacombs but the line was too long so we wandered around a graveyard to get our fix for dead people. My favorite was Poincare. We did end up visiting catacombs later in Palermo but that's another story.
We missed our shuttle to the airport but caught the next and didn't have any trouble getting our flight. It was my first experience with RyanAir and was sort of amazing. It was open seating and there was no obvious way to queue so there was just a mob vieing to be first in line. Even worse, the mob was half French (who push to the front of the line because they don't care what other people think) and half Italian (who expect everyone else to push to the front of the line). Another thing about RyanAir is that they fly into obscure airports that cost an extra $15 and 1 hour to get to. Still, the price is hard to beat.
