The next morning, we decided to just aimlessly walk
around. We headed toward the Notre
Dame/Ile de La Cite area, taking any street that caught our fancy, and stopping
into lots of little stores and boutiques.
We stumbled up Centre Pompidou-Musee National D’Arte Moderne and Hotel
de Ville, both of which we could tell were “something”, but had to consult our
maps and books to figure out what we were look at. We walked across Pont d’Arcole to Ile de la
Cite, and all the way around the small island before popping into, you know,
Notre Dame. We skipped the guided tour, because
I had actually taken the free tour years before and finally had to walk away,
because there was only a certain amount of factoids I could absorb for one
cathedral, and it was a 2 hour tour.
After using the tourism books as our guides of the cathedral, we set
back out, crossing Pont Saint-Louis over to Ile Saint-Louis, apparently the
oober swanky hood. We meandered through
the three main streets of the island, and picked up some savory crepes along
the way. We finished up the small
island, and crossed the Pont Sully back over to our side of Paris, and slowly
made our way back to our apartment.
After the late night, early morning, and all the walking, we were happy
to rest for a bit before dinner. That
night, we met up with two of Sam’s friends from San Francisco, who were also
visiting Paris at that time. We got
ourselves ready for the evening, Sam generously dolling me up with her jewelry
and shawl, and we headed over to her friends’, David and Daphne, Airbnb
apartment before dinner. We had some
appetizers and wine and chatted, before dinner, where we went to a great
restaurant, had the best chicken salad ever, with pate, then roasted lamb, froie
gras and dessert. While at dinner, we
met two men at the table next to us and after chatting them up a bit, invited
them to join us when they were done, at a bar not far from the restaurant; both
men were very nice, and we spent the rest of the night trying to figure out if
one of them was gay or just European.
After dinner, we went to a questionably gay bar, and met two new people,
of course inviting them along with us, before that bar closed, and we went to a
seriously gay bar, where half the group felt uncomfortable and we finally
decided on a nice French restaurant drinking bottles of wine before 3:00am came
around.
The next morning, we felt a bit rough, but wanted to make
the most of our time in Paris, so we rallied and put on our red lipstick, which
we discovered is a 24/7 staple in Paris.
One of the guys from the night before worked at the Musee Pompidou, and
said he could get us in for free, so we meandered that way. On the walk, we strategized the best way to
hit up Paris. Sam had done a bit of
research on a ticket called the Paris Pass, which gave us free entrance into a
lot of museums, a night boat tour and a Hop on–Hop off bus ticket. After a bit of on-the-go planning, we
realized that if we were going to make the most of this type of pass, we had to
buy it and start using it ASAP; despite having wasted half of the day hungover,
this would still be our best chance to use the tickets due to commitments we
had made to people over the weekend. So,
instead of lazily meandering the streets and heading to the Pompidou, we
bee-lined it to Notre Dame, where we knew for a fact these Paris Pass tickets
were sold. As we were walking, we made a
plan for the day, so we could fit in as many sights and museums as
possible…which all went down the crapper, when we got there and they only had one
Paris Pass ticket left. Not a problem
though, we were told there was another Information Site close, and we could buy
another ticket there. I bought the
ticket and waited in the line of Notre Dame to walk up to the roof, while Sam
walked just over the bridge again, to Hotel de Ville, to grab her pass; all
would be ok, and we wouldn’t lose any time at all…until, about 30 minutes later
when Sam came back over the bridge to me, stating there was not now, nor had
there ever been, an information sight at the location we were told. STUPID information site lady!!! Ok, now we were losing time. The next “closest” Information Site was by
the Louvre, so we hopped on the subway (the Paris Pass gave us free unlimited
use of the subway, which I shared with Sam) and made our way to the
Louvre. Upon exiting, right inside of
the Louvre, clearly we were bombarded by people and shops; not knowing exactly
where to go, we started asking directions.
After about 3 different people directing us, we found out the closest Information
Site to the Louvre, was not really anywhere close to the Louvre. What kind of major tourist attraction doesn’t
have a tourism desk!?!?!? Uggg,
frustration! Our feet were already tired
and we had only walk BY two major tourist attractions!! We finally walked in to the stupid
information site, thoroughly pissed, and got Sam her Paris Pass. Sam and I had discussed some of our travel
preferences and decided that Sam would buy the 5 day Paris Pass, whereas I only
bought the 3 day pass, but low-and-behold, we found out you could only use the
Museum Pass portion of the Paris Pass for 2 days with my ticket; the Museum
Pass portion covered pretty much every major Paris attraction. I was so frustrated by that point with this
whole stupid Paris Pass thing. Sam and I
sat down with a map and our museum directory and came up with a new plan, now
only having about 4 hours to actually use our Paris Pass benefits for that day. We made our way north, walking into the
gorgeous Opera building. Unfortunately,
the main building was closed to tours, so we meandered through the next best
thing…the gift shop. We looked at all
the little trinkets, as well as the photo book to get an idea of what we were
missing. It looked pretty amazing; then
and there we decided we both really wanted to go to Versailles. After the Opera, we walked all the way up to
Moulin Rouge, and through Montmartre.
The little area of Montmartre was alive with children’s tour
groups! Either that or we were walking
around there right as a school was getting out, I don’t know. There was a small art square, where artists
were painting pictures to be immediately sold, including kitschier tourist
portraits. We popped into the small
Gaudi museum, which was a highlight for Sam, but to be honest kind of scared
me, and up to the Sacre Coeur cathedral overlooking the entire city. We both noted, that Paris is lovely with all
of its old architecture and small boutiques and shops, corner bistros and small
streets, but honestly, from the view, it kind of just looked really cramped and
dirty, as most low-lying cities do. I
guess it was just such a contrast for us; normally a crappy looking city looks
crappy from a distance, I think we sort of assumed Paris would look elegant and
antique from a distance. Anyway, the
view was still great, and the cathedral with very grand. After walking all the way up, we made our way
back down through some of the most comical clothing shops I’ve ever seen, full
of super sparkly outfits; if there wasn’t sequins or beads, you wouldn’t find
it. We hopped on the subway and decided
to get off a few stops early in an area we hadn’t seen yet, and just walk
back. About two stops early, we hopped off,
into an area we definitely had never seen before…the red light district…at
about 5pm. We were meandering through
the streets, taking notice of the clothing shops, when we spotted a woman,
very….I’m not sure how to phrase it…”dressed up”? In all black?
With heaps of bad makeup? I don’t
know, but we both looked at this woman and at each other with the same thought,
but sort of blew it off as a bad fashion choice. Then, a few meters down, we see, across the
street another woman, this time with a super super short skirt, head to toe in
black, compete with thigh high stockings…and handcuffs. YESSSS!!!! Omg, they are prostitutes, we
stumbled upon prostitute lane!!!
Bahahah! We both had a bit of a
giggle and gawk. We saw a group of
women, all similarly dressed in all black with tons of bad makeup, put the
grand finale was yet to come. O Lord
help us! Creeping around the doorway of
a building was…omg, it’s tough to even describe. Basically, the first thing we noticed were
her GINORMOUS, I dunno maybe like FF boobs.
They were out of control! And all
the way up to her neck. Again, all in
black, with massively blown up lips, and tons of makeup. Now that I think about it, she actually
looked like a caricature of what her real self looked like. Anyway, we were both in stitches over what we
had inadvertently discovered. After a
bit, we arrived back at our apartment with sore feet and pretty exhausted, so
we decided on a bit of a rest/nap. After
our nap, we got ourselves up for round 2 of touring. We set out that evening for a night boat
cruise of the Seine River. I had taken a
boat cruise on my first visit to Paris, and getting to see some of the most
beautiful buildings in Paris all lit up, was probably one of my favorite
things, so I was pretty excited.
Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into our ride, it started raining; not buckets
so we were ok with Sam’s small umbrella and my rain jacket, just enough to make
us slightly uncomfortable. Still though,
Paris, the City of Lights, has earned its name well in my eyes, which I’m sure
is very important to Parisians of course, but despite the crummy weather, it
was still a very pretty boat ride. We
started close to the Eiffel Tower, went down past Ile de la Cite, around Ile
Saint-Louis and back up the way we came, past the Eiffel Tower, and around to
dock again. By the time the tour was
done, we were happy, but cold and hungry.
We made our way around looking for a restaurant with a nice view of the
Eiffel Tower, but all were predictably expensive, so instead we waited around
until the hour changed to see the light show of the Eiffel Tower, which was
really beautiful. After the show, we
hopped on the subway, back to our neighborhood, and stopped in at a great
bistro for some delicious onion soup, escargot, and salad; exactly what we
wanted to warm up in that weather! After
dinner, we made our way home and passed out from fatigue and satisfaction.
The next morning, we woke up determined. We had a quick breakfast, and dolled up with
our red lipstick; no I’m not kidding, it was always worn. Our first stop that day was the Louvre promptly
when the doors opened…ok maybe like 15 minutes after that, but we definitely
beat the crowds. The Louvre can be
incredibly overwhelming, taking days if not weeks, to view everything you might
want to see, so we had to be pragmatic.
We had scoped out a few of the gem pieces, and gotten a map to format
our plan of attack. We were thorough and
efficient and bee-lined through area of less interest to us. We didn’t really hit any large tourist groups
until the Mona Lisa, which you would practically have to beat a few old Asian
woman (I’m not being racist, we must have just come during a tour of primarily
Asians) to be able to see well, so we sort of just stood back while throngs of
people elbowed one another for the best view.
All-in-all, we hit every main attraction that we wanted to see in a
grand total of 3 hours, not too bad.
After the Louvre, we walked just down the block to see the Espaces Mode
et Textile and Musee Des Arts Decoratifs, which showcased fashion and décor
respectively, and then stumbled into the Espaces Publicite, which was in the
same building on the top floor, so we figured we’d have a quick look. The space was designated for modern art, and
it was probably some of the strangest art I’ve ever seen. By the end, we were actually lying on some
sort of ramp that looked like it belonged in a skate park (no it was not part
of the art, at least according to the man sitting by the door), and watched an
especially, awesomely weird video of some….people…moving. Honestly, I’m trying to come up with words
for what we saw, but I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It sort of looked like a group of people had simultaneously
taken a hallucinogenic and just sort of started moving around slowly and…and
like, I dunno, changing clothes, grabbing someone’s foot and putting it into
their armpit, then shoving their head in someone else’s crotch, while another
person tried to climb the human pyramid taking shape. Lord, I don’t know, super weird. It had both me and Sam in stitches, which I’m
sure was very uncouth, but gave our feet some respite. After we were museumed-out, we grabbed a
quick bite and headed to the Jardin de Tuileries, in front of the Louvre to eat
our lunch by a fountain. After lunch we
walked around the area a bit before getting back on the subway home for our
scheduled afternoon naps. After a few
hours, we woke up to get ready for dinner.
Sam had some family friends who lived part of the year in Paris, and
they had invited us to dinner. We
arrived perfectly on time and met them just as they were arriving. Dinner that night was great, with a huge
seafood platter, sole, more escargot and froi gras, and dessert! That night, we went home again stuffed to the
brim!
The next morning was the last day of my Museum Pass, so we
wanted to see the last few major museums on our list. We again had a quick breakfast before heading
out toward Ile de la Cite. Our first
stop was Saint Chappelle, but we apparently got the opening time incorrect so,
we showed up before the doors actually opened. Not a long wait though, we made our way into
the church, known for its magnificent stained glass windows, which were
wonderful. There was a bit of
construction obscuring the main rose window, but the panels lining the transept
were still amazing. After spending a bit
of time taking all the colors in, we walked a few blocks over to Notre Dame to
go to the roof. When we got there, a
line was already forming, but the doors had not actually opened yet. We didn’t have to wait an exceedingly long
amount of time, maybe 30-40 minutes, before we started the long, spiraling
ascent up the ancient stars to the roof.
Though Norte Dame is not the highest building in Paris, we had an
unobstructed view of the wonderful architecture in the area, and could see all
across the city. We also got to see the
great gargoyles with their demonic faces looking out over the roof. After we snapped a ton of photos, we went
back down and crossed over to the other side of the River Seine, which we had
not explored yet. Walking along the
banks of the Seine, we got to see all the stalls lining the street with their
books, souvenirs, and accessories. We
were headed for the Musee D’Orsay, which was an old train station, where we
spent a few hours looking at the art pieces, then the Musee Rodin, in what used
to be a gorgeous private residence, featuring the works of Rodin, including the
Thinking Man and Gate to Hell. We
stopped in for a bit of lunch, before finally making in to Musee de L’Armee, where
we saw Brad Pitt. …no, I’m not kidding,
he was doing a promotion for his new movie, so yea we chatted, made out a bit,
no big deal. Haha yea right. We also got to see the tomb of Napoleon, which
as you might imagine was exceedingly huge and ornate. It looked like a small RV rather than a tomb;
apparently, there are about 6 coffins inside, but we’ve all heard about
Napoleon’s…you know…Napoleon Complex. At
that point, we were supposed to head back toward our place and stop at the
Musee Pompidou, but we were so spent, we decided to instead run home for our
naps, and then try to make it to the Pompidou that evening. We rested the next few hours, and actually
had a pretty rough time getting ourselves out of bed again. In the end, we rallied, and got to see the
Musee Pompidou, which, after the fact, we realize would have been a true shame
to miss. The Musee Pompidou was the
modern art mecca, including some incredibly weird/slightly
uncomfortable/supremely comical video exhibits.
We had two hours to see the all the exhibits, so we had to rush a bit,
but getting into the museum at 7pm was actually a great time to view everything
as the crowds had left ages earlier.
After the museum, we walked around our neighborhood before settling on a
lovely corner bistro, theater street seating and all, and had a great dinner of
scallops and duck. After dinner, we
walked to a smaller bistro closer to our apartment for chocolate mousse, a
bottle of red wine, and some good people watching, before returning to the
apartment for bed.
The next morning was Sunday, and we had arranged to meet
Sam’s family friends again to shop at the city market. The market actually had some pretty high end
items mixed with some knockoff items as well.
We meandered through the stalls for several hours, before I finally gave
up, realizing that walking through tables full of things I couldn’t buy, was in
fact a form of torture. After the
market, we went to a Swiss restaurant close by for fondue, cold meats, salad,
and wine, the cheese fondue sufficiently putting all of us into a pre-comatose
state. Sam and I could not stand the
thought of being super touristy and decided to return to the apartment a bit
early for our much-needed afternoon nap.
That evening, we met up with Josh, a friend of Bita’s (who had just
gotten married in Spain if you recall) from NYC that we knew. We organized to meet at his Airbnb down a few
blocks from us, where we had some wine and snacks before heading out. Josh had a few places he had researched, so
we spent the night scouring the city for a bit of an underground scene, including
one place accessed through the fridge of a restaurant. Needless to say, that night ended a bit late.
Monday was a bit of a lazy day. We laid around eating and resting, and I used
the day to finalize some plans for later on my travels. The big event of the day was dinner; we went
to a restaurant called Le Suffle and had an entire dinner of suffles. Sam had a froi gras suffle with mushrooms and
I had a chicken and cheese suffle with a creamy chicken sauce. The second course I had fish and veggies
while Sam had another delicious suffle and dessert was a banana suffle with
Nutella sauce. Holy suffle it was all
delicious!Tuesday was my last day in France; I flew out in the evening and Sam the next morning, so we didn’t want to waste the day waiting. I mostly packed the night before so we were able to wake up early and quickly get ourselves ready. That day we planned on spending at Versailles! We hopped on the train out of the city, and got to Versailles just after the gates opened, with a huge line already formed, which only got bigger and bigger as we waited. We got audio guides, which were great; I always enjoy knowing little details about what I’m looking at. The whole palace was really impressive, with goldleaf, rococo decorative styles, frescos, and basically elaborate everything. The curtains matched the furniture upholstery, matched the bed covers, matched the dining ware; apparently, twice a year everything was changed to reflect either the winter season or spring. The only issue we had was all the tourists. Apparently, Mondays are the most popular days to visit, and occasionally it was like Rumble in Versailles to get from room to room. We walked through the gardens and to ??????????????????????? and over to Marie Antoinette’s private chalet and farm, strikingly contrary to what you might imagine and the rest of Versailles. After about five hours of walking around, we made our way back to the train station to get me ready for the airport. That was sort of when things started to go sideways for me. The station we needed had shut down train access, apparently due to a tree that had fallen in to the tracks, so, not to worry, we had plenty of time, we walked to a different station a bit away, along with a mass of other tourists. There, we waited for ages with delayed and cancelled trains before finally being able to board a train for Paris. Getting back to the apartment at that point was fine. I packed up the last few things I had and said my sad goodbyes to Sam. We were lucky that we got to spend so much together. I walked out to the subway…at 5pm. Once I got to the station with my huge bag, I had to miss two trains because they were so jam packed. Finally, I could squeeze onto the third train, apologizing as I knocked people around with my bag, but desperate to get on. I was supposed to transfer to another train, but at my transfer point, I realized I had wasted too much time initially waiting for a train and was really cutting my time thin. I ran out, caught a cab and easily made it to the bus station. The buses for the airport left every so often, so I ended up leaving the bus depot a bit later than I had hoped, but still optimistic…until we hit traffic. The one hour bus ride took over two hours to get us to the airport. When we finally unloaded, people grabbed their bags and started hauling A to the check-in counters. I arrived at the airport for my international flight 20 minutes before the plane was departing. By some miracle of God, and the fact that the bus carried several people on the same plane, we all made it through and onto the flight, and only left 10 minutes later than scheduled. Hallelujah!!! I never thought that I would make that flight. Huge sigh of relief.
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