Two Weeks In!

Paris

Today marks 2 weeks into my 12 week trip and the time is flying by!  Every day is full of walking, learning, eating new foods, making decisions with limited information (sometimes good outcomes, sometimes not so good), and having a few drinks or with some old friends.  Keeping up to date with my travel journal is my main source of tracking my adventures and I have decided to update my blog at the end of a city so that I can include pictures which take a bit more time to transfer.  This edition features involves my trip to Paris, France.

Thursday (July 5^th):  With Tom off to work for the day, I was assigned to visit the main museums which he had visited numerous times over the ye­ars .  After a quick bite to eat (a baget of course), I was able to find the METRO just around the corner and purchased a few tickets.  I took the METRO to the Louvre where I saw Nike of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, and of course the Mona Lisa.  The Mona Lisa was smaller than I thought (well I mean it was smaller than it is in the movies) and there were many tourists so I quickly left after fighting my way to the front to snag a picture.  At the end of my stay at the Louvre, I determined that the glass pyramid at the start sets a fair expectation of the uniqueness and beauty that can be found in the museum.

Notre Dame

The Louvre on my First Day

The  Louvre 

After the Louvre, I went to Musee National de l’Orangerie des Tuileries which is an impressionist gallery in the Tuileries gardens outside of the Louvre.  It was here where Monet’s Nympheas can be seen.  Nympheas is a huge painting of a pond all along the circular walls (~30 feet long) and I have been told can be seen in the movie Midnight to Paris.  After Musee de l’Orangerie, I was off to the Musee d’Orsay which is one of my favorite art museums so far.  In d’Orsay, I saw paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, Pissarro, Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Seurat.  Seurat and Van Gogh were my favorite because of the bright colors with the attention to details (using small dots to paint a picture) which helped me visualize a familiar scene but with a different perspective by using untraditional color combinations that make the scene look more lively.

Friday (July 6^th): Tom was able to take a day off of work so he conducted a walking tour of the main sites in Paris.  Tom is somewhat of a history buff and was able to explain the overall themes with times, dates, and reasons for specific buildings that we came across.  On this walk, we walked to Motel de Ville (Paris’ City Hall), Notre Dame (didn’t walk up on this visit), Saint Chapel, Louvre, Palles Royal (Tom’s favorite place in Paris, a small garden just outside of the Louvre), Place de la Concode (the Egyptian monument  which was NOT stolen from Egypt, Tom was proud of that point), Petit Palais & Grand Palais (Small and Big Palaces, now museums), Bridge Alexandre 3^rd les invalids (we saw a Russian model doing a photo shoot at the end) and then had lunch along the river.  After lunch we walked to the Eiffel Tower and walked up to the top where we befriended two Australian girls.  On our way down, it started to rain quite hard (hail) so we escaped to the café/bar halfway down where we talked and enjoyed a nice glass of wine amongst the four of us.

Eiffel Tower

After the rain stopped, we walked back down to the ground and made our way up Montaigne Ave (a street that has a lot of very nice, high end stores) where Tom made me stop and wait ~5min to go into the Abercrombie and Fitch store which just opened.  Although I gave Tom a lot of crap about stopping here, I must say that the store was THE nicest A&F store I’ve ever been in however all of the cologne made me a little sick towards the end.  On our way back, we picked up some macroons from Laduree (founded in 1862) and enjoyed them by the Triumphal arch (Victory Arch).  It was a long and exhausting day, and although I did want to go out and have a night on the town, Tom and I ended up watching a movie (21 grams) and fell asleep shortly afterwards.

Laduree Macroons

Triumphal arch

Saturday (July 7^th):  ­­­­­As if Friday wasn’t enough walking, Tom took me out again for a walking tour of the city.  We started at Muse du Luxembough and Palis du Luxembough (where the French Senate meets and a nice little garden outside) and then headed off to see the Patheon where a lot of famous French citizens have been buried.  We then walked through the Latin quarter where I saw a Hummer with a Florida license plates.  Tom was just as surprised as I was because he was under the impression that Hummers were banned within the City Limits and I was surprised because who ships over their Hummer from Florida?!  We then headed back to the Luxembough garden for a nice lunch and continued our ongoing political debate (I love talking about politics) and I was able to learn a little bit more on how the European Union works.

Top of Notre Dame

After lunch, we were walking up to meet up with some of Tom’s friends when we passed by an American band playing the USA’s national anthem.  We stopped to listen but it started to rain so we quickly took cover under a tree and listened to the band some more.  Then out of the blue, I see this girl walking towards us saying “Jay, is that you?”  I immediately recognized an old middle school friend, Claire McKennley.  I would have loved to catch up with her at that moment however it was raining so hard I told her I would give her a facebook message to try and meet up late.

Tom and I ran to a coffee shop to dry and avoid the downpour.  Once it stopped raining, we meet up with Tom’s friends and we decided to walk around and then ended up at Notre Dame again.  Brad’s flight wasn’t coming in until 4:00pm and nobody in the group had been to the top before so we all decide to wait in line and go up.  After a quick run up, we go back to Tom’s Uncle’s apartment to meet up with Brad.  Once we got him settled in the apartment, we set off to Bastille for drinks and Globo for a night out on the town.  After a long night of dancing and standing in the rain for ~20min trying to catch a cab, we decided to walk home in the rain and reward ourselves with a McDonalds run at 5:30am before going to sleep at 6:30am.  A good time with great friends.

Tom Welcoming Brad

Sunday (July 8^th): After a late night, we finally left the apartment at 2:00pm and went straight to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur (a white church at the top of a hill that overlooks the city) and walked around a bit into Montmartre and Pigalle where we saw Le Moulin Rouge and other various sex shops in the surrounding are.   We hopped on the METRO and went to Opera de Paris (Napoleon’s Opera house) where I meet up with my friend Claire McKinney.  For the next hour or so, the four of us (Tom, Brad, Claire, and myself) walked around the Louvre and the park while Claire and I caught up.  Claire was meeting a friend at the newly opened first Paris Chipotle so we said our goodbyes and the three of us made our way to Bouillon Chartier for a peruvien dinner.  At the end of the dinner, we were heading out  and I mistakenly ended up going into the “Dames” restroom thinking it was “Mens.”  Turns out that was an incorrect decision and the woman waiting outside was very surprised, I laughed and simply moved on.  Makes me laugh just typing that story out.

Basilique du Sacre-Coeur 

Le Moulin Rouge 

Claire and I at the Opera de Paris 

After dinner, Brad had never been to the top of the Eiffel tower so we headed to see it at night and walked up to the top.  Apparently, every hour there is a lighting display on the tower where all of these blinking lights go on and off every second for about 5 minutes.  We were able to see this show from the base as well as from the top.  Of course the view at the top was amazing and well worth the 2:00am arrival back at the apartment with a 10:00am train departure to Bayeux.

Eiffel tower at Night 

My next blog entry will include my adventures with Brad in Bayeux where we saw Le Mont-Saint-Michel (via a last minute car rental, with me driving), Tapisserie de Bayeux, and of course a half day visit to the D-Day beaches of Normandy.  Lots of baguets, wine, and good times!

Jay