May 31, 2005
All shagged out
Monday, May 31, 2005
Did my longest walk so far this morning, all the way from Mouffetard to the Champs de Mars with some winding and swerving along the way. I got a nice little ham and cheese croissant near Mouffetard and about an hour and a half later stopped by a bulangerie for a small strawberry torte. I quickly found a nice park to sit in (not hard to do in Paris) and rested while I enjoyed my torte. Heavenly.
It took a good many hours and I was tired as hell by the time I got to the Eiffel tower. I doubted my plan to climb the Eiffel tower by stair then saw how long the line for the elevators was (and how little time I had left) and decided the worst that would happen would be pain the next morning. €3.8 and five minutes later I was out of breath and my knees were taking hostages as I stood about half way up, but a wee rest and some water fixed most of what ailed me and I continued on my journey. The most memorable part of climbing the Eiffel Tower is the panoramic view of all of Paris, the most interesting part was probably the informational tidbits posted about every fourth landing along the way.
I was a touch late for lunch with Dad and Himelda, which was at a Crêperie on Mouffetard. We went back home afterward for a bit of a rest and then Dad and Himelda went to a local theater to see live Latin music by a band that called themselves 'La Tina'. I was very tired and deiced to stay home instead of going out for the music, something I later regretted.
May 30, 2005
From old to oldest
Monday, May 30, 2005 10:23PM
In a good resaurant in Paris
Spent the morning at home reading The Darth Side and writing blog entries for the last few days. I then went on another of my exploratory walks this time taking Mouffetard all the way down to the river then winding my way around the little alleys and back streets that are between St. Germain and the river back to Eurocentre. For lunch dad, Himelda and I went to an interesting restaurant called Le Procope which is advertised as being the oldest standing restaurant in the world. I am not sure if I believe this claim (it was established in 1868) but I did enjoy their richly decorated rooms and had a tasty quarter chicken with onions and potatoes as well as a very finely made Crème Brule.
Himelda left dad and I and we went to the chapel of Saint Chapelle. Saint Chapelle is one of the more interesting buildings in Paris as well as one of the oldest. It was built by Louis IX in 1242 to house holy relics and has seen many changes, especially during the revolution when it was raided and parts destroyed. The ceilings of both the lower and upper chapel are both enchanting, it really does feel like a sky beneath the sky. I kept wanting to photograph the place but knew my pictures would only begin to give an idea of the charm of the place. I more so wanted to make a QuickTime VR movie of it but that would have required a tripod, emptying out the place and a bit more knowledge than I have.
We had dinner with a couple that are trading their apartment in Montmartre for dad and Himelda’s apartment in New York next week. They are both young and interesting professionals, he is an air traffic controller directing traffic on approach to inner France and she is a business lawyer. I was very glad for the shared dinner but it left me feeling a bit melancholy as I realized these are the only Parisians with whom I have had an actual conversation. It seems altogether too silly go travel to another country and not interact with the locals but it is not obvious how to make contact when you are shy like I am. The dinner was at a little Polish restaurant with good food and very slow service. My favorite part of the place was the young girl taking music lessons who sang in the room next door as our waiter played a balalaika. [insert Parisian accent here] Charming darling... charming.
May 29, 2005
Tito goes Bananas
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Meanwhile, in France...
Went out this morning with Dad and Himelda looking for a Brunch (pronounced in French Broonch) along Mouffetard. To find a hearty breakfast in France it seems you have to go to the restaurants that cater purely to tourists. Every place we went to was either not serving food (they stoop between breakfast or lunch) or had wee breakfasts of coffee and some small pastry. We settled on a place that looked more like a drinks bar on a nice plaza and Dad and Himelda ordered off the menu. I asked for a Café Au Lait then sneaked off to a Creperie around the corner for a delicious and filling Crepe with Nutella and Banana.
After our late breakfast we went down to the Opéra Garnier for a matinee performance of La Clémence De Titus. Wow, what a performance, it moved me. Lets begin by describing the Opéra Garnier. The building is huge and gorgeous, constructed with a luxurious style and maintained through the years. The anteroom was a show by itself. As soon as I saw pictures of the scenario in the program I feared a recurrence of what is hands down the worst opera I have seen in my life. This was about ten years ago at Seattle Opera, I forget what the title was (I try to forget the experience but cant) but it was a minimalist set, all white with a huge neon cross above a set of chairs. All the characters sat at the chairs from the very beginning and would stand to sing their part then sit back down and stare stoically at the audience until their turn to sing came up again. Awful, painful, boring, utterly uninteresting. Tito opened up to reveal a similar looking scenario, a white room with plastic shields going up about 3 meters all around and neon illumination. It looked like an over-lit basketball court. But then the actors came out and the singing began, and oh my, what glorious song it was. I was particularly blown away by Susan Graham who sang the lead part of Sesto and by Catherine Naglestad who backed her up as Vitellia. They both had power, control and best of all could convey real feeling through their acting and their song. There is a scene where Vitellia is toying with Sesto’s affection and you can see and hear Sesto’s heart break on stage. It was simply magnificent.
May 28, 2005
Versailles aux chocolat
Saturday, May 28, 2005 8:37 PM
Woke up this morning and decided to run downstairs for a chocolate and banana crepe rather than have breakfast at home. It was delicious. After breakfast we took a train out to Versailles. The castle at Versailles was overflowing with tourists but was well worth the visit. If you should ever go there I highly recommend paying the extra money for the guided tour. Paying extra to enter the gardens seemed a bit much (plus we had been walking around for five hours) so we gave it a skip. I had another crepe for lunch this time one with ham, cheese and mushrooms and a rather delicious apple cider. On the way back we got off the train at La Defense and after a half an hour of watching the buildings took a bus back.
A detail that can get a bit annoying at times is the difference in walking speeds. My dad walks; he can walk briskly or slowly but generally keeps up just fine. When alone I take long and fast strides, easily moving much more quickly than other people on the street. Himelda however likes to amble. She moves with slow diligence and hardly ever paying any attention to anyone around her, often blocking the way for other people. It is a detail that is for the most part easy to ignore, however on days with long walks it can be a bit trying.
By now I know most of the local advertisements by heart. They are mostly the same you would see in any large US city but (of course) in French. One item that has been amusing me is that with the vote to ratify or deny the European Union constitution tomorrow, ads everywhere have had ‘OUI!’ or ‘NON!’ stickers or word balloons added to them so that by now I have seen many times a cute kitten and a puppy (that are advertising pet food I think) vehemently state they are either for or against the referendum, sometimes both in the same poster. I don’t know why but this amuses me greatly.
May 27, 2005
Down, Up, Down
Friday, May 27, 2005 11:45 PM
Paris, France
Got up this morning thinking I would walk over to the Tour Eiffel but ended up spending most of the morning trying to debug why GeekRoar.com went down (as I write this it is still down, and since I am not at home I don’t know if the server died or what is going on). After I gave up (there is only so much you can do remote) I walked over to the Jardin du Luxembourg where I spent some time ambling then down to the Place de St. Sulspice and to the Rue de l’Université.
Lunch was at Vins et Terroirs an awesome little restaurant (the best yet in Paris) on Rue St. André des Arts near Boulevard st. Germain and Boulevard st. Michel. I had a beef stew in a red wine sauce. We shared lunch with Clara, a language teacher from Vashon Island in Seattle. I liked Clara a great deal and envy her traveling from country to country and learning languages.
After lunch (and our post-lunch nap of course) we went to a theater to watch The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004), not a very good movie but oddly appropriate to the history/museum lifestyle. We went from the theater to the Place d’Italy, which was a curios experience since I had been through the plaza many times but always underground via Metro tunnels. We did a bit of shopping then took a bus to Basilique du Sacré-Coeur atop Montmartre. Montmartre is the party part of town where the Moulin Rouge is located and people walk around wearing very little. The steps in front of the church had a lot of people having fun and two locals playing guitars and leading the tourists in big group songs. After the church we had dinner at one of the local restaurants ‘Ma Cuisine’ where I had my first bad meal in Paris. The food was not terribly bad but the service left something to be desired and sitting next to the bar I could not believe my eyes when I saw the bartender pour un-drunk wine from a glass back into the bottle. We also got another example of snotty Parisian attitude, this time from a taxi driver who refused to drive us up to Montmartre because he figured the distance was too short (we got a ride from another cab driver, this time a non-Parisian and I can assure you the distance was far from short).
May 26, 2005
Les Delices D'aphrodite
Thursday, May 26, 2005, 7:00 PM
Dad and Himelda met me by the Louvre Pyramid and we had lunch at a very nice nearby restaurant. Afterward Himelda went to an appointment while dad and I spent the evening at the Musée d’Orsay. Orsay is a huge train station that had been abandoned, then renovated and turned into a modern art museum. The building is gorgeous with a well-integrated mix of classic and modern architecture. I mostly enjoyed the Art Nouveau furniture and the sculpture though it was great to spend time in the building itself.
Dinner tonight was at a very good local Greek Restaurant. I don’t have a lot to say about the place other than it is close to the apartment the food is good and it has an absolutely wonderful name:Les Delices D'aphrodite
Love the Louvre
Thursday, May 26, 2005 1:22PM
Louvre, Paris
I am sitting in the central patio outside the Louvre, got to love a fast and light laptop. I walked down this morning and spent a good three hours in the museum, starting with the Greek and Roman sculpture rooms and then onto the Ecole du Nord. The Louvre is huge and gets a bit tyring after a while but the Danish works are so beautiful and detailed it is easy to get lost in those rooms. I made a quick pass through the wing for the Italian masters but that was so stuffed with tourists (specially the room with the Mona Lisa) that I was not inclined to spend much time there.
Walks and Opera
Wednesday, May 25, 2005, 1:00AM
Paris, France
Had a nice long walk around Paris this morning starting with an exploration of the neighborhood where I am staying. There is a pedestrian road, the Rue de Moufetard that I can take from the Rue Monge to the river and has restaurants and shops along the way. I have noticed a lot, and I mean a LOT of comic book/comic figurine shops in the Latin Quarter. I am not sure if this is because of the colleges nearby and what ages they are marketing to, but they are everywhere. I also found a bookstore of all movie related books.
After lunch Himelda went home and dad and I went to the Musée de l’Armée at the old Military Hospital. The museum has armor, weapons and uniforms from the early Middle Ages to WWII. They went a bit over board with the amount of items on display. After the third huge hall full of mannequins in original uniforms I realized each hall only covered about 20 years, at this rate it would take hours to get through a century. I am sorry though that the WWI exhibit was closed for renovation, I have heard it had some great items. I was reminded of my last trip to Europe where we would find dozens of suits of armor sitting around in small town museums and churches, then went to the Museum in New York where they make a huge deal out of the eight or so suits they have.
The evening was spent at a performance of Boris Godunov at the Opéra National de Paris. The Opera was pretty good with beautiful music and impressive staging and costumes. It was however hard to sit through. I love Opera, but quite honestly it can be pretty boring. Now imagine an Opera that is almost four hours long, made up mostly of tortured Russian historical personages lamenting their fates (including a twenty minute death by Boris) in Russian with French subtitles. After dinner at an outdoor café near the Opera we went home.
Cops and Bridges
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Ile de la Cite
This morning I took a long walk that took me to the Isle de la Cite via Point Neuf. On the way I walked by the Palais de Justice where a group of demonstrators were getting ready to protest the weekend vote to accept or reject the new European Union constitution. The street was surrounded by cops in riot gear, there were two buses full of more cops standing by around the next street ready to run in and crack heads. Another group of cops had the very next street closed as there was someone ready to jump off the bridge, as a demonstrator or suicide? I am not sure. The man was talked back while I was there and one of the cops ready to jump in after him took a dive off the bridge and into the river to get back to this boat.
Had lunch close to eurocentres (where dad and Himelda are studying French) at a beautiful bistro between the Rue de la Seine and Rue Mazarine. I had a delicious Filet de Beuf aux Sauce Béarnaise with wine.
After lunch Himelda, Dad and I went to the église Saint-Sulpice where we saw the original French meridian (before it was decided to set the official meridian in Greenwich). The church is one of these gorgeous old world churches with huge arching ceilings and stained glass windows... very nice indeed.
By this point in the trip I am getting pretty good at a game I like to call ‘stop the tourist’. The point of the game is not telling who is a tourist (that is pretty easy) but rather trying to figure out the nationality of different tourists. Americans, Japanese, Chinese and Germans are generally very easy to spot. I am learning how to tell Brits and Spaniards, not sure what the specific gives are yet but there is something about the way the Brits dress that gives them away and Spaniards carry themselves and in general walk in packs that are somehow unique. I still cannot tell the difference between Finns, Danes and other scandahoovians, often not even after hearing them speak (usually a dead give-away).
May 24, 2005
Settled in Paris
Tuesday, May 24, 2005, 10:00AM
Paris, France
Got into Paris yesterday morning. I tried to get lost a few times on my way into town but never quite managed it. The train ride from the airport into town was a great chance to sit down and look at the Parisian countryside. The car I was in had two kids playing accordion for coin, they were both very good and I was inclined to give to the cause but was only carrying Euro bills. I ran into Himelda on the metro (subway) car close to the apartment. She was quite shocked to run into me like that, I told her you run into all kinds of people on the Paris subway and should not be terribly surprised to find odd and strange people there.
The apartment is classical Parisian style in the middle of the Latin Quarter (near Notre Dame), a very good location for getting around town and in a neighborhood with a lot of nearby restaurants. Lunch was at a little Italian joint where I had a delicious lasagna with noticeably fresh ingredients. After lunch we picked up Opera tickets at La Bastille and then at the Opéra Garnier. We took a minute at a restaurant across from Garnier (Himelda claims it is the most expensive restaurant in Paris, I don’t know about that but I do know it was badly over-priced) to sit down for a glass of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice then went for a walk along the Place de la Concorde. By the time we got back that evening I was utterly confused about what time and for that matter what day it was (that is what you get for changing time zones with no sleep along the way).
On the way out we stopped by a Metro office to get me a one-week pass. The guy in the booth was serving people fine but threw a major fit when he say the US dollars in my wallet and refused to help us. I was wondering how long it would take until the snooty attitude came out; the answer seems to be about four hours.
I am surprised how much of my high-school French I remember. I can make out most the written French, understand about half of what is being said and bumble my way through simple questions. People kept telling me that most Parisians speak English but so I haven’t seen that, though this could be because we are starting the conversations in French. My dad’s French is quite a bit better than mine and Himelda’s is quite a bit better than either of ours.
May 22, 2005
Destination: Paris
Sunday, May 22, 2005, 10:36 AM
Portland International Airport
Once again I am traveling, which means that once again it is time to keep a travel log. This time the destination is Paris, France. I am quite excited, as I haven’t been to Europe since 1991 and not to Paris since 81 or so. Even with all the trip planning and preparations it didn’t really sink in that I would be gone until last night. Funny thing is that what made me the happiest was not thinking about being in France (maybe that has yet to sink in) but realizing I would not have to report to work for two weeks... hmm may be that says something about my work.
I am at the airport way early... as I usually am (the flight won’t board for another two hours and wont leave until another half hour after that). Having traveled through many airports in the USA and outside I am still impressed by how well Portland International is managed. To get to my gate I had to stand in zero lines (ok, a brief one at security but that took less than a minute), I have been talked to very respectfully and with helpfulness and best of all, as soon as I popped my laptop open at the gate it immediately found and joined a free Wi-Fi network. The network had me agree to a simple ‘I won’t do bad things’ usage agreement then offered me airport maps, departure and arrival info, and other airport info or on to the web. The arrival and departure info immediately let me know that the gate info I got was bogus and I needed to scoot down two gates. Unlike other airports around the USA (even new and newly remodeled ones to my surprise) there are many outlets around the waiting area. I love living the high tech life.
Briana rocks. Before leaving she gifted me with a little laminated pop up map of Paris (including a map of the subway), a pocket phrase book and a copy of Dispatches from the Tenth Circle: The Best of the Onion. I decided to leave the Onion book behind (it is kind of heavy) but both the phrase book and the pocket map are exactly what I wanted for my trip.
May 20, 2005
Bunny Suicides
A friend of mine in college drew cartoons that appeared in the college newspaper. One of her cartoons tickled me in all the right ways. I clipped the comic out of the paper and read it over and over with some odd childish glee. The cartoon was a simple three panel drawing with the following captions below each panel:
1. Happy hopping bunnies
2. Happy hopping bunnies in a field
3. Happy hopping bunnies in a mine field
Some psychiatrist would probably have something to say about why this little bit of macabre humor worked so well on me. I will refrain from comment except to say that today I stumbled upon a web page that tickled that same funny bone. Ladies and Gentlemen I present you with:
