Lost and Found

I got lost in the Marais (3/4th arrondissement). The plan for the day was to go to the Conciergerie (the museum where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned before they cut off her head), Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Center, Picasso Museum and the Carnavalet Museum and if I had time I really wanted to to go the Louvre at night. Well, the day started of splendidly. I once again took the Metro to St. Michel (it's the name of the bridge near the metro stop that allows you to get to the Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame is located) and had no problem with the doors this time. As usual I was way early for the musuem and I wandered around a bit trying to find breakfast. Finally I decided to just enter a cafe that over looked the Plaza du Chatelet which was on the otherside of the island. Now mind you these island's are not that big. The cafe au lait with the croissant was wonderful, their coffee here is made so nice and strong and the croissant was light and flakey just like a well made croissant should be. I found the oldest clock in Paris which per the source I read beforehand has been marking time since 1370, sorry the picture is a bit blurry that rush of caffeine was starting to take effect on me. The clock is on the same building as the Concieregerie. Marie Antoinette's cell was small and a bit damp but it was intresting nonetheless. The same building also imprisoned the great French Revolutionary leader- Robespierre, he fortunately got to keep his head! Inside the building it was rather dark and one of the main halls they were doing some renovations so all I got were pictures of the small courtyard where they led Marie Antoinette to her last ride in Paris.

Then it was off to the Pompidou Center to see some Modern Art. Now my pass read that the museum opened at 10am but when I got there the lady at the door said eleven. Fortunately there is Stravinsky fountain and I remember this from a scene in "Sabrina" (the newer version with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond). It was right after Sabrina got sent to Paris to work for Vogue and they had one of the fasion photo shoot in front of the fountains. Pretty cool to see it up close and in person, jsut like the Mouth of Truth in Rome. Now the Pompidou Center is a fascinatin piece of architecture because it looks like a building inside out with all the metal and pipes showing instead of being hidden. I liked riding up the escalator it was pretty cool. Inside the museum I saw some rather intresting things and the question "what is art?" came to mind. They had videos, pictures, statues and all these funky things preserved in the musuem. Take a tiles for instance, now this was one of my favorite pieces inside there because to me it looks like the inside of a rubiks cube without the color so the red roses stood out against the white tiles. Then they had a recording of this guy who would make "music" from ordinary things like milk bottles, wind chimes, boxes, sticks etc. I got to sit on a piece of art while listening to that, they had these Persian looking rugs that were placed on couches and it was "art". So again I ask you what exactly is art? You can't just say it involves colors (because some of the best art are black and white), or that it involves sound, or that it is something made out of a particular element. Maybe I am asking the wrong question, what about "who decides what is art?" but then I digress. It was time for lunch because after all this thinking not to mention this rather intresting indpendent film I saw in the video room. Some Russian guy made it and it involved bricks, three sets of couple who kept doing the pose of the Vitruvian Man and a story about how the birds pushed the sky up high. Yeah I know doesn't make sense and I was lost most of the time but it was fascinating!

Lunch was when I got lost. I read my map before I left the Museum of Modern Art and thought I knew my way to get to Picasso's Musuem. I figured for lunch I would just have a crepe nearby the musuem and a Perrier. Hahaha the best laid plans do go awry. I kept walking and walking hoping to find the streets that I needed but I didn't want to pull out my map in the open because that would just scream "tourist!!!" and being a solo female that is not a good thing. I found a park and a large building where there was some kind of leather market inside but not the street I wanted. So I decided to let my stomach guide me and it found this nice cafe out of the way where the waiter was what I could only imagine a classic French waiter should be (he was older, French and could flirt without saying a word. hahaha). Lunch was asparagus quiche with smoked salmon on top, Perrier and for dessert un cafe (or if we were in Italy and expresso). Isn't it beautiful? That little cup held more power for the rest of my day but I didn't know I would need all that caffeine rush then. And who knew that asparagus could taste so delicous with salmon, there was just a nice mixture of flavors with the saltiness of the salmon complementing the lightness of the eggs and asparagus.

While I had my lunch I pulled out my map and found that I had gone several blocks north of where I needed to be. Man I've walked around so much that even though my legs may scream in pain I've gotten used to ignoring it and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. The Picasso Musuem is located inside a nice mansion but when you walk around inside you find stairways that don't match with the time peroid in which the house was built. I felt like I was moving inside PIcasso's painting. There was sloping ceilings, steps located covertly around that just made you want to walk down them to find out what is around the corner and rooms that had curved walls. Marvelous the way they did that museum! After Picasso it was off to the Carnavalet Museum where I got lost again. This musuem is housed in a large place, there was art work everywhere from different centuries with different King Louis and had the furniture from each decade or century. Man was my head spinning! I needed out and quick! I decided to walk back to the Louvre and on the way I saw a familiar green sign. When people say Starbuck is everywhere, they really weren't lying I passed two of them between the Marais and Louvre. Now I'm going to be a groumand snob and not drink any Starbucks while I am here in Paris, I mean the French have their own way of making coffee delicious why not go with the locals. Also I am going to stick to my promis and not visit McDonalds either...I might visit the French version of fast food like I did in the Philippines with Jolliebee but I shall not step a foot inside the golden arches while I am here.

Since I was still early arriving at the Louvre (I wanted to go in when they had the lights on in the Pyramids) I figure I would try a French specialty-crepes. There is a vendor on Rue Rivioli that I found and got the Jambon crepe along with a Perrier which made dinner for the day. Then I found a bench between the Louvre and Jardin des Tuileries where I sat and people watched while eating my dinner. The cold wind got to me though and I entered the Louvre before the lights went on in the pyramid. This time I went into the Richelieu wing and saw the Asie exhibits along with the Scandanavian paintings. This wing was not as croweded as the Denon wing where the "top 3: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged victory" are located and this wing even had a indoor statue garden. Seeing some of the archelogical finds from ancient Mesopotamia up close was almost as good as being in Egypt, almost but not quite. They had various hieroglyphics exhibited where you can get up close and really see the intricate design made by people thousands of years before you even came into existence. Man this is one of the reasons why I travel...to not just read something in a book and belive that it actually exist but to actually get up close and personal enough to see it. When I finally left the Louvre it was dark and I couldn't find a taxi anywhere, they were not near the designated taxi stands so I walked from the Louvre all the way back to my hotel. I wish I could tell you how many steps that was but my pedometer that I took doesn't work and so I ditched it, but my aching feet will tell you it was more than enough and they deserve a pedicure when I get back home. LOL

Seeing and hearing the ARTs

This morning when I was headed toward the metro I saw a wonderous sight. The Eiffel Tower compassed by clouds so you couldn't see the top. There were plenty of people jogging around the Parc du Champ de Mars. Could you blame them? I mean if I had this thing around the corner and could see it change with the seasons I would be tempted to get up everyday and jog around. The metro was not bad, I've been intimidated about taking the metro before I came here. If you were a suburban girl who uses a car to get around everywhere, wouldn't you be a bit afraid of sitting in something that goes underground? Especially with all those bombings and such that have been on the news lately, they all helped to fuel fire to my fears. Fortunately I survived and a nice lady even pushed the door button when, of course, the door nearest to me wouldn't open at the stop I needed to get out. Can you say tourist? I felt like I had that stamped in bold letters on my forehead, but that moment passed and I followed the people out of the underground. My first stop was the Musee d'Orsay where plenty of Impressionist works of art are displayed. The building itself used to be an old train museum so there was plenty of space. I had downloaded Rick Steves' Orsay Museum audio guide which helped to give me direction so I wasn't wandering aimlessly around just looking without purpose. There is this tower looking place on the otherside of the large clock inside the building where you can climb up to get a good view of the whole thing, but my hands were shaky and I really couldn't get a clear picture. (I think it was that cafe au lait I had before going in the museum, three lumps of sugar with coffee could do that to a system I suppose =) There was this one room at the 5th floor where you can look out through the backwards clock (this one you could see correctly outside the museum) and get a glimpse of Sacre Coeur. Now the thing I like about the Orsay is that it mostly focuses on the Impressionist and I really like the way they use light in their works. I'm sure you've all heard of some of these Impressionist i.e. Claude Monet, Van Goh, Renoir and Degas but today I found a few more less well known artist who's works I like. They are Henri Edmond Corss, George Lemmen, William Degouve de Nuncques and Austide Maillol. Now most of these men that I have just mentioned do pointillism, but if you see the picutres most of you science people will say "hey that looks like stippling" and it does in some sorts. Now I tried to take a picture of what one of these paintings look like but it won't do justice to the real thing. I have postcards of it but I'll have to scan it in later when I get home.

One of the surprises in the Orsay was this very ornate ballroom they had. You don't expect a ballroom in an old train station but there it was. Various sculptures were placed around the room, the ceilings were painted and as you can see gold is everywhere in the room. Here is a one-arm picture of me in the room, there was no one around who I could ask to take my picture.



After the Orsay, I walked along the Pont Des Arts which has a great view of the tip (where there is a park) of Ile de la Cite. Sometimes they have exhibitions of artwork on this bridge hence the name but today it was just a nice place to rest and get a view of some of the bridges of Paris.


The Louvre was nearby and I figured it's time to pay hommage to another famous Parisan-La Jaconde or as we know her the Mona Lisa. Now I was a good, rule obeying person and so I didn't try to sneak in a picture of her like some other tourist who then had the guard go up to them and try to take their camera away. Honestly! Can't people learn how to obey instructions? LOL Now I'm sure after watching the Da Vinci Code most of you have heard that her eyes follow you. So I tried it and it's true! The way Da Vinci painted her does give you that feeling. Also I was good and didn't ignore the other works of art in the room, why just across from La Jaconde was a very large painting by Paolo Veronese about the first miracle Jesus performed. Again I used Rick Steves Louvre Tour on my iPod and I must say it was very helpful and cheap. It's free and you don't have to pay the 5euro that is the average cost for most audioguides. After my tour on the iPod was done I figured I'd use up more time before dinner to wander around the Egyptian wing. I only got a picture of a replica of the Sphinx before my thirst overwhelmed me and the crowds of school age children stiffled me so I had to get out for some fresh air. Body odor is not a pleasant smell anywhere!

Now for those of you who are curious I had lunch at a cafe in the Deono wing of the Louvre. By the time I left the Orsay that croissant and cafe au lait I had for breakfast was long gone and my stomach was protesting. What did I have? Beats me it was the dish of the day and the waiteress told me twice in French (I may have been joking about my brown skin camouflaging me being an American but it's true! People just keep sprouting off to me in French even though I tell them I don't speak French that well but English they just continue on in French.). I had ordered a classic meal which came with an entree, main dish and desert. The entree was a croque monsieur, which is a nice French way of saying a toasted ham and cheese sandwhich, now I did as the locals and ate that thing with my fork and knife. Go ahead and laugh now, I know most of you want to! I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of it, that tells you just how hungry I was. I did take a picture of my plat du jour, which was a roasted pork and al dente pasta. It was delicious! There was some kind of berry gravey on top of the meat and so the sweetness it was a nice surprise. Now I guess I didn't communicate very well in French to the waitress so when I was trying to order a Perrier, I ended up getting the check! She was nice enough to not include the desert that I was supposed to get to the bill, so I wasn't upset about it.

After all the crowds at the Louvre I decided to go to an underappreciated museum that was covered by my pass, the Musee de la Monie. Yup a money museum, before the whole European Union thing I used to collect coins from different countries that my dad or other relatives would visit. I must say it was nice having a museum all to one's self. This musuem is still a nice side trip and it's not that far from the Ponts des Arts. They show you how money was made years ago and then there is also an exhibition of the current currency around the world today. I can definitely say that this is a hidden gem among all of the museums in Paris.

Then since the Ile de la Cite was nearby I figured why not head to another famous Paris landmark...Notre Dame. Wow! Inside they had some kind of choir practice going on and I took a seat to listen. Words cannot describe the feeling of being in that church and hearing these wonderful voices singing. I got more goosebumps here than I did when I saw the Mona Lisa earlier. It was wonderful, like Hallelujah Chorus wonderful but it was in French and the conductor kept stopping them to correct them. But when they sang a whole song through...amazing! Anyways by that time my feet were screaming "I want a pedicure! Stop walking! Put us up so blood can circulate!" so I headed back to my hotel. I left Ile de la Cite and tried to find a taxi stand, along the way I ran into an Igloo. Yup there is an Igloo in Paris, I guess this is one of the places where they have an open ice rink but it wasn't open yet. Bob I just want you to know that I am keeping my promise about not taking the metro at night but tonight I was sooo tempted to break it because it took me almost 30min before I could flagg down an available tax, they were not hanging around the stands marked "taxi" for some reason!