Day 2
Ok day 2, here we go.
Well actually, lets start with last night. Weird stuff happened in the double bed that I am not too happy about. At some point in the night, I rolled over and put my arm around Michael. I woke up kinda slowly, then realized what I did and freaked out. I was like Michael, I’m sorry, move that way. He was like “huh? What?” I’m like MOVE. That was it. Uncomfortable.
Breakfast. Well the breakfast at the hotel cost 7 Euro. Screw that. Jennifer, Kacie, and Laura all brought bagels. Smart. The rest of us did not. So on our way to the tower, we stopped at a Brasserie along the way (I think it means bakery) and had some pastries. I was telling Michael about last night, which he apparently had no recollection of. I wonder what else will happen tonight.
Eiffel tower. Even though we were there last night, it was still amazing to look at from afar. It really never gets old.
Ok so weather in Paris. Before we left we looked up the forecast to figure out how we should pack. Overcast, windy, and rainy all week. Well that’s just great. It actually turned out to be great, but more on that later. So it’s windy and cold. I did not pack correctly. I have only t-shirts. So it’s a little cold, yeah.
We bought our tickets and took the elevator to the very top. This brought back old memories. I took a whole ton of pictures. I thought about back when Tim and I were there and we had the regular film cameras. So picture taking was greatly conserved. But not anymore. I took a LOT of pictures. We went up to the outside platform and it was so cold. From the top, we could see rain clouds dumping rain in various places and they were headed right for us. The rain hit us really hard. We went and hid on the face that was shielded from the rain and wind. It was more bearable. Eventually the rain stopped.
After a while, we headed back down and looked for a place to eat before the Musee’ De Orsay. But before we left the tower grounds, it started pouring again. We only had 3 umbrellas with us at the time and 8 people. Well, Lesley actually went to meet her friend in Paris for lunch, so 7 people, 3 umbrellas. For a while, we decided to wait it out. So We picked a nicely leaved tree and made a shell by combining our umbrellas. It was pretty effective. Michelle was in the middle and received the most shelter.
The rain wouldn’t let up, so we decided to brave the storm. We paired off under umbrellas, one with three. We walked passed restaurant after restaurant looking for a cheap place to eat. We settle on this little bakery. It turned out to be really affordable and delicious. Pretty much every bakery will make your usual pastries. But in addition to that, there are always pre-prepared sandwiches, paninis, pastas and pizzas. I had a pizza and a hot dog. Nice.
Musee’ De Orsay. It’s an old train station that had been renovated into a museum gallery. Walking into the museum, I got major Déjà vu and realized that I’ve been here before. Whoops. I’m not complaining at all or anything. I don’t mind seeing some of the same things again. Most I want to see again. The museum has various types of art: sculptures, photography, pottery, and paintings. The featured gallery is impressionist art. Big hitters: Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh. I don’t really know how to describe paintings in a way that I could convey how they looked without sounding somewhat presumptuous/gay. They looked nice. Jennifer really loves the Impressionism era, especially Monet, so she was having a great time. The rest of us did too. I think I recognized some of the paintings we have in our home in Austin, so I snapped a couple of pics of those.
We left at around 5:45 pm to go to the Louvre. Now I know what most of yall are thinking. Going to the Louvre at 6 pm? Yes. Here’s the reasons: 1. Not enough time to dedicate an entire day. 2. It’s cheaper later at night 3. less crowded and touristy.
So we went in through the grand pyramid in the middle. Oh, I’ve been here too, but I really looked forward to going again. Mainly because I’m more educated and cultured now, or I’d like to think so. Also I’m looking forward to seeing some exhibits I haven’t seen before and seeing my old pal again, Leo. Walking into the Louvre brought back so many memories. I recognized the inside the best. Not much has changed. I spotted the café that we ate at and the gift shopped where my mom almost got pickpocketed. This is a funny story. So my mom almost got her purse pick pocketed by this man but she caught the guy. She got really angry and her face turned red. Not just for a little bit, but for 2 days. Red. Funny. Ok moving on.
We split into pods and attacked the Louvre. I started at the ground level and worked my way up. I hit medieval Louvre, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Roman Greek, Roman Egypt, and Italian sculptures. There is simply just too much to see. Most of it I breezed passed, but I did stop at what I recognized to be famous. Like the Venus de Milo. Roman statue of Aphrodite.
Things I’ve noticed. There is still a lot of room left in the Louvre for much more stuff. Like especially in the lower levels. For the Venus De Milo, It was the long corridor with absolutely nothing but the statue at the end. Suspenseful buildup I suppose. Time was dwindling fast, so I headed over to grand gallery area with all the famous paintings. I had forgotten how amazing it was. It was interesting how much I could recognize from some of the classes I’ve taken, like classical mythology. Anyways so I saw pretty much all the paintings in the gallery, I won’t try to describe them. A favorite section of mine was right next to the grand gallery, an area called large font French paintings. They were absolutely breathtaking and enormous. I was trying to figure out if they painted them horizontally or vertically with a large ladder. Either way I didn’t really care.
The Mona Lisa. The most recognizable face on the planet. There weren’t that many people crowded around it when I went, so I could stand at the very front against the railing. I spent a good amount of time just staring at it. I don’t know, as cliché as it sounds, the painting is really entrancing. I’ve seen the painting before hundreds of times in my life before, but never like I did today. It’s amazing how much I noticed now that I never noticed before. Like how the horizon is off behind her and how there were trees and I think either a river or road in the background as well.
I don’t know anything about art, but I was also thinking about why it was so famous. It’s 15th century, which is pretty old and it was painted by one of the world’s most famous artists, Da Vinci. But then again, Da Vinci has painted so much. So why is the Mona Lisa so much more famous than Madonna of the Rocks or the Last Supper? Everyone knows that the woman Da Vinci painted in the Mona Lisa has a bit of a smirk n her face, which presents a bit of mystery to the painting. Subjects of paintings in the past usually are never smiling. Maybe that’s why it’s so famous?
Ok the Da Vinci code movie was wrong on many levels. I was just thinking about the scene in the beginning in the Grand Gallery and it’s nothing like the movie. I don’t know where they filmed the movie then. Imposters.
So I sped through as many paintings as I could until the museum closed at 9:45 pm and we had to leave. Time for dinner. We went to a nice Italian restaurant near our hotel. I had seafood risotto. We had a good time. By the time we get done, it’s well past midnight and we have an early start tomorrow, so we headed back and went to bed. So tomorrow the agenda is Versailles, Champs Elysees, the Sacre Cour, and time permitting, Notre Dame. Goodnight friends.
-James
Post Script
Is Paris the city of lights or city of love?
Ok day 2, here we go.
Well actually, lets start with last night. Weird stuff happened in the double bed that I am not too happy about. At some point in the night, I rolled over and put my arm around Michael. I woke up kinda slowly, then realized what I did and freaked out. I was like Michael, I’m sorry, move that way. He was like “huh? What?” I’m like MOVE. That was it. Uncomfortable.
Breakfast. Well the breakfast at the hotel cost 7 Euro. Screw that. Jennifer, Kacie, and Laura all brought bagels. Smart. The rest of us did not. So on our way to the tower, we stopped at a Brasserie along the way (I think it means bakery) and had some pastries. I was telling Michael about last night, which he apparently had no recollection of. I wonder what else will happen tonight.
Eiffel tower. Even though we were there last night, it was still amazing to look at from afar. It really never gets old.
Ok so weather in Paris. Before we left we looked up the forecast to figure out how we should pack. Overcast, windy, and rainy all week. Well that’s just great. It actually turned out to be great, but more on that later. So it’s windy and cold. I did not pack correctly. I have only t-shirts. So it’s a little cold, yeah.
We bought our tickets and took the elevator to the very top. This brought back old memories. I took a whole ton of pictures. I thought about back when Tim and I were there and we had the regular film cameras. So picture taking was greatly conserved. But not anymore. I took a LOT of pictures. We went up to the outside platform and it was so cold. From the top, we could see rain clouds dumping rain in various places and they were headed right for us. The rain hit us really hard. We went and hid on the face that was shielded from the rain and wind. It was more bearable. Eventually the rain stopped.
After a while, we headed back down and looked for a place to eat before the Musee’ De Orsay. But before we left the tower grounds, it started pouring again. We only had 3 umbrellas with us at the time and 8 people. Well, Lesley actually went to meet her friend in Paris for lunch, so 7 people, 3 umbrellas. For a while, we decided to wait it out. So We picked a nicely leaved tree and made a shell by combining our umbrellas. It was pretty effective. Michelle was in the middle and received the most shelter.
The rain wouldn’t let up, so we decided to brave the storm. We paired off under umbrellas, one with three. We walked passed restaurant after restaurant looking for a cheap place to eat. We settle on this little bakery. It turned out to be really affordable and delicious. Pretty much every bakery will make your usual pastries. But in addition to that, there are always pre-prepared sandwiches, paninis, pastas and pizzas. I had a pizza and a hot dog. Nice.
Musee’ De Orsay. It’s an old train station that had been renovated into a museum gallery. Walking into the museum, I got major Déjà vu and realized that I’ve been here before. Whoops. I’m not complaining at all or anything. I don’t mind seeing some of the same things again. Most I want to see again. The museum has various types of art: sculptures, photography, pottery, and paintings. The featured gallery is impressionist art. Big hitters: Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh. I don’t really know how to describe paintings in a way that I could convey how they looked without sounding somewhat presumptuous/gay. They looked nice. Jennifer really loves the Impressionism era, especially Monet, so she was having a great time. The rest of us did too. I think I recognized some of the paintings we have in our home in Austin, so I snapped a couple of pics of those.
We left at around 5:45 pm to go to the Louvre. Now I know what most of yall are thinking. Going to the Louvre at 6 pm? Yes. Here’s the reasons: 1. Not enough time to dedicate an entire day. 2. It’s cheaper later at night 3. less crowded and touristy.
So we went in through the grand pyramid in the middle. Oh, I’ve been here too, but I really looked forward to going again. Mainly because I’m more educated and cultured now, or I’d like to think so. Also I’m looking forward to seeing some exhibits I haven’t seen before and seeing my old pal again, Leo. Walking into the Louvre brought back so many memories. I recognized the inside the best. Not much has changed. I spotted the café that we ate at and the gift shopped where my mom almost got pickpocketed. This is a funny story. So my mom almost got her purse pick pocketed by this man but she caught the guy. She got really angry and her face turned red. Not just for a little bit, but for 2 days. Red. Funny. Ok moving on.
We split into pods and attacked the Louvre. I started at the ground level and worked my way up. I hit medieval Louvre, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Roman Greek, Roman Egypt, and Italian sculptures. There is simply just too much to see. Most of it I breezed passed, but I did stop at what I recognized to be famous. Like the Venus de Milo. Roman statue of Aphrodite.
Things I’ve noticed. There is still a lot of room left in the Louvre for much more stuff. Like especially in the lower levels. For the Venus De Milo, It was the long corridor with absolutely nothing but the statue at the end. Suspenseful buildup I suppose. Time was dwindling fast, so I headed over to grand gallery area with all the famous paintings. I had forgotten how amazing it was. It was interesting how much I could recognize from some of the classes I’ve taken, like classical mythology. Anyways so I saw pretty much all the paintings in the gallery, I won’t try to describe them. A favorite section of mine was right next to the grand gallery, an area called large font French paintings. They were absolutely breathtaking and enormous. I was trying to figure out if they painted them horizontally or vertically with a large ladder. Either way I didn’t really care.
The Mona Lisa. The most recognizable face on the planet. There weren’t that many people crowded around it when I went, so I could stand at the very front against the railing. I spent a good amount of time just staring at it. I don’t know, as cliché as it sounds, the painting is really entrancing. I’ve seen the painting before hundreds of times in my life before, but never like I did today. It’s amazing how much I noticed now that I never noticed before. Like how the horizon is off behind her and how there were trees and I think either a river or road in the background as well.
I don’t know anything about art, but I was also thinking about why it was so famous. It’s 15th century, which is pretty old and it was painted by one of the world’s most famous artists, Da Vinci. But then again, Da Vinci has painted so much. So why is the Mona Lisa so much more famous than Madonna of the Rocks or the Last Supper? Everyone knows that the woman Da Vinci painted in the Mona Lisa has a bit of a smirk n her face, which presents a bit of mystery to the painting. Subjects of paintings in the past usually are never smiling. Maybe that’s why it’s so famous?
Ok the Da Vinci code movie was wrong on many levels. I was just thinking about the scene in the beginning in the Grand Gallery and it’s nothing like the movie. I don’t know where they filmed the movie then. Imposters.
So I sped through as many paintings as I could until the museum closed at 9:45 pm and we had to leave. Time for dinner. We went to a nice Italian restaurant near our hotel. I had seafood risotto. We had a good time. By the time we get done, it’s well past midnight and we have an early start tomorrow, so we headed back and went to bed. So tomorrow the agenda is Versailles, Champs Elysees, the Sacre Cour, and time permitting, Notre Dame. Goodnight friends.
-James
Post Script
Is Paris the city of lights or city of love?
No comments:
Post a Comment