Paris! Journée 3...

Okay, Day 3! This day was especially exciting because we saw a lot of sights that I hadn't had a chance to go to when my dad was visiting me. First off, we visited the Grande Arche de la Défense, which was built as a sort of mirror to the Arc de Triomphe, but as a monument to humanitarianism instead of war victories. (You can see it way off in the distance from the top of the Arc the Triomphe, along the line of the Champs Élysées.) The Grande Arche is in the shape of like a giant cubic picture frame, and there's a suspended canopy-type thing in the middle. You used to be able to go up to the roof, but it was closed to the public a few years ago.

The Grande Arche is in a really modern district, with lots of glassy office buildings (I believe we even saw a KPMG!), a huge shopping center, and plenty of modern art installations. It's a big contrast with all the historic stone buildings of downtown Paris! We walked around a little checking out the cool architecture, and this crazy art store inside a fancy shopping mall.

Dog in front of the cool art store

Apollinaire's grave

Next, we went to the Père Lachaise Cemetery, probably Paris's most famous cemetery. It was a little bleak and spooky - following Christophe's advice, I decided against taking photos of my little cousin's Flat Stanley doll here. To summarize, there are a lot of really old and elaborate tombs. There's also a ton of famous people buried here, which is why Père Lachaise is so famous. We didn't want to buy a map, so finding our way around was a little confusing, since the cemetery is huge and the paths are all kind of winding, and there aren't signs pointing you to the famous graves. We did find the graves of Guillaume Apollinaire and Marcel Proust, two authors whose books I was reading in my literature classes, which was pretty cool.


From there, we got on the metro and went to see the Sorbonne, which I explained to Christophe as being the French Harvard. The buildings are all historic and really pretty - a little nicer than the Université de Bordeaux campus! You used to be able to tour the inside, but today it's really complicated for security reasons.

Next stop: the Louvre! Aka, the most pretigious art museum in the world. And free for me with my French student ID! We didn't have too much time before it closed, so we ran through to see the most famous stuff so we could say we saw it the highlights. We saw Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, The Lacemaker, and of course, the Mona Lisa. There's a huge crowd around the Mona Lisa, so you have to wiggle your way to the front to get a good look. But then there's a rope and guards blocking you from getting any closer, and a bulletproof glass case around it (the reflections on the glass are kind of annoying). And yes, all the stories about it being really small in real life are true. But the way people complain, you'd think it was the size of a postage stamp. It's just like normal, smallish painting size.¹ Anyways, it's cool to see such a famous/significant painting. We also checked out the Impressionism section and saw a lot of Monet and Degas paintings.

Venus de Milo

The Lacemaker

Mona Lisa

After getting ushered out of the Louvre at closing time, we admired the glass pyramids outside and walked toward the Champs Élysées, looking for somewhere to eat. Courtesy of a certain AJ, we had some delicious steak frites for dinner. And Christophe finally got that cheese plate he wanted!²

I wish the trip could have been longer, but the next day, Christophe headed back to New York and the real world of like work and bills and stuff, and I headed back to Bordeaux and the fantasy world of like studying abroad and going to cool places all the time.³  Merci beaucoup for visiting me, Christophe!



À bientôt!

1. According to Wikipedia, it's 30"X21". Not that small.
2. We had roquefort, brie, and maybe chèvre or brebis, I don't remember the third one exactly. (Chèvre = goat's milk cheese, brebis = sheep's milk cheese.)
3. But now I'm back in California, so don't be too jelly.

Paris Encore!!!

Next and final stop: Paris!!! Of course Christophe couldn't go to France for the first time and not go to Paris!! And I was excited to get to see some of the things I didn't see when I went there with my dad, as well as to see some things again! Paris is amazing, I think you could visit a thousand times and still never see everything there. Once again, I must recommend listening to this song while you read/skim. :)

 We arrived in the late morning and figured we would walk around a little before finding and checking in to our hotel. I would like to take this moment to brag that I got us from the Paris Est train station to the Cathédrale Notre Dame with no map. That's right, I used a combination of Parisian savoir-faire and sheer intuition to get us there.¹ We had to use the metro and everything, it was cray-cray.² 

Anyways, Notre Dame was, of course, beautiful. It's going to be 850 years old in 2013, but all the stone is impeccably clean, and the statues and the incredible stained glass are all super well-maintained. The Notre Dame is kind of different from other European churches in that there are so so so many people in it that instead of just wandering around, you kind of follow the flow of visitors around the set path. And try not to get people's  heads in your photos! After checking out the inside, we decided to climb up the tower, since the line wasn't too long - and who doesn't want to see gargoyles?! Even though it was all cloudy and gray outside, the view was still really pretty. And I love the gargoyles! There are like hundreds up there, in all sizes (some of them are even bigger than me) and they're all different! I especially liked the one eating grapes and the ones sticking their tongues out. :]

Then we checked into our hotel, which was kind of far from the center of Paris, but new and clean. And the shower head lit up neon colors!!! It was the coolest shower I've ever seen in my entire life. Ever.

OMG

Archives Nationales

Next, we saw the monument at the Bastille³ (French Revolution, anyone?!) and Place des Vosges, which is was the first city-planned square in Paris. Today, it's more of a park, with lots of souvenir shops and cafés in the surrounding buildings, which are where a bunch of rich aristocrats used to live. We also stopped at the Archives Nationales but decided to just look at the pretty building instead of going inside.

Bastille

Place des Vosges

Aaaaaaaand all this walking was to get to the Centre Pompidou!!!!!! I went to the Centre Pompidou when I went to Paris with my family four summers ago.⁴ And it is the most amazing thing ever! The concept behind the building is that it's inside-out - all the pipes and vents and escalators are on the outside. It looks super awesome. And inside is a huge modern art museum! The art is all really cool, not just I painted this white canvas white, wrap your head around that one, buddy.⁵ And making the Centre Pompidou even more amazing is that right next to it is this huge fountain filled with all these sculptures by Niki de Saint-Phalle, who made the Sun God statue, which is kind of the unofficial mascot of UCSD. We saw some of her pieces in Nice too! But in the fountain, there is this one sculpture that looks just like Sun God! And the fountain was empty for winter, so you could step in and go right up to the sculptures. It was not as pretty with out the water and all the sculptures turning and spraying water, but it was really fun to go around taking photos with all the sculptures. And besides, I saw it all filled and animated last time.

Most awesome couch ever.

Statues in the fountain by Niki de Saint-Phalle

French Sun God and UCSD Sun God

We visited the inside of the Centre Pompidou for a while, and we got to see the Centre all lit up when we left, and it was so cool-looking!!! Then we got pizza (me) and pasta (Christophe) at a restaurant nearby. Not very French I guess, but it was good.

Centre Pompidou at night

The next morning, we visited Versailles! I won't go into detail, since I already wrote about going with my dad. Even though I had visited only like a month and a half before, it was still really neat to see everything again! And this time, we were wise enough to save our energy and only see the main palace. And most importantly, we went to that amazing crêpe shop outside the gates!!!

Next stop: la Tour Eiffel! We took the stairs all the way to the second level! We did stop at the first level, but it was exhausting! So. Many. Stairs. But of course the view is worth it!! Even though it was overcast, it still looked amazing. Christophe was a little agitated because he doesn't like heights,⁶ but he surprisingly wanted to go the rest of the way to the top floor. Oh so unfortunately, you can't take the stairs to the top floor, so we bought tickets for the elevator, in which Christophe almost had a panic attack.⁸ We got to the top right as it was getting dark, so we saw all the lights around the city and on the Eiffel Tower itself come on, which was so pretty. If you ever go to Paris, I would definitely recommend going up the Eiffel Tower around dusk so you can see the view both while it's light out, then when it starts getting dark and all the lights come on, and then when it's completely dark out. And as Christophe said, "You can't get much more French than this!"

Then, in a feat of near-superhuman strength, we walked all the way to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed that too. I was so tired, but I really wanted to go up it again at night because it's such a great spot to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up. Afterwards, we walked down the Champs Élysées a little and got sandwiches, then headed back to the hotel. Oh man, I was épuiséeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Aaaaaaaand this post is too long, so day 3 coming soon!

À bientôt!

1. Also the fact that I remembered it was on Ile de la Cité, which is not very big, so looking for a giant cathedral is not that hard. And there were signs but whatever. No map, okay??!!! It was impressive!!

2. For my older readers, "cray-cray" means "crazy."
3. There used to be a prison there, which was stormed on July 14, 1789 during the French Revolution. The prison was destroyed during the attack, and the event became a symbol of the revolutionary movement. Today, July 14th is like France's Fourth of July.
4. Wow so long ago now!
5. Okay, there were a couple like that. But not very many.
6. I told him he looked a little "on edge." He was not amused.⁷
7. Bahahahahaha how many times have I told that joke now?? Not enough!
8. Only a very slight exaggeration.