Paris, Je t'aime

We made it to Paris on Saturday. I must say, I was pretty impressed with the "hostel". The food was decent at night - we had etouffee one time, and steak another! Sunday I walked for a good hour to the Grevin Museum where I took a picture with Michael's wax statue (see below). It was so interesting because some of the figures moved (eyes, hands). They had a Rodin figure that sculpted! Ghandi, PELE, Tony Parker, Celine Dion, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Marilyn, Liza... so many more. It takes 6 months to make each figure and 25 days to put 500,000 hairs on their heads. Crazy. That afternoon we took a boat tour of Paris and I passed by the Eiffel for the first time. It's 700 (?) tons of metal. The Parisians didn't like the tower because they were afraid it would fall on them.

Monday we went to the Louvre. If you spend three seconds viewing each art piece, it'll take 3.5 months to see each piece of art! It used to be a palace, but one of the Louis thought it was too small so he moved to Versaille. I saw Mona Lisa (La Jaconde), Venus de Milo, Egyptian relics dating back to thousands of years BC (avant J.C.). That night was La Fete de La Musique, which apparently happens all over Europe, but I wasnt too impressed. We think it wasn't so exciting this year because there was a riot somewhere. Oh well, I got to see Paris at night, which was simply beautiful!

Tuesday we visted the Orsay Museum where I saw Monet, Millet, Manet, Gaugin. I finally found out that the Manet in my house isn't a guy trying to be like Monet, but that he's a real painter! I've been thinking that for years :) What if it were a real piece...? Anyways, the Orsay Museum used to be an old train station and all the pieces there are from the Louvre. It holds Impressionism and later artwork.

Instead of going to Giverny like I had originally planned (where Monet lived and painted), I decided to stay in Paris and go shopping with Calla. I didn't buy anything but I enjoyed it. We went to Galeries La Fayette, and might I just say "outrageous". First off we went on the first day of sales so there were lines to get into stores within this department store. Meaning, imagine you're at North Park or Green Hills and you pass by oh, I don't know, Tiffany & Co... there would be a line with a security guard and the velvet ropes just to get in to that store! Crazy. They had Louis V, Rock n Republic, Versace, Gucci, Prada, Jimmy Choo... and EVERYTHING was on sale. Except this one necklace I saw that cost 31,000 euro. Eh, I could've bought it if I really wanted!

Thursday we visited Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle. Friday we saw Sacre Coeur and Montmartre, which is where Moulin Rouge is. And in a nutshell that was my trip to Paris. I had some greek gyros, some ice cream, saw a silk sweater for 25 euro... it's amazing there. The last day I heard this guy (nikerson.com) singing Michael Jackson in front of Sacre Coeur with his guitar and his French accent. All these people were just lounging on the steps listening to him and singing along, it was great - except for the drugged up/drunk woman who kept interrupting. Then she wanted to perform for us and he left. The show ended.

Notre Dame
St. Eustache - I ran into this rather large church while walking to the Grevin Museum



Jackie at the Grevin Museum

Ray Charles (I hadn't yet figured out what setting works best in the dark)

needs no caption.

Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa

passing by la Tour Eiffel on the boat tour

oldest house in Paris, from the middle ages

smallest house in Paris with only two windows

Notre Dame from the river

Conciergerie - used to be a prison where Marie Antoinette spent the last few months of her life before she was beheaded

the Seine River

the Pyramid at the Louvre

I just thought my mom would like this outfit :)

Odelisque - nude paintings of women, this one's rather famous

La Jaconde - Mona Lisa

Arc of Triumph

Olympia --> "Lady of Night" --> prostitute. This woman was popular for posing nude. These paintings are shocking because she's looking at her audience. The flowers are from the man waiting behind the door, the cat is the devil. She's wearing shoes because this was painted during the Puritan era where feet were exotic - a bit ironic to just cover those!

Monet. At one point he couldn't pay for his rent so he gave this painting to his landlord as an IOU. When he bought it back, he had to cut pieces off because some had molded, which explains the irregular shape. The drawing of the complete painting is on display in a museum in Russia.

Musee d'Orsay

Monet

"Amateur" Painter

Van gogh "Starry Night" La nuit etoilee

Political Science Institute of Paris - where I'm looking at going during law school

Chopin's grave!

Notre Dame

13 meters in diameter. That's 36 feet holding 32,000 pieces of glass (on both sides of the church!) This is also Notre Dame. They've taken these windows down twice for fear that they would break during the wars.

Sainte Chappelle - this is the private chapel of King Louis XIII (I know it was one of the Louis, but there are just so many...!) These windows are 20 feet high. You read them from bottom to top, left to right. In front of you, that structure used to house the Crown of Thorns and the Cross from Calvary.

Le Moulin de Galette. This is one of the two mills still standing in Montmartre. It's from the 18th century, or the 1800s - I can't remember. Either way it's old and a site/sight to see.

A popular childrens' story about a man that can walk through walls who, unfortunately, gets stuck!

Sacre Coeur - some nuns still live here

Sailing in Marseille

OH MY GOODNESS! I absolutely LOVE sailing, though I would've liked a bigger boat. But it was awesome! And I steered for a while. It was backwards though on one side, and then you have to move to the other and it's the right way - whatever. I just didn't like when it tilted close to the water, as in the railing was in the water basically - thanks Guru. And you really can get smacked by the rod if you're not watching out. But you have to "feel the wind" and find it... Anyways, we sailed by chateau d'if (eef, not if like we normally say) which is the castle mentioned in the count of monte cristo but not the one in the movie. Then we pulled off to the side by this one island that used to be a quarantine area for foreigners coming into marseille and threw out the anchor (not that it did anything bc the water was so deep 0 the boat still floated away from us) and JUMPED RIGHT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN! Whew what a rush! It wasn't TOO too cold. I really like Clay's nick name "skipper" (since the French boatman couldn't pronounce clay "cray") bc he really reminds me of a fish - always wanting to just swim down as far as he can. Man it would be pretty horrid to get tired while swimming out there. We weren't really too close to the rocks.


We visited Notre Dame de la Garde cathedral - gorgeous! And i bought a Bible in French. Yes I did. And so what it's for kids!? That means I shouldn't have trouble reading it. They set it up so you can read a page each day. I'm so going to try it.


Then Chris Matt and Clay had Bouillabaisse (sp) a classic French dish, each paid 32 euro. So they paid 96 euro for a dish of 6 fish, 3 shrimp, 1 thing we couldn't distinguish and 3-5 mussels. All of them whole - with the heads and eyes (except the fish) and fins and scales and little feet (shrimp). Gross. Denuzzo was NOT happy. I got spaghetti bolognaise (just good ole spaghetti, guys). I'm REALLY craving some frites (fries) though! And that was my day. Next stop, paireee!

This is the boat tilting, not my camera.
One of our sails. and the sky!

This is where we stopped and JUMPED IN! C'etait un peu froid.

Gorgeous view from the sea

Notre Dame de la Garde - I love this picture bc of the sky in the background

A traditional French dish Bouillabaise (if I spelled it right)

Chateau d'If - old prison kind of like Alcatraz

Notre Dame de la Garde (sorry the pics are a bit out of order)

Pope John Paul II was there (not when I went though, of course)!

Ajaccio, CORSICA

I finally went on my first "day" trip to Ajaccio, Corsica where Napoleon was born with Katie, Sarah, Chris, and Calla (see album entitled Ajaccio, Corsica for references). It was AWESOME! We took the TGV to Toulon and had to run to catch the ferry, which was more like a cruise ship. There were video games, about 3 food places (ok the "cafeteria" had bbq and fried calamari, fries, other seafood, mousse) basically I wish Vandy had a caf like that! There was a play area for kids, a dog sanctuary (is it sanctuary or is there another word that sounds like it?). We had arm chairs to sleep in and the first go 'round it was SO uncomfortable esp. because my seat wouldn't recline (it only went back about 3 inches anyway haha). Then in the morning at about 6 am they wake you up by BLASTING the tvs. Gr.


Let's see we took a bus tour of the city and saw this old defense tower (like they have with castles), some Napoleon statues (I have a feeling they have WAY too many)! The weather was perfect. Not too hot, with a light breeze, although that sun can really get you! My goodness. Be grateful for US sun, really. I mean you're out there for 20 minutes and you burn regardless of the amount of sun screen. No WONDER it costs so much out here! Anyways we went to the beach for a few hours before we checked out the Napoleon museum, which used to be the house he lived in. I love preservations like that - actual fabric from the rooms, his bed still intact. It's just amazing. Written documents.


We saw some mussels in the water and I saw a school of tiny fish! Cute! I really wanted to go fishing but the boats we saw were 27 or 50 euro just for a tour - WAY too much. And to rent a motor boat.... 1000 EURO/day! Ridiculous. But I got to watch someone fish, though he didn't have much luck. I had salmon pasta for lunch and shrimp pasta for dinner. I've decided I'm going to back of the pasta (carbs man). And I really don't like the heads on the jumbo shrimp. It just unnerves me. Chris had octopus! OH I almost forgot, in the center of the main plaza there was this reenactment where these guys dressed up in the old Napoleon uniforms and fired a cannon. Pretty interesting.


The ride back was much better. I was knocked out so I didn't realize the cold. Calla and I watched this really weird movie with the Wolverine guy (don't know his name) where he's a surgeon looking for a cure for a tumor - anybody have any idea what it is? I really like boats. I'm going to have one some day, maybe, for a day ha. I didn't say I would OWN one. And I like lighthouses. I'm such a water person - it's the Aquarian in me! (water without sharks of course..)

just a really pretty boat

mussels

cemetary - there are either 45 dozen, 4500 or 45k of these - I couldn't understand exactly how many haha

Sleeping on the beach is prohibited

In the Mediterranean, again

Bonaparte house