Paris!!

Paris!

I have longed to go to Paris to see two things, Notre Dame and its rose window and the Louvre to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace, since I took art history in college.  Jeanie was willing to take me on this trip to fulfill my dreams, while eating Smurf gummies all the way.  We drove through the villages and countryside of France.  I loved the views and hills and trees and buildings.  My surprise came when we stopped at a rest area.  It looked fine, Jeanie said they are sometimes dirty.  However, when she called me over to look in the bathroom I did not expect the toilet that we found, Rick Steves did not mention this in any of his tv shows!  Now, I do not know what the French call this type of restroom, but as for me and Jeanie…we came up with a lot of terms, some may not be especially appropriate, but we found immense humor in them.  I am not going to stunt your creativity with our names, come up with your own.  However, I someone knows whether or not you go in forwards or backwards and how exactly to manage the angle, but we got ‘er done.  TMI??  Se la vie.  

 

 

 

 

We continued on to Paris and arrived about 9pm, so you know what that means…go out on the town!  We metroed on over to the Eiffel Tower to see how it looked at night, and it looks lovely at night.  Another surprise was the tower started flashing glittery lights  and that my frieds was awesome.  So we enjoyed our crepe while enjoying the tower.  We decided to try and find the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris, at night.  Yes, we are that brilliant.  We, uh, somehow found our way through the narrow, interestingly signed streets to the Arc.  Now, Paris has done a wonderful job of providing photographic points for people to take pictures, no so with the Arc, middle of the road it is!  Rock on.  Finally, we metroed back and crawled in bed, we ain’t spring chickens no more.

  

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel, and I have to admit, baguettes and nutella as part of the offering, pretty stinking awesome.  After a very satisfying breakfast we headed to Notre Dame.  I was so excited, and it was everything I hoped; fascinating architecture, gargoyles and chimera, stained glass windows, millions of tourists (hmmm…maybe not that one) and hundreds and hundreds of stairs (oh, not that one either).  I loved wandering through and soaking in the colors, and details of this amazing structure.  And yes, the hundred million of us were continually hushed…and we were all repentant for a minute.  The pièce de résistance was the view after you climbed up the stairwell, hundreds of stairs winding around and around and around in tighter and tighter spirals until you burst out into the sun far above the picture taking crowd and into a face to face meeting with gargoyles and chimeras.  As a huge fan of the gargoyle cartoon, I enjoyed this tete-a-tete and encouraged them in their courageous charge of saving the city at night. 

 

After some recovery time for me, we headed off to the Louvre, enjoying the street performers and shops along the way.  As we crossed over the lock bridge, so named for the millions of locks lining the bridge declaring unbreakable love, I was accosted by a man from Senegal who created a bracelet on my arm and declared himself my boyfriend.  Cheap boyfriend that he was, I paid for the bracelet, ah well, my luck…find love in Paris by paying for it.  Jeanie made friends of squeaking statue guys and bubble blowers.  And that, my friends is how we roll.

 

 

The Louvre was incredible, and overwhelming.  I found Winged Victory and hung out with her awhile.  She did her usual thing by stretching out her magnificent stone wings.  We also visited  Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa (she may be smiling because of the quadtrillions of people clustered in front of her taking pictures of themselves with her in the background.)  I could imagine what she was saying, “Seriously?  If Da Vinci wanted you in my picture he would have put you there!”    The pictures, statues and ancient artifact were fascinating and beautiful, but zut alors, it was time for some food!

 

I had wto requirements…#1 I wanted to eat at a French café (and McCafe doesn’t count)  and #2 I wanted French onion soup.  We found a place, and eat we did, and did and did.  And yes, when my waiter pronounced my meal in French my first reaction was, “wow, you pronounce things well!”  Luckily, I was able to keep those words in my mouth and just enjoyed the food.  I did love when he said, “Bon Appetite!”  and of course when he flexed for me.  Oh and by the way, French frys in France…they taste like French frys.  

We had a few too many bottles of water...

We ended the night with second dessert of glace (French ice cream…gosh, I am so cultural) and home we went.

 

It was an amazing 24 hours.  Jeanie was an incredible guide, and friend.  She keeps a cool head in confusion and is thoughtful to me when I am whiney.  Of course, we were absolutely nuts together and made many people stop and stare at our lack of decorum, but, that is why I hang out with her.  I did get to embarrass her…and it wasn’t when I would lie down to take pictures, or take 3 million at a time, and it wasn’t when I kept replying in Spanish, and it wasn’t when I flirted with the waiter…it was when I said hello to the motorcyclists cutting very close to my window.  Well, that is one point for me.

So my friend, bon appétit and bonjour.