Paris

Matt and Lis were in Paris for two weeks so that Matt could attend some training for his job. The weekend in the middle I took a trip up to meet them and we ran all around the city. After work on Friday I jumped onto the TGV and took the trip up to Paris. There was a rail-union strike going on but luckily my train wasn't affected by this. I got into Paris shortly before midnight and then jumped on a metro line which took me to Matt's and Lis's hotel room. They snuck me up up and we had a birthday party for me :) and then crashed to sleep.

Leaving in the morning, the hotel manager yelled at us for sneaking me into the room for a long time and said we couldn't do it again. We offered to pay for the room, upgrade to a bigger room, anything, but nope. The rugby championship match was that weekend so there wasn't a room to be had in all of Paris, so I was out of luck. So that night I wandered around Paris along with tens of thousands of drunk rugby fans. But first we spent the day wandering around the city.

The Notre Dame was our first stop. Great for picture taking and I took a lot of them. We walked around but didn't go inside because we knew we were going back the next day for a concert. After Notre Dame we walked down the river till we got to the Louvre. Some more picture taking and then we spent a few hours running through and looking at as much art and architecture as we could. I could probably spend a week in there easily. After a few hours though, we had to go and look at other things.

Lunch was the next order of the day. We found a little cafe and I had my first (of many) authentic Parisian sandwich. Ham and cream cheese on a baguette mmmmm. Here, like everywhere we went, the waitress spoke perfect English and everyone was actually quiet friendly. It's almost like they knew the city was full of Londoners (rugby match was England vs South Africa) who had lots of money to spend.

We continued our walk down the river for a while and then got onto a metro and went to the catacombs. These were old mining tunnels where they dug out all of the stone to build a lot of the city. There were hundreds of miles of tunnels that snake all around but we were only allowed in a small part. The most interesting bit is where they turned a section of the tunnel into a mass grave containing the bones of millions of Parisians. The bones were artfully laid down to form walls and patterns leaving it as an all together odd place. When we came back above ground we jumped back onto the metro and took a trip to the Eifel Tower.

Here we saw the first real hoards of ruby fans. The lawn in front of the tower was rugby central and they were putting up a huge screen so people could watch the game if they were ticket-less. The lines to go up the tower at this point were several hours long so we decided to take a night trip up and do other things in the day.

We wandered back towards the main part of the city and then up to the Arc d'Triumph. By this point the sun was just getting ready to set and the Arc really stood out against a nice blue sky. I seem to have a lot of luck with bright blue skies when I travel to European Capital cities :) Dinner was next. I spotted a little restaurant that just jumped out at me for some reason. As I told Matt and Lis I find looking for a place with no tablecloths but wine glasses on the tables seems to be a good indication of a nice place to eat. The menu looked good but the lady inside said they weren't open for another 20 minutes so we walked down to find another place to eat. Nothing looked as good so we walked back. It was a good choice. We walked in and the place was almost empty but the lady there had to ask the manager if we could have a table. Apparently this little whole in the wall (which probably could seat 100) was almost booked solid with reservations. Another good sign. We sat down, ordered fresh mushrooms with some sauce on them to start with and then more food after that, and then desert. Oh was the creme brule amazing. All of the food was amazing. And there was a lot of it. By the time we were done I was full and very happy. And again the waitress spoke perfect English, with an American accent even, and she was as polite and as friendly as could be. By the time we left the place was completely packed, mostly with people speaking French, and they were turning everyone away at the door. Finding good, inexpensive, food in a big city always is a fun treat. This place will be on my list next time I'm back in Paris.

Next up was the Eifel Tower at night. Lines now were short since the rugby game had started so we took the elevator up and wandered around the top for a while. Then we went down and took the metro back to the hotel. Matt gave me an extra jacket, an extra memory card, and we agreed to meet at 6am (when the metro starts running) at the hotel. I set off to take pictures all night.

Picture taking started at Notre Dame but around 1am the lights went off there so I continued taking pictures on a longer exposure setting. The fun bit was that you could see the stars now. Around 2am I walked over to the Louvre and started taking pictures of it. 3 am and the lights there went off and the guard politely asked me to leave as they were closing up the courtyard. I wandered down to the main street coming out of the Arc d'triumph which is where all of the nightlife is centered. Nothing really left to take pictures of though since 3am all of the lights go off. Plus my fingers were cold and that makes it hard to take pictures without your hands shaking a little. I wandered around for a while then I sat down and pulled out a book and read till 5am. At 5am I grabbed a coffee and some bread from a shop and wandered down to the metro station. The first metro ran at 5:30 and I made it to the hotel right about 6am to meet Matt and Lis.

We took the metro downtown but the sun was far from being awake so we went back to the Eifel Tower to watch the sun rise over it. Very pretty :) Some more coffee and bread from another shop and we hit the Muse d'Orsay. This is the more modern art museum. Modern meaning Impressionism, Cubism, and things like that. Not the post-modern really new stuff. But Impressionism is my favorite so I was looking forward to it. The best part is that you can take pictures of the artwork as long as you don't use a flash. Monet is one of my favorite artists, I haven't seen that many Monet's since I was in Washington DC. It was just amazing. A lot more than just Monet, but I only had a little time to see a lot of artwork so only a few of my favorites got pictures. Again, I could have spent a week there.

After Monet we took a short nap in the park, had some lunch, and went back to the hotel to pick up my things. Our last plan of the trip was to go to a organ concert at Notre Dame. It was a lot of fun and they had some big loud music playing for some of it. The guy was a guest musician and one of his pieces was just an improv type piece. You could hear him play, pull stops, play louder, pull more stops, play LOUDER until the place just rumbled. It was also fun because the cathedral is so long and the organ is in the back, you hear the sound behind you, rushing forward, hit the front wall, and rush backwards at you again. The sound just pressed all over you and was more three dimensional than any other music I've really ever heard. Closing your eyes it almost felt like you were on a boat as the sound washed back and forth over you and made you feel like you were rocking.

After the concert I left and got back on the TGV and napped as I rode back to Geneva. A very fun trip but boy was it ever good to get into a bed that night.