And le Finale
So here it is: the dramatic conclusion of My Paris Trip!
Got out of bed--Emily's having a rough go of it. Pastries from the boullangerie downstairs, heaven in my mouth. Get ready, head out to Sacre Couer. It's a giant cathedral up on a hill overlooking the entire city of Paris. You have to take the metro then climb stairs forever. Thankfully, there was agreeable weather for the first time this week and adorable puppies to encourage the treacherous endeavor. At the top, it's so great! Again, Paris is beautiful, if you didn't get that part before. You can see the Eifel Tower, the ONE skyscraper that juts out in the middle of the city, and Notre Dame and all the other cathedrals. Really fantastic. Around the back, there is an adorable quiet garden and people's houses. It gets very busy in front of the cathedral and over in the consumer market town square. But the rest of the neighborhood is quaint as all hell. A cool discovery was the Lapin Agile Bar where Picasso famously drank, as characterized by the Steve Martin play. Turns out I've never heard anyone pronounce the title correctly...
Then Emily and I took the Metro to Notre Dame. We had seen the exterior of it before but never got to see the insides. Sacre Couer was great because of the basilica (high, domed ceiling), but Notre Dame is awesome because of its immense size and all the awesome stained glass windows. There were a lot more people at Notre Dame, but everyone was virtually silent as they walked around it. Very eerie and wonderful. I wondered just how offensive the Disney movie was to what the Cathedral is supposed to represent.
It stopped raining as we got out of Notre Dame. We decided to head into the gay/Orthodox Jewish neighborhood known as the Maire. We were looking for this falafel restaurant in particular because they have a sign outside the door that says "Recommended by Lenny Kravitz." Since he must be an expert of some sort, we trusted his judgment. After being ignored for about an hour, we finally got some of the most delicious falafel and hummus I'd had in a while.
We began walking again toward the Islamic Institute which was having a History of the Phoenicians exhibit, but opted instead to go to the largest and most well-known mosque in Paris. It turned out to be mostly a restaurant and visitor's store, so we kept moving. We found the Jardins de Plantes which is a huge botanical garden flanked by a zoo and the Natural History Museum. We walked all along it, looking for a bathroom, but all that could be found were some goats, some peacocks, a camel, and a jellyfish exhibit. We stopped at a Starbucks instead. Our feet were hurting and we were both getting exhausted so we whipped ourselves into a commercially-motivated caffeine frenzy and figured out what to do next.
Since I hadn't gotten to see the Eifel Tower up close yet, we decided to make it my last big item to check off the list before I left Paris. Every hour after the sun goes down, the Eifel Tower lights up with millions of twinkling lights. Emily loves the moment it goes off because everyone watching makes a collective "ooh" sound every time it happens. We got there half an hour before 8pm, so we walked underneath the Tower and around the gardens leading up to it. There were millions of tourists milling about, either climbing the stairs or taking the elevator up to the top. The wind was getting really intense by now and the tower wobbles ever so slightly so you'd hear occasional screams from folks riding up the elevator. By the time we got back to our vantage point by the National Theatre, we only had to wait five more minutes before the Tower set to twinkling. And just as Emily predicted, everyone instinctually "ooh"ed. Everyone leapt to their feet to get pictures of their friends and family members holding up the tower with one hand or wearing the tower as a hat. I just soaked up the last few moments of cool. Since this was the last major item on the tour, it felt nice to have it be so spectacular.
I'm leaving at 9am to go to the airport, and I can't fall asleep. I'm definitely ready to go home to revel in the comforts of my bed and my language and my routine. But this was a really fantastic way to get outside of myself for the first time in a long time. I don't really ever do these sorts of things, so I'm the most pleased about doing something totally terrifying again and surviving it again.
I'm going to try to sleep again but assume I'll just keep thinking of what details I left out of here. See ya'll again soon in the U.S.
Got out of bed--Emily's having a rough go of it. Pastries from the boullangerie downstairs, heaven in my mouth. Get ready, head out to Sacre Couer. It's a giant cathedral up on a hill overlooking the entire city of Paris. You have to take the metro then climb stairs forever. Thankfully, there was agreeable weather for the first time this week and adorable puppies to encourage the treacherous endeavor. At the top, it's so great! Again, Paris is beautiful, if you didn't get that part before. You can see the Eifel Tower, the ONE skyscraper that juts out in the middle of the city, and Notre Dame and all the other cathedrals. Really fantastic. Around the back, there is an adorable quiet garden and people's houses. It gets very busy in front of the cathedral and over in the consumer market town square. But the rest of the neighborhood is quaint as all hell. A cool discovery was the Lapin Agile Bar where Picasso famously drank, as characterized by the Steve Martin play. Turns out I've never heard anyone pronounce the title correctly...
Then Emily and I took the Metro to Notre Dame. We had seen the exterior of it before but never got to see the insides. Sacre Couer was great because of the basilica (high, domed ceiling), but Notre Dame is awesome because of its immense size and all the awesome stained glass windows. There were a lot more people at Notre Dame, but everyone was virtually silent as they walked around it. Very eerie and wonderful. I wondered just how offensive the Disney movie was to what the Cathedral is supposed to represent.
It stopped raining as we got out of Notre Dame. We decided to head into the gay/Orthodox Jewish neighborhood known as the Maire. We were looking for this falafel restaurant in particular because they have a sign outside the door that says "Recommended by Lenny Kravitz." Since he must be an expert of some sort, we trusted his judgment. After being ignored for about an hour, we finally got some of the most delicious falafel and hummus I'd had in a while.
We began walking again toward the Islamic Institute which was having a History of the Phoenicians exhibit, but opted instead to go to the largest and most well-known mosque in Paris. It turned out to be mostly a restaurant and visitor's store, so we kept moving. We found the Jardins de Plantes which is a huge botanical garden flanked by a zoo and the Natural History Museum. We walked all along it, looking for a bathroom, but all that could be found were some goats, some peacocks, a camel, and a jellyfish exhibit. We stopped at a Starbucks instead. Our feet were hurting and we were both getting exhausted so we whipped ourselves into a commercially-motivated caffeine frenzy and figured out what to do next.
Since I hadn't gotten to see the Eifel Tower up close yet, we decided to make it my last big item to check off the list before I left Paris. Every hour after the sun goes down, the Eifel Tower lights up with millions of twinkling lights. Emily loves the moment it goes off because everyone watching makes a collective "ooh" sound every time it happens. We got there half an hour before 8pm, so we walked underneath the Tower and around the gardens leading up to it. There were millions of tourists milling about, either climbing the stairs or taking the elevator up to the top. The wind was getting really intense by now and the tower wobbles ever so slightly so you'd hear occasional screams from folks riding up the elevator. By the time we got back to our vantage point by the National Theatre, we only had to wait five more minutes before the Tower set to twinkling. And just as Emily predicted, everyone instinctually "ooh"ed. Everyone leapt to their feet to get pictures of their friends and family members holding up the tower with one hand or wearing the tower as a hat. I just soaked up the last few moments of cool. Since this was the last major item on the tour, it felt nice to have it be so spectacular.
I'm leaving at 9am to go to the airport, and I can't fall asleep. I'm definitely ready to go home to revel in the comforts of my bed and my language and my routine. But this was a really fantastic way to get outside of myself for the first time in a long time. I don't really ever do these sorts of things, so I'm the most pleased about doing something totally terrifying again and surviving it again.
I'm going to try to sleep again but assume I'll just keep thinking of what details I left out of here. See ya'll again soon in the U.S.