Paris!

Sigh. How does one describe her first trip to Paris? Je ne c'est pas... Magnifique? Trés bien? Amazing? All of those things. And lots of fun, too.

We arrived around 12:30 Wednesday afternoon to an auspicious start: We managed to hail a cab at the train station, and convey where we needed to go - I even ventured a "comment allez-vous?" and the driver answered with "comme ça", indicating that he actually comprended me! However, after about 2 minutes in the cab it began to sprinkle, then pour, then absolutely teem with rain, which continued for about the next 2 1/2 hours. So the "oohing" and "aahing" didn't kick in right away. We were able to check into one of our two reserved rooms early, so we stowed our things, donned our umbrellas and headed out to find somewhere to mange. (Only breakfast is available at our hotel.) After getting a teensy bit soaked, we settled on the nearby Brasserie du Louvre, which is very near the hotel, and also very near the Louvre, and yes - your conclusion is correct - our hotel was very near the Louvre. We had a nice, leisurely, albeit very expensive lunch (including of course a bottle of vin).

By the time we finished the rain had started to let up a bit, so we headed over to the Louvre, which is a remarkable building on the outside! I realized on the train that the day we arrived - 14 July - is also Bastille Day, which is a national holiday in France. Good news was that the Louvre was open, even better news was that the admission due to the holiday was free; bad news was that about 5 trillion people discovered this before us and the wait in line would have been trés long. Tour guide Sue of course was carrying books & maps and we decided to try the Musée D'Orsay instead which was about a 10 minute walk on the other side of the little river called the Seine. Time well spent as that museum contains a lot of really great stuff - Van Goghs and Monets and Renoirs just to name a few. By the time we left the sun had come out and we spent the rest of the afternoon strolling and window shopping and just enjoying being in Paris. Dinner that night was at a very French Restaurant called "Au Pieds du Conchon" which loosely translates to "Feet of the Pig" which is exactly what Kyle ordered, along with the tail, ears, and trotter. Mon Dieu! Chris had escargots as a starter and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal (which included of course, a bottle or 2 of vin.)

Thursday provided absolutely lovely weather - even a bit cool to start. That was a day of heavy walking, first just through the streets seeing the sights and doing a little shopping, then after a lovely lunch (and bottle of vin) where we had the most terrific French waiter, Xavier, who was impressed with my French (this time I tried out "Comment vous-appelez vous?"), came the major stuff: down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe (WOW) then on to the Trocadéro (not sure what it actually is Paris - just saw signs) where we got our first glimpse of the Tour Eiffel which truly was breathtaking in every sense of that word. Unfortunately, Kyle started the day not feeling well and by lunch was feeling pretty badly so we had to put him in a cab back to the hotel and he missed the big stuff. He felt better after a good nap and by the time we got back to the hotel he was ready to venture out again, and we did, this time to an area on the Left Bank called St-Germain-des-Prés which contains lots of art galleries, shops, and restaurants. As we were pondering the all-in-French menu in front of one of the restaurants scratching our heads (my limited French doesn't go that far) we attracted the attention of a guy walking by who took the time to stop, ask (in English) if he could assist us (only if "we didn't mind"), and walk us to an Italian restaurant that he had just recently eaten at and liked very much. Talking about it later, we'd all been a bit skeptical for different reasons as to what his motivation might be, but it had become clear after a few minutes of talking with him that he was just a nice man - if a bit of an oddball - who was doing something nice. It was one of our favorite meals of the trip: not just delicious, but served by a French Italian (Italian French?) and accompanied by the requisite old craggy man playing the accordian. So French! (Yes, the little guy did pass the chapeau aound later to all of us who had taken his photo. Any way to make a euro.)

Our last day was another full one. First stop: the Louvre and at 10 am the line was almost non-existant. This is hard experience to describe, because it's almost with disdain that I witnessed masses of people rush with blinders on past magnificent sculptures and one-of-a-kind works of art to get to the Mona Lisa, but then again, I was one of those people, and I feel kind of weird about it. Amazingly, they allow photos to be taken in the Louvre, but not with a flash. Needless to say, more than half of the picture takers used their flash anyway (not us) and what really bothered us were the people that literally pushed and shoved their way (I'm being kind here) up to the rope in front of the painting, ignoring everyone around them that might be waiting for their photo to be taken so that they could have their companion take their photo, then carelessly push their way back out without even bothering to stop and glance at the amazing masterpiece that they had just been in the presence of! So that being the atmosphere in which I was able to see the one and only most famous work of art in the world, I think it felt a bit anticlimactic. I made myself feel a little better in the end though, as I looked her way one last time before moving on and realized that her smile isn't mysterious after all - it's a look of pure amusement at the masses of lunatics who come before her daily and make idiots of themselves. I think you could visit the Louvre every day for a month and still not see all there is to see, so after a quick stop by the Venus de Milo and a look at but a fraction of the French paintings, we were on our way to Notre Dame, about a 30 minute walk. This 13th Century cathedral was the perfect way to end our "official" whirlwind tour of Paris and is an amazing structure inside and out.

Following that, we sought out a bistro that we'd found in the guidebook for one last French meal (and oui, one last bouteille de vin) and it was a wonderful meal at that. We then strolled back through St-Germain-des-Prés, made our way back to the hotel where we picked up our luggage and waited for our taxi to the train station. What a trip.

I think I was most impressed by the Arc de Triomphe. Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorate his military victories, it took 30 years to complete, and has really become quite a symbol in Paris. I found it completely awesome. One not-so-positive and surprising observation about Paris in general was how much trash was around the streets and parks, but I'm choosing to chalk that up to the Bastille Day celebrations. On the positive side, although we may have come across a brusque waiter or two, for the most part the French people who we met and dealt with were really lovely, friendly and helpful. One night walking back to the hotel after dinner, we came across a band playing by the Seine. It was a brass band - tubas, trumpets, trombones, french horns - and a drummer, and this just seemed like a regular Thursday night activity for them, the way some guys get together for poker or to watch the game. They appeared to be having the best time. That was the most magical moment for me - looking down over the Seine in the moonlight listening to this informal group of amis playing music together, whether anyone happened to be around to listen or not.

Exhausting, overwhelming, unbelievable, yet wonderful. I think that will be the description I will settle on about my first (and hopefully not last) trip to Paris.

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