Paris

Hello again everyone… you know all 3 of you that actually read this dribble. Well let’s go ahead and get started anyway. I forgot that it damn near rains in Paris as much as it does in London, but hey at least we bought a tourist umbrella (i.e.… crap) in Rotterdam. We changed our hotels for Paris while we were in Rotterdam because after our disaster with the Clipper, we (meaning me) have finally learned to checkout multiple hotel review sites before deciding on one. We had found out that the lovely Hotel Magenta has only one shower for 5 floors worth of rooms, oh and did I mention it cost 3 euros each time you wanted to use it… yea… so we dropped that hotel and moved to the beautiful Hotel Gerando… beautiful means under construction… yes? But hey it was very near a couple of good restaurants and a metro stop so, one can’t really complain.

We arrived late enough that we just had dinner and went out the next morning. The first place we went was Notre Dame, and from there we took our first wrong turn in Paris… instead of taking the bridge at the southern edge of the island, we accidentally went north… oops. We had intended to go see the Latin Quarter area but instead ended going to Centre Pompidou, which is a art museum that is most notable for its bight blue ductwork that hangs on the exterior of the buildings, and the really cool entry stair which is also on the exterior of the building.

After Centre Pompidou we walked around and ended up at Forum les Halles, which is a really cool subterranean shopping mall and metro shop. There is a main courtyard with lots of shops and vendors stalls, and then there are a series of pathways that run underneath a park at ground level. One of these passages continued all the way to the Louvre. Speaking of the Louvre that was our next stop. We were intending to just look at the Pyramid but it started pouring and the line disappeared so we decided to go ahead and go in while we were there. Man that place was huge. Anyway after that we went back home and grabbed food at a really good Indian restaurant next to our hotel.

The second day we started out at the Arc de Triomph, and walked along the Champs de Elysees. That took us to the Place de la Concorde, where an obelisk that Napoleon stole from Egypt still stands; it was also the historical location of the Guillotine. Next were the Jardins de Tuillieres, they were nice but were not especially our cup of tea. We hopped on a metro at the Louvre and went out to the Eiffel Tower. We walked around the Eiffel Tower area and grabbed some snacks. Jeannie did something quite silly. She decided she was going to help get rid of part of my jeans cuff that was dragging… so she stepped on it and had me walk in the other direction… sounds like a bad idea you say? Well, it was… so instead of ripping it off, my jeans split all the way up to my knee. So I was left with the option of walking around with one drafty leg, or going to buy new jeans… we bought new jeans.

The next morning we went back to the Forum les Halles, got some jeans, and went out to the Musee d’Orsay. The museum is really cool because it was originally a train station, which has now been converted into a modern art museum. We also walked around the Latin Quarter and saw the Ecule des Beaux Arts, which is one of the most important art schools in history.

The next morning, we were picked up by Mr. Chauvet and Gainerrene. The Chauvet’s are family friends of Jeanne-Marie, and are also the parents of our friend Romain. The entire family is awesome and our weekend at their house was incredible… oh and “quiet”. First though Jacque (Mr. Chauvet) gave us a tour of Paris by car. After the tour we grabbed lunch in a really cool part of town, this part of town would be the cause of a giant headache for us later. Afterwards we went out to their home in Bouvais, which is a small, old village that is inside of a larger new town called Guyencourt, and is near to Versailles. Jeannie fell in love with house immediately, and I can’t blame her a bit. It is a nice stone home that has a nice yard and is near a small creek. We slept in Romain’s old room on the third floor.

I can’t stress how much we enjoyed spending time with the family. Jacques is one of the nicest persons I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and his wife Edith is an extraordinary artist and simply wonderful. Their children are just as nice as they are, William is a wonderful pianist after only two years of playing, and let me tell you, he is really good… Then there was Vincent and his beautiful girlfriend Florence, and who could forget Gainerrene, whom Jeanne-Marie fell in love with immediately. Overall our time there was extremely relaxing, or as Jacques says, “Quiet”. That Sunday Jacques took us out to Versailles and we walked around the gardens, which were more crowded than I had expected them to be. I guess since the weekend had turned out to beautiful weather, more people were out than usual. Jeannie almost got run over by a couple bicycles (no surprise there) and otherwise it was a great time. That evening the Chauvet’s took us to a birthday party for one of their neighbors, Pierre-Eric. The entire neighborhood turned out to be just as nice as the Chauvet’s; it was a ton of fun. Afterwards we had an awesome home-cooked meal with the entire Chauvet family and Florence.

Monday morning Edith took us back to our hotel, much to our chagrin. We went up the giant hill from our hotel to the church of Sacre Coeur. From here we went to an awesome square that Edith recommended to us, Place de Tertre. The square was filled with artists and some really good sidewalk cafes. After lunch we went to the Montmatre cemetery and walked around all of the cool mausoleums. From there we caught the metro out to Parc de la Villette, where Jeannie got tired and hungry. That evening we went out to the Hark Rock for dinner as has become our tradition.

Tuesday we went to Place de Bastille, where, duh, the prison stood. Now the Garnier Opera stands in its place. From here we walked to the Viaduc des Artes and Promenade Plantee. The Promenade Plantee is what used to be a elevated railway, now it has been converted into a 2.5-mile long linear park. Underneath the Promenade is the Viaduc des Artes, which is comprised of a series of shops, housing artists, craftsman, and designers that are set between the supports for the railway bridge. The Promenade ends at the Parc de Reuilly, which makes the spot of a former chateaux. The path there merges with a bike trail and continues at ground level until it reaches a former train station and the edge of Paris proper.

We walked from the Promenade to the river and the Modern Arab Institute, where Jean Nouvell has a famous façade that is composed of thousands of shutters… like the ones on cameras, not English cottages. We grabbed a café inside and walked to the Jardins de Plantes, which were a series of public flower gardens in between the history museum and the Zoo. From there we walked on to the Sculpture en Plein Aire, the open-air sculpture park that was situated along the riverside. After which, we went to the Jardins de Luxembourg, which were extremely crowded since it was an really beautiful day. Then we made our great mistake; we went looking for that area where we went with Jacques for lunch. Yeah, that took… a while. Basically we got lost, went in circles, got lost again, gave up, got hope, went in circles the opposite way, rinsed, washed, and repeated.

We eventually found it and then had to figure just what we wanted to eat. The area is awesome because it has nearly every type of ethnic food you can imagine. We eventually decided upon Mexican, with which we were rewarded by Dos Equis nachos, and some darn fine tacos. Now we are on our way through the Chunnel, don’t worry you are really only underground for maybe 20 minutes and it is about an hour and a half trip. Next stop, Jolly London.