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Paris, Sunday and Monday
Jun. 15th, 2015 07:17 pmThe French have not yet figured out that tourists (who they depend on for a lot of their GDP) would like to make plans by looking at the internet. Their websites range from shitty to useless, and tend not to show hours of business.
After sleeping until 1:00 on Sunday, we wandered out to American-style brunch with delicious veal sausage; then walked along the left bank of the Seine for a long time. I bought a cute poster about le chat domestique... and I took a Lactaid for the sake of trying supposedly the best ice cream in Paris, a nice small hazelnut cone with big chunks of hazelnut in it.
We wandered, also, to Notre Dame, and through the open rear of it while a service was going on. I dipped my fingers in a stone pool of holy water and crossed myself, just because I liked the idea of doing something that so many uncounted thousands had done before me. Ultimately, the place didn't look so very Christian to me; the art over the doorways, with saints and angels packed head-to-foot, reminded me of H.R. Giger's "Birth Machine" more than anything. And when we went around the back of the church it just got more and more pagan, with its wild and wicked gargoyles and creepy architecture.
Lastly, Eiffel Tower to the top! And oddly, as we approached I understood how people, used to the ornate baroque gilded stuff of the rest of the city, might have found it ugly when it was built.
We didn't. And so to the top! We had tickets to the second level; and once we were there, we found that tickets to the top (previously billed as "have to get tickets months in advance if you want them") were available with no waiting for 6.5 Euros. Um, YES PLEASE. So up we went, and drank champagne up there and took selfies and city pictures. And on the way down, somehow we walked from the second platform to the first one, and I climbed from the stairs into the scaffolding where I was totally not supposed to be, and laughed like a monkey. Didn't get caught, so I didn't get deported.
Monday (today), I skipped out on a 3-hour historical walking tour in order to sleep until 1:30, then met up with the others at an antiques market and bought a pretty necklace that could easily be present-day industrial punk. There followed much wandering. The people we are with are maximizers and will cross half the city to get to what the guidebook says is The Best. We therefore now have The Best Macarons in Paris to nibble on, at some point. And we did have an excellent 3-hour dinner, which was really more like two meals in one sitting, during which I discovered Orange Columbo. Slurp slurp.
Have I mentioned that the clothing is a disappointment? The dream of bringing home something super chic is rapidly fading. Probably a good thing for my budget.
After sleeping until 1:00 on Sunday, we wandered out to American-style brunch with delicious veal sausage; then walked along the left bank of the Seine for a long time. I bought a cute poster about le chat domestique... and I took a Lactaid for the sake of trying supposedly the best ice cream in Paris, a nice small hazelnut cone with big chunks of hazelnut in it.
We wandered, also, to Notre Dame, and through the open rear of it while a service was going on. I dipped my fingers in a stone pool of holy water and crossed myself, just because I liked the idea of doing something that so many uncounted thousands had done before me. Ultimately, the place didn't look so very Christian to me; the art over the doorways, with saints and angels packed head-to-foot, reminded me of H.R. Giger's "Birth Machine" more than anything. And when we went around the back of the church it just got more and more pagan, with its wild and wicked gargoyles and creepy architecture.
Lastly, Eiffel Tower to the top! And oddly, as we approached I understood how people, used to the ornate baroque gilded stuff of the rest of the city, might have found it ugly when it was built.
We didn't. And so to the top! We had tickets to the second level; and once we were there, we found that tickets to the top (previously billed as "have to get tickets months in advance if you want them") were available with no waiting for 6.5 Euros. Um, YES PLEASE. So up we went, and drank champagne up there and took selfies and city pictures. And on the way down, somehow we walked from the second platform to the first one, and I climbed from the stairs into the scaffolding where I was totally not supposed to be, and laughed like a monkey. Didn't get caught, so I didn't get deported.
Monday (today), I skipped out on a 3-hour historical walking tour in order to sleep until 1:30, then met up with the others at an antiques market and bought a pretty necklace that could easily be present-day industrial punk. There followed much wandering. The people we are with are maximizers and will cross half the city to get to what the guidebook says is The Best. We therefore now have The Best Macarons in Paris to nibble on, at some point. And we did have an excellent 3-hour dinner, which was really more like two meals in one sitting, during which I discovered Orange Columbo. Slurp slurp.
Have I mentioned that the clothing is a disappointment? The dream of bringing home something super chic is rapidly fading. Probably a good thing for my budget.
