Kim and I planned on going to Paris for a few days. We had wanted to get away, but the real reason is that I was surprising Kim with the arrival of Kendra and Eric. I kept trying to lead her astray by saying that we didn’t need to go to Paris if she didn’t want to etc. Eric told Kendra that they were going to visit his friend in Montreal and then when they got to Montreal he broke it to her that she was really going to France. This was a very extravagant gift, but really the present Kim wanted more than anything else.
Coincidentally our friend Megan was going to Paris to go back to Ohio for the Christmas break. We didn’t arrange our schedules well enough in advance so she ended up taking the train when we could have driven her. We picked her up from the train station and went out to dinner. The Buffalo Grill is a French restaurant chain. We have one near us in Geveze. I wanted to go into the city (Paris). The airport / train station is about 30 minutes from the city. The two of them were so hungry they could not wait that long. The Buffalo grill is a little like an applebees or something like that. I got ribs which tasted a little different. Kim got a small steak and Megan chili con carne. It was ok. It was filling and inexpensive.
After dinner we drove into the city because Megan invited us to stay with her in her nice hotel room with a wonderful shower. She was sincere in wanting us to stay. We were going to take her to the airport in the morning and it would mean getting a nice shower and getting to sleep an extra half hour. We had to go back into the city to get our stuff. It was worth it. Megan was so excited to see the city lights. She was like a little kid squealing with delight. It made it so fun for us. We had no idea that Megan was that excited to see Paris. She would not have had the chance if we had not driven into the city and picked her up from the train station. It really made us feel good and besides we like her. This picture is one that Kim snapped while we were driving around. We drove up and down the Champs Elysees. I loved driving the giant rond point that circles the Arc de Triomphe. It was crazy every man for himself driving. I took an extra lap for fun.
We went back to Megan’s hotel. It was a little strange staying on the hide a bed in her room, but I really wanted the shower. The room had two interesting features I had never seen before. One was the way they ensured that lights were turned off. In order to turn the lights on you had to insert your room key. So off course when you left the room (and took your room key) all the lights were off. It was like a little circuit breaker.
The other strange feature was the see through window into the bathroom.
The next morning we took Megan to the airport and said goodbye. Now I had to come up with a reason for us to be there without giving away the secret that Kendra was coming in. I told here that my mom had arranged for someone in her ward to carry on a gift for her. I had to make up the story on the spot. I knew that Kendra and Eric were coming in from Montreal. When we looked at the arrival board there was a flight coming in right after the Montreal flight and was coming from Chicago. I thought if I said Montreal she would know. Both flights were late so I told her that I thought it was Chicago, but I wasn’t sure. Since we had time I told her I needed to call my mom and make sure. So we left the airport and went to McDonalds where we can always find free WiFi and where we can use our iPod Touch and Skype to make phone calls. We went to McDonalds and I told my mom what I was doing. We talked about a few other things and I just told Kim that he was coming in from Chicago. Kim started asking for details. I had learned from Lie to Me that if someone knows too many details it is usually because the answers are made up so I told her I wasn’t sure about a lot of things. She asked me what the guys name was and I said Steve. I don’t know where that came from. She then asked his last name. I said Cooper. I think in my mind I was thinking Smith would be a terrible choice. I then made up a whole background about this Steve Cooper. He was in his 40’s and was recently married for the first time. He and his new wife were coming to Paris for Christmas. They knew my mom and agreed to carry the package. I didn’t know if it would be wrapped. I wasn’t sure how I was going to know it was him. Kim insisted that we make a sign so I wrote on a piece of paper “Cooper” and I held it up as people came out.
Kim first saw Eric and then ran around to meet Kendra. There were a lot of tears and hugs. Everyone was excited. Kim said over and over that she had no idea and that this was the best present she could have got. I tried to video tape the event, but I was a little overwhelmed by the emotions and forgot to focus or pay attention. For what it is worth here is the video tape.
We did not have a lot of time to spend in Paris. It was very cold, but we had a lot planned for the 24 hours that Kendra and Eric were going to be there. We loaded their bags and took the bags to the apartment that we were staying in. We were very lucky to have access to an apartment that our landlord owns. Phillipe has been so good for us. He has helped us with little things like getting the heat turned on to getting us a place to stay in Paris and even giving me a root canal. We are so lucky to have hooked up with him.
Kim and I had originally planned on going to the Louvre when she thought we were going alone. Now we were going with Kendra and Eric. It was cold outside, so being inside was a treat. I didn’t know it, but that big class Pyramid is the entrance to the Louvre. I walked over to look in and take a picture. Low and behold it was the actual entrance. We had to go through a metal detector. There was no charge to enter what I guess would be the lobby, although it was underground and enormous. We would find out later that it was also the entrance to a rather extensive mall with a starbucks and apple store.
Kendra and Eric were starving. We dropped into the Louvre cafe. There were actually several eating options in the Louvre. I could have spent several days in there and never have needed to go outside. I was afraid that it would be mediocre food and high prizes since we were in the Louvre. (I did mention that didn’t I?) I wanted Kendra and Eric to love the food like I do. We were lucky. The sandwiches were wonderful and only about 4 Euros each.
I won’t try and cover everything we saw there, but I will try and show some of the highlights for me. We bought the audio tour along with the tickets. Children under 18 are free, but we were 15 Euros apiece and the audio two audio tours cost us 12 Euros. Flash photography wasn’t allowed (although some annoying people ignored the ample warnings). The camera we have was pretty good at low light photography, but me the photographer was weak.
This was room that I did not spend enough time in. I could have got lost in all of these. This was a set of enormous Peter Paul Rubens. This room was the Marie de’ Medici cycle. I wish I would have been more prepared before coming to view them. Of course I had never heard of Marie de’ Medici nor this group of paintings. They are enormous and quite stunning, but the subject matter and the display equally impressive. This group of paintings were absolutely the best propaganda of its day mixing politics with mythology. I loved it.
The Louvre itself is a work of art. Abandoned as a palace when Louis XIV built Versailles it was finally commissioned as a museum during the French Revolution in 1793. Most of the works had been confiscated from the catholic church and the royal family. These last two additions of the glass pyramids (first the upright and then the inverted) were just finished in 1988 and 1993. We were lucky to visit during a time when there weren’t many visitors. There can be long lines just to enter the Louvre. Here is a picture from inside the Louvre showing the inclement weather and the nearly empty courtyard.
I loved this picture of Napoleon. After seeing this and other paintings of him in the Louvre and Versailles I had to read more about his life. I really knew nothing about him before.
Kim wanted to see more of the impressionist. We looked all over and there was just a small room with a few Renoir’s and Monet’s. We think that the impressionist are in the another great museum in Paris the Orsay. I don’t know if we will ever get a chance to visit that museum. There is just too much to see in one year.
There were some obligatory viewings. Like Winged Victory…
…and the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is hardly worth it. You might as well buy a Polaroid of it. It would be regretful to say that we went to the Louvre and didn’t bother seeing the Mona Lisa, but as you can see it is behind glass and people are more or less queuing up to have their picture taken with it.
Other pieces like this statue of a veiled woman were absolutely mesmerizing and I was able to lean in and look up close. It looks like there is an image carved under a thin layer of granite which would be the veil. It is a complete optical illusion in 3D. I stared for a long time and was completely amazed. This picture doesn’t do it justice when trying to describe what it was like to walk around and look at it from different angles. The embarrassing part is I don’t know what the name of the statue is or who was the artist. It wasn’t about looking at it because it was famous or well known. It was looking at something that was truly worth looking at in person.
It had only been about 2 1/2 hours and Kendra and Eric took a hit from the Jet Lag Fairy. There was one more thing I wanted to see, the sword of Charlemagne. So Kendra and Eric sat on a bench and passed out while Kim and I went to look for the sword of Charlemagne. Embarrassingly when I asked where it was, no one could understand me. I have to work on my French pronunciation.
One of the reasons that seeing the sword of Charlemagne is such a big deal is that it is part of a collection from Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris. The cathedral of Saint Denis is where all the Kings of France are buried from Clovis I (450 AD) to Louis the XVII. Even Marie Antoniette and Louis XVI are buried there. (Their remains were retrieved as well as they could have been and moved to Saint Denis after the French Revolution calmed down a bit) So I wanted to go to Saint Denis, however it is in the worst part of Paris. Less than 20% of all the crimes committed in that part of Paris are ever solved. While we were there we actually caught a newscast of people being attacked in Saint Denis. Well Kim was having none of that. So even though I tried to convince her the criminals were lazy and if we went in the morning they would all be asleep, she said no way! So while listening to one of the audio guides of a painting of Louis XIV she learned that the sword of Charlemagne pictured in the painting was actually in the Louvre, we knew we had to find it. Charlemagne is the great King of All of Europe. He is actually buried in Germany. But on loan from Saint Denis here was his sword from 9th or 10 century.
After the Louvre we walked around looking for a place to eat. We were hungry again. We found a nice bakery and of course bought a baguette and then we found a Kebob place and ate dinner there. Kebobs are from Turkey and are very popular in France. As they should be, they are fantastic. After eating we got in the car (Kim was refusing to walk and it was starting to rain and then snow. We took a couple of laps around the Arc de Triomphe and looked at the shops along the Champs Elysees but it was getting late and we wanted to see the Eifel Tower. We found a decent parking spot and walked to the tour which was strangely deserted. It turns out that the workers were on strike. What!? Well we were cold and soaked and it was starting to snow so we called it a night. We had other stuff to see the next day.