Deux Jours en Paris

(Written this afternoon en route from Paris to Bordeaux)

Well, I have a three hour train ride to Bordeaux so I might as well get caught up.  I can't keep looking out the window; the high speed is making me dizzy.  

After settling into the hotel (each floor has a theme color; I was on the fourth floor which was orange), I decided to get my money's worth out of my 3 day metro pass and went out to explore the neighborhood.  All in all, I still like the Latin quarter better but Montparnesse wasnt shabby.  I found the bakeries and wine shop in the immediate vicinity then decided to hop on the metro and go... Somewhere.  I wasn't feeling picky.

So next thing I'm getting off at Les Invalides which is know is somewhere near the Champs Élysées and I started walking.  The great thing about Paris is no matter where you wind up, there's bound to be a metro station somewhere, and from any metro station you can find your way home if you're capable of reading a color coded map.  As it turns out I'm pretty excellent at finding my way around a metro map (merci, M. Porter!  If I learned one thing in high school French...)

I found my way to the grand palais, where I regrouped on a bench for a moment.

Not bad, eh?  By the way there are buildings like this everywhere so there's always something of architectural significance to look at.

Then I came across the street fair.  Apparently through the month of December the champs élysées becomes a winter wonderland of food vendors, temporary shops, and ice skating rinks.  And everything is lit up by Christmas lights.  I didn't get any pictures of all the tents set up for the fair but I did get a couple nice shots of the lights at night.  I actually did get a little into the holiday spirit.  But it's hard not to when you're looking at this.

Anyway, having missed lunch I was starting to get really, really hungry, but it was still too early for a full-on dinner.  Enter, une raclette.  While wandering around I caught sight of a tent where they had large half-wheels of cheese under broilers.  Oh, I don't care what you're doing with that, c'est magnifique.  So, you get a nice baguette with your choice of meat (jambon - ham - for me), then they scrape the oozy melty cheese off of these wheels until you have a wonderfully warm gooey sandwich.  Sorry, I was too busy stuffing my face to photograph.

After this I obviously required refreshment so I stopped at a cafe off the champs élysées and got a beer and a mineral water.  Parfait.

At this point I decided to once again ride the metro around a bit and after wandering another hour or so I made my way back to Montparnasse.  An obligatory pit stop at the local patisserie and wine shop, then to the hotel to hole up for the night.  As I had no desire to eat a full meal, this was my dinner.

Half a bottle of cheap champagne, une tarte aux pommes caramels, et un macaron pistache.  

The next morning I slept in until almost 9:30 (I don't think my body has the foggiest idea what the hell time it is) and then headed out for a full day of Paris.  Believe it or not I skipped breakfast - I was on a mission.

So I've been to Paris three times (four now), and every. Single. Time. I've tried to go to L'Orangerie.  And every. Single. Time. They've been closed for renovations.  I mean, seriously, what are the friggin odds?

Until now.  Ha!

A quick ride on the metro and voila, I made it, and they were open!

And I got there before the rush.

So, no photos allowed inside, but I finally saw the circular rooms painted by Monet!  Oh I could have stayed all day.  Personally I liked the first room better, the second was darker, somehow.  But absolutely wonderful.  They have quite a few other works of art by some of the great impressionist artists so I wandered through the other wings as well.  Truly an excellent way to spend a morning.

By this time I was famished so I found a bakery and bought myself some lunch to go,which I ate by one of the fountains in the Tuilleries gardens.

Warm salmon quiche and a tuna sandwich.  Absolutely fantastic.  As you can see I was very popular with the local bird life as well.

Oh by the way, have I mentioned that Paris in the winter is really fucking cold?

Like, this cold.

Note the scarf, hat, jacket, and unnaturally rosy everything.

So if it's a toss up between Paris and Hawaii for Christmas, go for Hawaii.

After lunch I decided it was time to go indoors for a bit so as not to lose any body parts, so I hopped on the blessedly warm metro and made my way to Notre Dame.

I'm getting pretty decent at the whole selfie thing, right?

Then I had a brilliant idea.  Note: make sure that you add a strong note of sarcasm into that last sentence for full effect.

Since I've never been to the top of Notre Dame, I thought, well why not?!  A crippling fear of heights can't stop me now!

I think they said it's 200 steps.  I think they're underestimating.

Several narrow, steep, windy staircases later, I made it to the top.  Just kidding!  No, the real top is up more narrow, steep, windy staircases!  But anyway, here's the first view.  Funny enough I was ok once I got up there, it was just the whole going up part (ie most of the experience) that tied my stomach up in knots.

At least I still look amused, rather than about ready to pee myself.

After an interminable wait, because they have to send you up to the very top in groups so as to not overwhelm the structure (wouldn't want the building to collapse or anything), up again we go!

And yes, I was muttering to myself by this point: "Oh god, I don't like these stairs.  I really don't like these stairs.  What were you thinking Swan?!"

But I did it, and here the view from the top.  I'm sure on a clear day it's even more spectacular, but I sincerely doubt I'll be repeating this experience, thank you very much.

Le tour Eiffel 

Sacre coeur

The very top of the roof.  Just above my head.

Yep, there it is.  The manic "I'm really enjoying this, no seriously!" fake smile.

By the way, the following picture of the stairs is actually at the point where they get wider and less scary, because I was too petrified to let go of the hand rail long enough to get a shot of the scarier part.

By the time I made it down my legs felt like jelly, only partly from the pure physical exertion of climbing to the top of a massive tower.

But I survived, and proceeded into the cathedral to both warm my frozen extrmeties and absorb some of the calming influence from within.  It worked.

From Notre Dame I made my way through the Latin quarter and St. Germaine des Pres and then eventually over to the Louvre, where I finished my tuna sandwich from earlier on a park bench with this view.

I didn't go inside, partially because I didn't want to wait in the never ending line, but also because, sorry folks, the Mona Lisa is kind of unimpressive in person.  (I'm probably going to artistic hell for saying that.)

Here are a couple more shots of the palace.

Wandering through the Tuilleries again I saw a man juggling pigeons (a little bird seed mixed with a dash of crazy and voila, a pigeon juggler is born), and then stumbled upon this cool setup? Exhibition? Of bells.  

A little more wandering and then I'd had quite enough for the day so I bought a croissant filled with cream sauce and ham, a salmon pastry, and (finally), a raspberry tart, my favorite.  

Nirvana.

Back to the hotel early where I finished the bottle of champagne from the night before and read before bed.

By the way, a fridge is completely unnecessary when you have a windowsill and it's roughly 1 degrees C outside.  Which for those of you that don't know the conversion, is approximately 33 degrees F, which I think is rather optimistic, truth be told.

And despite grand schemes for getting up early and conquering more Paris this morning, I slept in and made my way to the train station early (and good thing I did, as the whole train system is utterly, thoroughly confusing the first time).  I have about an hour and a half to go before I arrive in Bordeaux, where a lovely lady named Carol will be meeting me to take me to my next residence, my own little cottage in a small French village.  It'll be nice to stay somewhere for longer than a couple days and I'm really looking forward to cooking again!  I can also work on my French via total immersion which will be scary but a big help.  The unfortunate thing about knowing a little French is that people speak really, really quickly when they think you understand them, and my internal translator simply does not work at that speed.  

I'll update as I can but for now, au revoir!

~Swan