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Published: January 4th 2009
Paris was wonderful and everything that it lives up to. I was not sure how to title this entry since I wanted to attempt to capture everything that happened on New Year's in Paris but also include other things that I just did not mention earlier. Sorry that it has taken me a few days to enter my last blog from my trip because I wanted to summarize a lot and I could not do it on the European keyboard.
Paris Wow, what a wonderful city with culture, history, romance, beautiful places, people from around the world and oh yeah - tons of tourists! It would be hard for someone not to love it. I walked over the Pointe Alexandre III (or one of the bridges from the left bank to right bank of Paris) and remembered the scene from Sex in the City. This is the bridge that Big told Carrie Bradshaw that she was the one. It is super romantic but obviously no signs that this was the bridge...
There is so much culture that I felt like I should have paid better attention in school. The tour guides mention Napolian and his conquests and I just
did not remember that victory or why that was important in history. Actually it was intimidating. But then I asked a few other people I met while traveling and they heard the name but thought he was from Italy.
Back to the culture...when you get off at the Plaza de la Concorde metro stop, they are playing Ave Maria as you walk from one line to another. Then when I was at the Opera metro stop they were playing Vivaldi. I can't think of anywhere else where they play classical music in the train stations. After you walk out of the metro, there are usually several artists selling their paintings or sketchings of different points around Paris.
After the first day, I picked up the French language again. I did really well asking for things in French, but then they would answer me in English. Ugh!! I was talking to this guy in a brasserie one day and I was attempting my French and he was answering me in Italian. I was so confused, but did not want to pull my book out even though he knew I was a native English speaker. After he left one really
nice French lady told me that he was answering me in Italian and sometimes the mulit-lingual speakers do that to see if you will act like a sterotypical American and get frustrated and then go back to English.
And the food...incredible. Most of us in the Western world are taught that breads, butter and alcohol are bad and the French see it quite the opposite. I can't remember the last time I had white bread and with every meal. Then of course the alcohol (wine or champagne) was easy to get adjusted to for every meal. And of course I purchased some great chocolate. The lady told me that it has an expiration date of two weeks and then I said that won't be a problem!
Musee de l'Orangerie This little Impressionist museum that I visited was great. I have visited the Musee d'Orsay in the past with more Impressionist paintings and wanted to see something new on this trip. The l'Orangerie museum was closed for 6 years for renovations and recently opened up. It largely is focused on two oval shaped rooms lit by sunlight that house 8 Claude Monet Water Lillies (Nympheas) paintings.
The paintings
are huge! He painted them while struggling with cataracts over 12 years in home in Giverny and built a special studio to accomate the work in process. Several of them where painted and then stitched together just to hang in the museum. He painted them specifically to hang in l'Orangerie but never lived long enough to seem them hung up for display. Each of these paintings look into the pond in his garden and reflect different angles at different points of day with no cronological order.
The paintings were amazing! I tried the best I could to label them as I could remember but they were huge and I did not take notes. The rest of the museum had works from Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and several others. I did not take any pics of those since I am not really into their works of art.
New Year's Eve When I asked a few people about what time I should head over to the Parc Du Champ De Mars (ie, lawn that leads up to the Eiffel Tower they all just looked at me funny. I thought they were joking that the French don't head down to one
of the symbols of their country to celebrate the new year. But no, several French people told me that it was not a big deal. They usually have a wonderful dinner with family and then head to bed before midnight because the New Year's Day is more important to them. Some told me that I should head over to the Champs Elysees to listen to music in one of the clubs and then dance in the street at midnight. I thought that would be kinda disappointing after traveling all this way just to dance in the street.
Instead, I headed over to the Eiffel Tower around 23:30 (ie 11:30) and there were tons of tourists. It did not seem like there were any local French people because you could hear every language spoken. The tower was closed earlier in the night so you could not go up and be on it when it struck the new year. What was weird was that almost everyone had bottles of champagne (one of the country's drinks of choice) and there was no clock or loud speaker counting down the seconds. You looked around to see if it anything different was going to
Salle I
Room 1 of the Monet paintingshappen and then the clock struck midnight.
The tower changed from blue lights to the sparkling blue lights and people popped their bottles open and hollared, Bonne Annee (Happy New Year in English). A few fireworks went off behind the tower on Trocadero monument but nothing huge like you would have hoped for. Several people had hand held sprinklers and were waving them in the air.
Usually for the first five minutes of every hour the tower sparkles with white lights on it. This time, the tower was blue at midnight and as the five minutes was almost up, the lights that lit the tower changed from blue to orange. So after the five minute where done the tower was now lit in orange lights. Must be the blue is for Christmas and before New Year's but not sure and never asked.
The trip itself was filled with great memories and new people that I met. I did not mind the cold weather but found out when I got home that I sprained my foot pretty badly. I guess the next time I go to Paris I will be smarter and take better walking shoes instead of
fashionable ones. Till the next trip, thanks for reading.
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