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Published: June 15th 2006
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Notre Dame
There it is, Victor Hugo's pet project. Hi everyone!
Well, Connie and I are on the last leg of our journey and we're looking forward to being home soon and showing everyone some good pictures and sharing fun memories. We are currently in Portsmouth, England, visiting a friend of Connie's and generally relaxing a good deal. It's funny... travelling is not necessarily relaxing. There is the constant anxiety and worry of catching a train, making a connection to another location, watching your bags, etc... And on top of that, there is so much to see and do in every location that you can feel overwhelmed. So this is the first stop that we've had where we can't really sight-see and are forced to relax and bum around a house for a bit. It's been really nice.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions for Paris. I don't know WHY I thought we would be spending too much time in Paris. Quite the opposite! I left Paris without seeing so many things. As for Paris...
We arrived Thursday morning from Rome and spent the afternoon sleeping in our hotel room since we had been up since 5am that day. That evening, we went out and did a boat
The Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel tower at night! trip of the Seine river and also went up the Eiffel tower, which Connie still talks about today. 😊 I don't know when this happened, but I've developed a mild fear of heights, so while I went up to the second level of the Eiffel tower, I didn't go all the way to the very top. But that's okay, because Connie went instead and took my camera to get some cool pictures. Following that, we went to a typical Parisian cafe and ate some typical French cuisine and some good local wine. It was indeed a lovely way to spend a first day in Paris.
The next day, Connie and I went to Notre Dame and Ste Chapelle (beautiful!) and hurried up to the Montmartre area for a tour of the Montmartre district. I am going to be girly for a second, so please feel free to skip ahead of this part and read the next paragraph or so if you find this too girly. Please feel free to skip ahead now..... Waiting...... Waiting..... Okay. Girls, you can read this: The tour guide for our tour of montmartre, was ridiculously cute. He was so cute that it was offensive,
because you thought people like that weren't supposed to exist. He was an American who just decided to up and live in Paris for a couple of years (the 1st slap in the face). He studied piano performance and choral conducting (slap number 2) and was just too genial and amiable with everyone (slap number 3). On top of that, he loved art history (slap 4) and music history (slap 5), and could carry on an intellectual conversation (slap 6). Oh, and Connie wants me to mention that he sings (slap 7, I presume). It was honestly not fair. I tried to sneak a picture of him when I was taking a picture of the Moulin de la Galette for you girls so that you could see for yourself. The picture, unfortunately, did not turn out okay.
Okay. Everyone else, you can read now. Ahem......... So Connie and I enjoyed the tour of the Montmartre area. It's this odd clash of art and trashiness (think Moulin Rouge gone bad). But it works somehow, and the hill where Sacre Coeur is has some wonderful views and a great atmosphere. Later on that afternoon, Connie and I tried to fend
off the heat by going to the Luxembourg gardens, which are very very nice. We eventually crashed in our hotel and started watching the World Cup, which Connie had never experienced before. The World Cup always reawakens my obsession with soccer, so I have been glued to the TV every day between, oh, say, 2-10pm. I feel bad for Connie, because I've been a lousy tourist lately, what with the games on and everything. After the game, we went right to bed because the next day we would be going to.....
The Louvre!!!! Oh my goodness! This place is great! Divided into three sections (Denon, Richeliu, and Sully), this museum was definitely a big place to experience art. I actually got there earlier on that day, so after four hours in the Louvre, I think I saw most of the exhibits. Although I still managed to miss Delacroix's famous Raft of Medusa somehow. Boo. After four exhausting hours of profound artistic statements, Connie and I went down to the basement of the Louvre which is the underground shopping mall area (tres cool). We ordered something that the French believed was Mexican food (Le Nachos, Le Taco, etc.) and experienced
Garnier Opera Hall
I think that's what it's called. Connie and I toured it and had a blast, though! one of the highlights of my trip so far: we accidentally sat down in an area where hundreds of people (primarily men) were engrossed in a HUGE flat-screen TV, watching the World Cup. The World Cup is such a big deal around the globe that it really brought it home to Connie, and actually was comforting to me since I miss the global community feel a lot.
We were planning on doing some other sight-seeing things that afternoon, but we actually stayed inside the Louvre for the entire day (pretty much). The reason for our stay in the Louvre was that the temperature in Paris had reached a scorching 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature pretty much stayed that way when we got there, which made for some awful nights and frustrating sleep. So as a result, we figured the air conditioning inside the louvre, beat out the heat (all sun, no clouds) in the Tuileries gardens.
We tried to get a head start at the famous Versailles palace the next day by being there around 10am, but everyone had our idea and the heat was already unbearable by 11am. However, we did enjoy this beautiful and obnoxiously grand
Parisian Metro stop
I love how they look. palace with its delicate shrubbery and elegant fountains. Following lunch in the shade (with thousands of other tourists avoiding the sunlight), we headed home early and spent the afternoon at the Orsay museum, which is spectacular. Chris Porter, if you are reading this, you would love the Orsay museum, just because of its layout. Connie says this building has endless photographic possibilities. We both think it has you written all over it. 😊
Yesterday (Tuesday), Connie and I spent the morning at the Carnavalet museum and we went to the famous Pere-Lachaise cemetery, where all the famous musicians, artists, etc., are buried. Example: Chopin, Cherubini, Bellini, Maria Callas, Jim Morrisson, the actress Sarah Bernhardt, George Bizet, Albert Camus, Ernest Chausson, Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Lalo, Rossini, and the painter George Seurat were all buried here. Just to name a few. So we went off in the heat of the afternoon to see some famous graves with many flowers on them before heading to the Gare du Nord train station to catch our chunnel train to England.
As for the Chunnel, it was really uneventful. You are under the water for about 20 minutes, can't see a thing, and your
ears don't even pop. But the train was nice (and terrifyingly fast on the French side of the Channel), and we made it to Portsmouth in one piece.
Now, Connie and I are just here relaxing and doing errands (laundry, post, etc.). Today there is going to be a soccer match between England and Trinidad and Tobago. What a better way to watch an English soccer match than in an English pub with hundreds of soccer fanatics screaming at the TV screen, right? Right. So we'll be headed to this young and trendy pub today filled with yuppies to catch a pint a pint of cider for Connie, a martini for me, and some good football. Maybe we'll eat some more Fish and Chips (already had one batch yesterday! yum!), or the other national English dish: Indian curry. So stay tuned! I'll be putting up some more pictures soon (hopefully) and can also make a photo album or two of our time in Italy and France!
As they say in England:
Cheerio!
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Laura K.
non-member comment
Heat
Well, thanks for the cool descriptions anyway! I loved the "girlie" part--I know just what you mean--he sounds perfect for you two. Spending the whole day in the Louvre was a good idea--sometimes it's fun to have "slow tourism" (something like "slow cooking") and really adjust to a place. Hope the pub was fun--(really, you should be drinking beer--it's so much better in England than it is [usually] here). Yay for you and Connie. LK