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Published: September 13th 2009
Hello,
Tired...this will be brief.
9/1 - Arrive, great hotel room with half the wall being a window, nice. Lounge and plan our attack of Paris.
9/2 - We invade and see the following. Notre Dame Cathedral. Lunch on Seine river. Jardin des Tuileries (picture movies depicting frenchies walking around with umbrellas and painted faces in the time of Louis. Picture those gardens they stroll through? That's what this is.) Arc de Triomphe and the Michigan Avenue of Paris, Champs-Elysees. I must say though, it doesn't quite stack up to Rodeo Drive in L.A., IMHO.
9/3 - The Lourve, I'm as impressed with the money and energy put into the Lourve facility itself as I am with the individual works inside. We see all sorts of things there, Mono Lisa being one. Pantheon, where fancy frenchies are all entombed...like Rousseau. We decide that a fancy dinner must be had while in Paris and go to Bofinger. I have steak tartar (raw burger really) and duck liver. Good thing Claire ordered normals things haha. I kid, the steak tartar was pretty good.
9/4 - Catacombs - 800,000 sets of human bones set deep in a dark cave
system, spooky and kind of surreal. Check out the CBD, I'm very impressed. We take a train to see Versaille (Palace for Louis, that he was dragged from to get his head lopped off). We didn't go in but "viewed" it. At night, we cap it off with the Eiffel Tower. I thought the Eiffel Tower would feel very touristy and tacky to me. It was touristy of course, but there is something special about going up it at night and taking in the 360 views of Paris.
9/5 - I get sick and spend the night in the bathroom - ate some bad sushi we think. Musee D' Orsay. See a whole bunch of Manet, Monet, and Van Gogh. I really like Monet and Van Gogh. Claire likes Van Gogh the best.
That's it for Paris, and for France. We board our first over-night train to Munich.
France. Much different than Spain for sure. They wake up earlier and exercise. All around they are much more like Americans than the Spanish although still not quite as industrious. Like the Spanish, they still count the minutes with cigarettes.
We were very skeptical coming into France because
we had both heard that, well, like Harry put it in Dumb and Dumber, "I don't know Loyd, the French are assholes." Not true in our experience, however! And in fact, they were actually more friendly than the Spanish, if that's possible. Almost everyone we met was very willing to help even though we knew diddly French. We did know how to say hello, smile, and ask if someone speaks English (I think we know less than 20 words or phrases). Rather than just start up in English, everyone seems to appreciate a smile and an effort.
Well we thought, we'll see once we get to Paris, all the snobs are probably hanging out there. Nope, not the case either, all nice in Paris too. The French certainly have a lot of personality though and I'd say it borders on the downright goofy. In comparing to the Spanish, I think it's just too hot in Spain for anyone to move or talk to fast or get too excited about anything - at least until the sun goes down.
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Drew
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Points
-5 points for a minor error in French history: the royal family vacated Versailles 3 years before the king was beheaded, and during that time they lived in Paris, escaped, were captured, etc. +10 points for the Dumb and Dumber quote +100 points for the baguette karate