Paris: City of Lights (and Soufflé)

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Ah Paris. Paris is the type of place that you must sigh about when you recall your time there. Paris is exactly what you expect it to be, and yet you're not disappointed at all.

We arrived, somewhat sleepy and sore from our Venice train ride in the Gare Bercy. For awhile I didn't know where we were, Bercy is that insignificant. But we eventually worked out which Metros to take to get up to the Gares du Nord and d'Est. So we schlepped our stuff to the Liberty Hotel- and I use that term loosely- and left our stuff in a corner behind the front desk. Then we went in search of cash and breakfast. We found a ubiquitous BNP and then found a boulangerie where I bought some croissants and something with apples in it. To escape the cold we had juice and tea in a cafe and ate our food on the sly.

We could check into the hotel at 12h30 or so, so we had to kill about an hour and a half. Ergo, we trekked up to the Sacre Coeur! We passed through this area that reminded me exactly of Brooklyn- lots of shops selling tuxedos and wedding dresses and random stuff. Fabric stores with bolts of cloth covering every square inch of wall space. There was this big clothing store we passed and it was selling all kinds of ugly shirts for cheap prices. It was so cheap I almost bought something, because it would have been a crime to pass it up. But I restrained myself.

The first thing I thought of when I saw Sacre Coeur was "Hey! This was in Amelie!" and the second thing was "That is one ugly church" and the third thing was "Oh crap that's a lot of stairs." I'm so poetic.

The thing about Sacre Coeur is that the architect who designed it kind of took and mashed together a bunch of different church styles, so the thing is this gawdy hodgepodge that really has no historical roots if you see what I mean. But other than that, it's a nice place. The view from the top was great.

While we were resting after our climb my cell phone rang and it was Margalit, my best friend from home. She was in Paris with Anna, another friend from Grayslake, and wanted to know where we should meet. She kept insisting the Eiffel Tower, which is a good meeting spot, but was also the exact opposite side of the city. So I said I'd call after I'd had a shower and a change of clothes. Somehow being clean makes walking far distances more attractive.

So after we moved into our room and I took a shower I called her back and we decided to indeed meet at the Eiffel Tower. Bridget was also meeting a friend in Paris, so we took the Metro together to the Pyramides stop, then separated. Even though it was on the chilly side I decided to walk along the Seine to the Tower. It was nice because I got to see the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens, the Musee d'Orsay and other various important, gold-gilded buildings along the way. I made it to the Tower and called Margalit back to let her know where I was so she could come find me.

So I kept looking around, trying to spot her, but saying to myself, "Knowing Margalit, she'll find a way to sneak up behind me." And sure enough, she did! Funny how you can get to know people so well. So she took me to a café a few blocks away where she and Anna were warming up from the cold. We sat and chatted for awhile and I impressed them with my French by asking to be buzzed into the bathroom. Then we went to go get the "money shot" as Anna called it- a picture of us with the Eiffel Tower behind- three girls from Grayslake, schoolmates since 3rd grade, then separated in high school, now reunited in Paris of all places. Funny how life works out like that.

Anna's camera didn't fit us all in, but mine did a pretty good job. We were doing it self-portrait style because Anna and Margalit are those kinds of people if you know what I mean. However, a very nice man came up, shook his head at us and took my camera and snapped a shot. I love Parisians. I include both shots, you can judge which method is better.

We headed up the road and found the Arc de Triomphe, then wandered down the Champs Elysee, all the while wondering about finding dinner. It was getting colder as night fell, but we were lucky enough to find a subway grate by the Place Concorde. So we stood on this grate with warm air coming out for about fifteen minutes. I could have stayed there forever. It was like a little oasis of warmth in a sea of winter. I highly recommend it to fellow travelers.

Eventually we met up again with Bridget, her old coach Karrie and Mollie in an English bookstore alongside the Tuileries. We decided to look for a soufflé place that was in the area, mainly because we were too hungry and it was too cold to look further. So we found the place and saw that it opened in twenty minutes. We waited and looked over the menu in the window, trying to figure out what some of the soufflés had inside.

When we got inside I decided to have the menu complet with the mushroom soufflé, followed by salad, a main course soufflé of chicken and then a chocolate soufflé for dessert. It was my most expensive meal of the trip, but it was worth it. Also highly recommended, if you can figure out where it is from my vague directions.

The next morning, Sunday, was our last day in Paris and of the trip. So it was kind of exciting and sad at the same time. We took the metro to the Ile de France and then ran to Notre Dame to make it in time for mass at 10h30. It was the Gregorian mass, so there was singing in Latin and incense and the whole deal. It was great, simply because I could imagine people hundreds of years again listening to the same thing.

Afterwards, the other girls and Karrie went off to do their own thing and I went over to the Louvre to meet Margalit and Anna. I got there by walking along the Seine again. It snowed a little bit and I walked faster. There was a line outside IM Pei's pyramid, but it moved quickly through security. The line for tickets was longer, but eventually I got upstairs and met the girls. They had to leave at 14h to catch their various trains, so we walked around the Greek and Mesopotamian art galleries. It was incredible. I saw the Nike of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, the Code of Hammurabi and sculptures from Assurbanipal's palace. It's so cool to see everything you learned about in Art History 10- it makes it real. I also saw Greek kraters that I swear we learned about in Greek Civilization.

When the girls had to leave it was sad, not only because they were going, but because that meant I was alone in the Louvre. This is a very overwhelming thing. I spent the next two or three hours walking aorund the whole place. I hit Greek Coptic, the Northern European painters and the French, saw the Rubens room, then checked out the rest of the Greek and Egyptian rooms. I did not go anywhere near the Mona Lisa or the Grand Gallery, because I knew with that many people around it wasn't worth it. The Vatican Museums really did change my outlook on museum-viewing.

Now here comes the most dramatic part of our whole trip: As I was leaving the Museum to catch a metro back to the hotel I checked my messages and found that Bridget had lost Mollie at the Eiffel Tower, because Mollie doesn't like heights and the other two wanted to go up to the top. So Mollie stayed on the second floor. Except that when they came back down they couldn't find her. By this time it was getting to be 16h30 and we were going to meet at the hotel at 17h to get our stuff and get to the Gare de Lyon for our 17h50 TGV. So Bridget left, thinking that Mollie would make her way back to the hotel, knowing that time was getting tight.

However, when Bridget arrived at 17h I had already been waiting for five minutes and Mollie hadn't shown. We got decidely nervous. Preparing for the worst, we dug out our joint ticket from Mollie's bags. The plan was that we would go to the train station and hope that Mollie made it there. We weren't going to take her stuff with us because we couldn't get in contact with her, we tried her phone repeatedly. I gave us until 17h15 and then we had to leave. Time came and we left, all the time hoping that Mollie would come running up. But no luck.

The two metros we had to take were absolutely miserable. They were packed, especially the second one we caught at the Bastille. Horrible. I didn't hold onto anything because there were so many people I was held up when the train started moving by other bodies. We made it to the Gare and found our train with five minutes to spare, which we used to run down to our car and haul ourselves and our luggage up to the second level.

The train pulled out a few minutes later as we lay sprawled and gasping and looking at an empty seat where Mollie should have been. I have to admit that I was just happy to be on the train. Bridget, God bless her, immediately got out her phone and called her friend to ask for her advice. Then she called the Eiffel Tower and found that there were no ambulances or emergencies there. By the time we were nearing Aix I was thinking of all those stories of people just disappearing from the face of the earth and how we were going to tell Mollie's parents. Then Bridget's phone rings and it's Mollie.

Apparently Mollie waited in the cafe on the second level of the Eiffel Tower for three hours for Bridget, long after the train left. She got a room at the Liberty Hotel for the night and rebooked a ticket on the TGV in the morning. No real explanation of what was going through her head. And her phone had been off the whole time.

I don't say a word, I don't say one word....

So with that our trip came to an end. Bridget and I took the shuttle to Aix and then I walked home, where Arlette was waiting with dinner. I finally got back at about 23h. And with that, I end my tale.

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Photos

The Seine River and Paris
A gray day, but in Paris nonetheless.

Sacre Coeur
Vaguely familar, but oh so ugly.

The Eiffel Tower
Overcompensating are we?

Money shot #1
Self-made- intimate and funny

Money shot #2
Taken by a passer-by- more informative perhaps

Sweet Warmth
Anna and Margalit enjoying our warm patch by the Place de Concorde

The Louvre and Pyramid
My very lastest shot of the trip, while waiting in line.