A Free Man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive.
I'm not one much for palaces. I've seen a few on this trip, notably the one at Wilanow in Warsaw, but I felt that my trip to Paris would be incomplete without a visit to Versailles. Yeah, yeah, Louix XIV isn't exactly my type of king, but you can't criticize it until you see it, right?
It wasn't so bad after all! Julien's mom drove me there (very nice of her) and I had a great time with the audio tour, checking myself out in the Hall of Mirrors (those who know how much I love mirrors should only imagine...) and I actually thought some of the rooms were more "majestic" than "obnoxious."
The real gem of the Versailles palace was the garden. Again, I'm not a huge fan of gardens. Usually when I go to carefully arranged gardens I think, "uh...so it's a forest where the trees are arranged in parallel lines". But this was different! For one, the size. First, the Versailles gardens are HUGE. I walked through them for at least an hour (quickly) and only caught a small bit. Secondly, something about the order of it, the straight and diagonal lines, the cruciform canals, made me feel good. Looking straight down the canal and immediately sensing the order of the whole area was comforting without taking away from the grandeur of the place.
I spent the time listening to DJ Danger Mouse's "Grey Album", which mixes up the Beatles' White album and Jay-z's Black album. I rarely listen to it in its entirety, but it was super, super good. Maybe I DON'T hate all hip hop! This was followed by some Magnetic Fields.
Got back to Paris and did as much as I could around town before meeting up with Julian at 6:30 in Place du Sorbonne.
1. Sainte Chapelle - When I was 20 years old, I came to Paris for a week during the fall break granted to UCL students. I had taken AP Art History at Harvard-Westlake only 3 years before, so the image of Sainte Chapelle and its stained glass windows was still fresh in my mind. I was so excited about being there, that I attempted to take a picture of myself with the stained glass windows in the background, using my disposable camera. Unfortunately, the picture came out super bad. On my return, as a hardened 25 year old, I spent a few minutes with my digital camera making sure that I had something at least slightly more presentable. this time I gave much more attention to the details of the stained glass than I did last time. Each panel uses a completely different scheme as that adjacent to it! Who knew!?
2. Notre Dame Cathedral - I saw the exterior of Notre Dame 5 years ago. I believe I may have been walking with Kate at the time, but I am not sure. More importantly, I did not go inside until yesterday. And I had missed so much! The place totally scared me! Wikipedia calls it "the finest example of French gothic architecture." Sure, why not? There was much more to see than was possible in the 20 or so minutes that I spent inside. I'm angry though, because the tower was closed so I didn't get to go up and see the gargoygles. Which reminds me that I think the whole "low season" in Europe thing is EXTREMELY lame. They say it is "low season" so they don't have as many people working or as many buses running or places don't stay open as long so stuff is just as crowded and inconvenient as it would have been in high season. My stupid bus from Dubrovnik to Split ran half as frequently as the Let's Go book predicted because of "low season" (except the streets of Dubrovnik were FULL of people) and I had to take a later bus because the next one was full! The tower to Notre Dame was closed because of not enough staff, even though there was a huge line of people to see it! And it costs along the lines of 3 or 4 euros per person for the right to climb some steps. I don't get it. The demand is there. France has an unemployment problem. Why not hire a few more people? It probably takes about 2-4 tourist entry fares to pay for an extra employee!
3. The Pantheon and Foucault's Pendulum - After having recently completed Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, I couldn't help but visit Paris' Pantheon where it is now housed (in the book it was in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers but it was moved in 1995). I didn't find it as philosophically significant as the narrator, but it was pretty neat to have the earth's rotation proved right in front of me! Underground the Pantheon is a crypt containing a bunch of dead famous French dudes like Voltaire and Marie Curie who wasn't French, but was super cool (and I think I did a report on her in elementary school.)
4. The Place du Sorbonne - where I had a beer and a water (it is amazingly hard to stay properly hydrated in Europe when water costs 2.50 euro for 50 cL.
We went for sushi (first time I've had sushi since L.A.) and then to a bar to discuss everything.
A nice day and a nice night. That's how I like it, right? Sightseeing during the day and dinner and drinks at night. Why can't life be like that all the time!?
I'm not one much for palaces. I've seen a few on this trip, notably the one at Wilanow in Warsaw, but I felt that my trip to Paris would be incomplete without a visit to Versailles. Yeah, yeah, Louix XIV isn't exactly my type of king, but you can't criticize it until you see it, right?
It wasn't so bad after all! Julien's mom drove me there (very nice of her) and I had a great time with the audio tour, checking myself out in the Hall of Mirrors (those who know how much I love mirrors should only imagine...) and I actually thought some of the rooms were more "majestic" than "obnoxious."
The real gem of the Versailles palace was the garden. Again, I'm not a huge fan of gardens. Usually when I go to carefully arranged gardens I think, "uh...so it's a forest where the trees are arranged in parallel lines". But this was different! For one, the size. First, the Versailles gardens are HUGE. I walked through them for at least an hour (quickly) and only caught a small bit. Secondly, something about the order of it, the straight and diagonal lines, the cruciform canals, made me feel good. Looking straight down the canal and immediately sensing the order of the whole area was comforting without taking away from the grandeur of the place.
I spent the time listening to DJ Danger Mouse's "Grey Album", which mixes up the Beatles' White album and Jay-z's Black album. I rarely listen to it in its entirety, but it was super, super good. Maybe I DON'T hate all hip hop! This was followed by some Magnetic Fields.
Got back to Paris and did as much as I could around town before meeting up with Julian at 6:30 in Place du Sorbonne.
1. Sainte Chapelle - When I was 20 years old, I came to Paris for a week during the fall break granted to UCL students. I had taken AP Art History at Harvard-Westlake only 3 years before, so the image of Sainte Chapelle and its stained glass windows was still fresh in my mind. I was so excited about being there, that I attempted to take a picture of myself with the stained glass windows in the background, using my disposable camera. Unfortunately, the picture came out super bad. On my return, as a hardened 25 year old, I spent a few minutes with my digital camera making sure that I had something at least slightly more presentable. this time I gave much more attention to the details of the stained glass than I did last time. Each panel uses a completely different scheme as that adjacent to it! Who knew!?
2. Notre Dame Cathedral - I saw the exterior of Notre Dame 5 years ago. I believe I may have been walking with Kate at the time, but I am not sure. More importantly, I did not go inside until yesterday. And I had missed so much! The place totally scared me! Wikipedia calls it "the finest example of French gothic architecture." Sure, why not? There was much more to see than was possible in the 20 or so minutes that I spent inside. I'm angry though, because the tower was closed so I didn't get to go up and see the gargoygles. Which reminds me that I think the whole "low season" in Europe thing is EXTREMELY lame. They say it is "low season" so they don't have as many people working or as many buses running or places don't stay open as long so stuff is just as crowded and inconvenient as it would have been in high season. My stupid bus from Dubrovnik to Split ran half as frequently as the Let's Go book predicted because of "low season" (except the streets of Dubrovnik were FULL of people) and I had to take a later bus because the next one was full! The tower to Notre Dame was closed because of not enough staff, even though there was a huge line of people to see it! And it costs along the lines of 3 or 4 euros per person for the right to climb some steps. I don't get it. The demand is there. France has an unemployment problem. Why not hire a few more people? It probably takes about 2-4 tourist entry fares to pay for an extra employee!
3. The Pantheon and Foucault's Pendulum - After having recently completed Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, I couldn't help but visit Paris' Pantheon where it is now housed (in the book it was in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers but it was moved in 1995). I didn't find it as philosophically significant as the narrator, but it was pretty neat to have the earth's rotation proved right in front of me! Underground the Pantheon is a crypt containing a bunch of dead famous French dudes like Voltaire and Marie Curie who wasn't French, but was super cool (and I think I did a report on her in elementary school.)
4. The Place du Sorbonne - where I had a beer and a water (it is amazingly hard to stay properly hydrated in Europe when water costs 2.50 euro for 50 cL.
We went for sushi (first time I've had sushi since L.A.) and then to a bar to discuss everything.
A nice day and a nice night. That's how I like it, right? Sightseeing during the day and dinner and drinks at night. Why can't life be like that all the time!?
posted by Jed at 4:38 PM
2 Comments:
Your post sent me on a trip down memory lane! I haven't thought about Sainte-Chapelle or the Pantheon in a very long time. I used to walk by the Pantheon every day on my way to school.
Oh, and we definitely walked by Notre Dame together. I asked you what you wanted to see in Paris, and you said that you wanted to see the Seine. That hookah Indian restaurant was somewhere in the French quarter, not too far from the river.
Send Paris my love.
Okay, that sounds about right. I remember walking past Notre Dame. I think the reason I wanted to see the Seine was because of the song "The Metro" by Berlin.
I send Paris your love. It's a great place, isn't it?
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