French Overload - October 17, 2008

Okay, This blog may take me a few sessions to finish because there is so much to write about the last week and a half and I want to tell you guys about everything. So, first I would like to mention that last Wednesday, our plan was to go to Paris for two days. Stephane had to evaluate some lab up in a suburb of Paris for work. So I went with him and while he was working I did the whole tourist thing. After that, our plan was to come home Friday night and attend a concert he had gotten tickets to, for his birthday. All of this depending on tight travel arrangements. Then we were to wake up in the morning and fly to Bordeaux for a wedding of one of his old friends and collegue. So, I knew we would probably be running for train connections and plane connections so I packed my Valium (I'm not kidding, I fucking hate the travel part of travelling). SO, here the story goes:

We left home with little issues except some stupid stuff which happened when we were picking up my tickets. But we got on the train just fine (first class baby) and travelled to Paris. On our way, the train stopped in the middle of some field, for no apparent reason. Now this is one of those wicked fast trains, so stopping is extremely strange. Eventually, they got on the loud speaker to tell us that there was a small fire (eek!) in one of the cars and that as soon as it was extinguished , we would get underway. Well, we had no plans except to go out to eat Vietnamese Pho when we got there so it was fine. They managed to put out the small fire within 15 minutes and then we were on our way.

So, we got to Paris and ate the Pho. YUMMY! Pho fucking rocks my socks! If you haven't had it I suggest you try it. It's like noodles in broth with veggies and beef and hot sauce! SO good! Pho is extremely exciting to us, but probably not to you, so I'll move on. :) LOL One of the things I was looking forward to was a hot shower with a shower head that was up top. Which we do not have in our flat (dammit!). But you never know what you will get when you are travelling here, obviously. SO this time in our hotel we had a stand up shower, but clearly this shower was made for all the skinny bitches running around France and not for my fat ass. Plus, you know how when the shower is going and the curtain kind of comes back and sticks to your wet body? Yeah well, basically I felt like I was making love with the shower curtain because it was so small in there. Hearing my rapidly increasing whining, Stephane was nice enough to come in and hold the shower curtain at bay while I finished my cramped shower. Oh how I long for the huge hot showers of America. So, anyway, then we hit the sack.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hotel, which consists of a croissant and coffee. I want an egg , sausage and cheese english muffin from McDonalds so fucking bad! They don't even have that in the McDonalds here! It's some frenchified version of McDonalds and they give you a croissant with your ham egg and cheese mcmuffin! Anyway, I digress. Stephane didn't have to go to work at the lab until noon. Our hotel was near the Cimetière du Père Lachaise (Cemetary of Father Lachaise) so we decided to go there (see pics in albums). For those of you who don't know, this is the cemetary where Jim Morrison is buried. So, since I'm totally an ex-druggie, I thought I would pay homage to the Lizard King. Of course, this cemetary is HUGE and we needed a guide to find his grave. But it was easily able to spot once you got near it because it is guarded by an armed guard ( I shit you not) and has makeshift fencing to keep you away from it! LOL So, needing no guarding, I just wanted the picture, I walked up to the fence and started shooting pics. There was a poor crying drunk old hippie there. I felt bad for him. I also though he resembled Jim Morrison if Jim Morrison were an old guy now. Mr. Mojo Risin' would be around 70 now and this guy totally could have been him. Who knows? SO , after I got my pictures, I nodded to the poor crying old man and moved on. I guess there's a bunch of famous poets and painters and what not buried there. I looked through the list but didn't recognize any of them, so didn't bother to find any other specific graves. Instead I just got some pics of random interesting ones. After that, Stephane had to go to work. I was a tad apprehensive because I then would be in Paris all by myself and have to navigate the Paris Metro and find the Louvre (which was my plan). I actually didn't do too bad. I mean, I am still here to write this blog so, clearly I made it back home alive. :) But it's definately a daunting task to navigate the city of Paris. It's huge! Okay, so after having a coffee at a corner bistro, I set off for the Louvre. ALSO HUGE! I got a map of the collection at the museum when I got there and after looking at it and having my eyes roll back into my head at least three times I decided to just put the map away and start wandering and see what I could find. I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of art about ten times now and I still haven't seen everything. This place is at least 10 - 15 times the size of the MET! So, I got plenty of pics you can look at in the albums. I went through the Greek and Roman statues, including the Venus de Milo , which I had no idea was on display there and was a great surprise to see her standing there. I also saw many French paintings and Italian ones. Of course, I had to go see the Mona Lisa too. Talk about a clusterfuck! So many people and the painting is very small, which I had heard. You can't get near it really and it is under the guard of about five people! I mean, it's a masterpiece but come on. I actually was much more impressed by several other of there famous paintings than the Mona Lisa. So I stayed at the museum for about four hours and saw almost nothing. Because I'm one of those people who actually likes to LOOK at the art for more than FIVE seconds. I like to study it! I mean some of this shit is truly amazing. Especially the sculptures! Those are totally impressive. I mean, here, I got this huge rock, and now I'm going to creat a beautiful human female form from nothing but my imagination. And I'm going to do it with this here primitive tool and some sand paper. And oh yeah, it's going to take me ten years to complete. Have you ever done anything that took that long to complete? No, so have some respect :) Yeah, totally amazing. So then it was my time to once again navigate the Metro over to Stephane's brothers house to meet him there for dinner. His brother is in Greece so we had decided to go and see Steph's neice and nephew and his brother's girlfriend. Last time we were in Paris, we visited them but both him and his brother speak English. His girlfriend , Marie, hardly spoke at all the first time. I get there, and of course, Stephane has not arrived yet, and phoned to say he will be about an hour late. So it was just the two of us and the kids. She spoke some French to me but mostly spoke some pretty understandable english which was really very relieving. Then Stephane got there and we played with the kids and ate dinner and then headed back to our hotel for the night. Overall it was a tiring day but I saw plenty of Paris and the Louvre and felt I had a great day.

I think I will stop here. The next day was quite long and the experiences are best written tomorrow.....


stay tuned.