Paris: The City of Lights

I never thought I'd say it, but the French got something right: Paris. Just kidding, the French have probably gotten more than just Paris right (bread... soup... ok that's the exhaustive list), but I was truly moved by what an immaculate city Paris is.


After we arrived on Friday, we checked in to our hotel (a block away from Moulin Rouge) and decided to blitzkrieg the museums. (Blitzkrieg - an offensive operational level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of motorized mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense. -Wikipedia. Perfect description of our approach) First, we spent a couple hours in Musée d'Orsay, a museum specializing in impressionist art. This was a pretty cool museum, architecturally, as it was converted from the former railway station, Gare d'Orsay. (On a tangent, I think the US should build more big train stations like Europe does, because they always seem to convert well into new things, like museums. We should model all of our train stations like the Train station in Antwerp, Belgium. Quite beautiful.) It is still easy to see how the building would have been a train station, with the large central corridor and the ornate clock. As far as the art inside the museum goes, I actually did enjoy some of it. However, I soon found it more interesting to look at a piece and give it my own title, rather than take it as the artist intended. I may make a gallery for all of these specific art pieces and my own personal captions. However, I must share my initial thoughts about one. Here you will see a statue, which I'm sure is quite famous in some way or another, but the only thing I could think about it when I was looking at it was," Man, that guy is completely naked and is waayyy too excited about it." There were areas of the museum that I did enjoy for their artistic merit however. I found out that I really do enjoy Van Gogh's work and I took numerous pictures of his pieces. He really mastered implementing movement into his work. I learned that that is something I enjoy in art: movement and rhythm.

After Musée d'Orsay, we refueled and launched the second offensive: The Louvre. The best part was, we arrived at the perfect time, because students happen to get in to the Louvre for free on Friday nights... So Brian didn't have to pay to get in... SCORE. Anyway, by the time we got to the Louvre, I was quite honestly, museumed out. I know, I picked a bad time to get sick of museums, but I couldn't help it. When we got in, all I really wanted to see was the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and the stuff that was mentioned in the da Vinci Code. Needless to say, I saw them, was relatively unimpressed, and was ready to leave within 30 minutes. Since everyone has seen those two works, I'm going to share some other pieces that I found interesting for one reason or another. Here is a painting that I took a picture of because I thought it looked like Waikiki beach in Hawaii. And here is quite possibly the most creepy looking guy I've ever seen. If that painting doesn't give you nightmares, you officially have ice water running through your veins. Aside from the art, I did find the lowest level of the Louvre pretty interesting. They still have the original foundation, complete with caverns and fun places to play around in. Again, the most interesting thing I found at the Louvre was the location itself. Especially at night, the area is quite a sight to see.

The next day, we finally got away from the museums and ventured to see some of the famous sights of Paris. Early in the day we spent some time wandering down the famous (or infamous...?) Champs-Élysées. I thought it was rather ridiculous that just because a store was on that street, they could hike up prices well beyond the normal price. For instance, the going rate for a Carmel Machiatto at Starbucks was over 5 euros. Absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, it was a pretty impressive street. We saw a watch with a 85,700 euro price tag. A little outside my price range. I'd say the most interesting thing about the street was that it lead straight to the Arc de Triomphe. We had already spent a good amount of time there (looking for our lost companion, Dan...) so we were familiar with the Arc, but it was an impressive sight every time we saw it.

After walking up the most famous street in the world, we decided to visit some churches. This was definitely one of my favorite parts about Europe, because if we're really being honest, we just don't make churches like they used to in Europe. I must have walked through a total of 20-30 churches while over the pond, and each one was unique and fascinating in a different way. The church we visited was Notre Dame. Initially, I was deeply disappointed to find that the gypsy's were no where near as good looking as Ezmeralda from the Disney movie. But other than that, it was an awesome place to visit. They did a great job of creating a somber and reflective atmosphere by minimizing light and relying on the stain glass and candles to do the lighting. I was a little irritated that I couldn't take pictures in there, and was even more irritated that lighting a candle cost something like 3 euros. Yet being in one of the most famous churches definitely made up for these downfalls. I think the most impressive view I got of the church was at night on our Bateaux Mouche tour (more on this later). Following Notre Dame was Sacré-Cœur Basilica. This church is a huge white structure located on a hill above Paris. From the church you can really see the whole city. Needless to say we had a great view from the top. We made it to Sacré-Cœur at a great time as we got to see vespers. We really had no idea what was being sung by these nuns, we could only realize when it was time to sit and stand by watching everyone else. But it was a really cool service to be apart of. There was a really interesting painting on the ceiling, depicting a diagram of the trinity. It was one of the few times I've ever seen an artist try to depict God himself. I'm pretty sure the artist didn't do The Big Man justice, but it was an interesting art piece none the less. Conveniently located close to Sacré-Cœur was an excellent restaurant where even I, a young American lad facing an unfavorable exchange rate and a tight budget, could eat a delicious 3-course meal. And my what a meal it was. Onion soup (normally we'd call it French onion soup, but as we were in France this adjective would have been redundant...), Lamb, and apple pie for desert. It was fantastic.


Alas, my favorite part of Paris is at hand: the Bateaux Mouche ride. If you have never taken a boat tour of Paris at night, you are most certainly missing out. Nothing showcases the City of Lights more than a cool summer night on a riverboat. I think we got on the boat right around 9pm, which was the perfect time. As we were getting on the boat, the sun was setting, so we were able to get some great views of the sunset behind the city. From the boat, the buildings were all illuminated and you could see everything reflected in the River Seine. We actually went by a great deal of the city on this tour, as a lot of the major things in the city are along the river, including Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and some other important government buildings. Unfortunately, a lot of my pictures came out a little blurry, as the boat was constantly moving... but it made for a great experience.
Sunday was our final day in the big city. We spent nearly the whole morning/ afternoon scaling the beast, aka- making our way up the Eiffel Tower. Let me begin by saying that I was wholly unimpressed by the Eiffel Tower during the day. However, at night it's like a whole new structure. The lights are fantastic. I actually could probably fill a while album with pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower (Note: The very first picture in this entry is not actually mine, it was taken by Neil Tailor. However, it was incredible and I felt the need to put it on this blog for the world to see.) It really is quite a piece of work. Forgive me for not going into more detail about the following pictures, but you get the idea: I went to the top... all the way to the top. The first picture proves it. The rest of the pictures are views of the city from the top.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, pretty much concludes my visit to Paris. Needless to say, I got on the bus and crashed after the Parisian Blitzkrieg. If being in Paris taught me one thing, it was that Paris is far too big to see in 3 days. My recommendation for future visits is block out a week. I feel like I did so much while I was there, but as is usually the case, there is so much I wish I would have been able to do. But... Such is life. But I'm looking on the bright side... having unfulfilled dreams of Paris just gives me an excuse to go back again later. Bonsoir!