as you can probably tell by the title of this post this has been quite a long day with a lot of things happening. this is what happens when it only gets dark by 11pm and it gets light at 6am… your days seem unbelievably long. and of course being on vacation doesn’t hurt either.
i woke up first and not as early as i’d have liked – i was supposed to wake up at 8 in order to get to notre dame before the line ups; alas the 2am falling asleep ensured that i really didn’t get out of bed until 8:40, thus getting out of the house by 9:10. k was still asleep when i left.
i tried to hit up the local market on my way out of our area but nothing seemed to be there, and i thought i had the wrong square. on my walk to the subway found another bakery, where the croissants were FAR more delicious – thus ensuring i have a quick snack later on in my line up for notre dame.
going to notre dame alone really reminded me how much more paranoid i am when i travel by myself. though i enjoy the lack of accountability (stop and go as i wish) it is more unnerving to be by yourself. i played the parisian role by reading on the metro while huddling in the corner. karmun wisely slept in and left me to stand the line up (yes, line up 30 mins prior to opening – insane!) and climb the stairs (400 something of those) by myself. i don’t blame her – i wouldn’t and haven’t cared to go up last few times in paris either, but i really wanted those gargoyle photos.
notre dame itself, outside of the stair climb, was pretty much as expected. i had a cute chat with the security guard about the ebook – not because he thought its a problem, but just because he saw me reading it and got curious. that thing provokes friends like no other – everyone wants to look at it and touch it. its awesome!
the climb reminded me that after paris i’m probably going to have mad toned legs, because of all the climbing up and down from the subways, into the subways, from our apartment, into our apartment, from views and sights, into views and sights, from museums, into museums, from stores, into stores, etcetcetc – these people don’t like their gyms but love their stairs.
the views up top were as spectacular as promised; photos – eh, we’ll see – i definitely loved the gargoyles. if i ever have a balcony i’m definitely getting a few gargoyles – they are actually really cute. i even saw one that looked like an elephaunt – how awesome is that?
quickly getting home after picking up a few small bottles of wine for tonight put me home at 12:15 – pretty early for having checked off a landmark of the day’s list of activities. k slept in and so we went to have a very Nice lunch in the nearby square – it was somewhat pricey, but very good. it was the nicest meal we’ve had so far; to be honest though i enjoyed the cheaper food in other restaurants a bit more. i like the classic french bistro fare. before we sat down for lunch we noticed the market that i was looking for earlier in the morning – it was now open, so we walked around.
markets seem to be very similar between all cities in europe. though they change depending on the size of the city and the language, the essentials are always there. fish, cheese, meat, veggies, fruit, cheapo clothes.
clothes – nah, nada
fruits – cherries
veggies – nah, nada
cheese – yes, a bit, 50g
meat – procuitto, yes, a bit, 100g
c’est tout. quick and efficient.
we dropped off the produce at home after lunch and went on to louvre. louvre was the same as usual – though we got a lot of awesome photos of horribly freaky painted babies (painted as in, on the paintings), i got really stressed out and overwhelemed in my usual fashion, so we wrapped it up pretty quick and got out of there. all told for louvre it was 2 hrs – i guess i’ll keep that limit in mind next time i come!
we headed to pompidou area, and prior to going to the museum took a long, relaxed coffee & coke at a nearby area. it certainly helped restore our spirits and renergize us for another museum.
pompidou was fun – i liked a few exhibits:
- a lot of picasso – nice to see.
- fauvres – like old friends, happy to see again
- duchamp’s ready mades
- some very modern art where the artist cut a hole in the ceiling in a very geometric shape and then placed either the ceiling or white cubist/triangular pieces shaped like it on the floor. basically a great piece of installation art.
- a video of a woman violently combing herself and repeating “art must be beautiful. artist must be beautiful.” it actually made quite an impression on me.
- some modern furniture/industrial design, but not enough. i should hit up some industrial design museums next time or maybe even find some in toronto.
after pompidou we walked around the area, which turned out to be super sketchy. we got hungry and picked the restaurant too quickly and got our first major major rip off of the trip – not TOO Bad of a rip off, but still. the food was HORRENDOUS, like, unbelievably bad. so bad we actually shook our heads at some tourists that came up behind us and thus disuaded them from sitting down. a table near us sent their food back. we sure were happy to have the market meats back home at this point. though the atrocious dinner provided us some energy to get home, ugh, NEVER AGAIN a place with an english menu.
it really was so bad it became funny. even the wine was watered down. terrible.
anyway. after the terrible, terrible place, from which we ran as fast as we could – we got home, picked up our snacks, and finished them in front of the tuileries garden fountain. towards the end of our meal a very nice, friendly, normal guy near us chatted us up – and i mean, very normally. (we tried to grab a few chairs and they were sniped, so he commented how chairs are expensive around here).
after he tried to open my wine and failed, we got kicked out of the gardens because they were closing, so we ended up finish our meal and my wine on a nearby pedestrian bridge – which was really, really fun! it was great to meet a non creepy local, and he genuinely was very nice. we all chatted amicably for about an hour and then he left home and i realized my wallet was missing, so we rushed back to the apartment.
before ya’ll freak out:
1) i mentioned i’m married as soon as it seemed that he’s not a creepster that we’re trying to get rid of
2) wallet was left at home
3) we’re being smart and not stupid
anyway, so all was good; we came home, i copied photos, i blogged, and now to read and then sleep in slightly.
plan for the last day is somewhat vague right now. i want to sleep in until 10am, because i plan to stay up until our flight – our flight is at 9:40 so we should be in the cab by 7am at least, and given how its 1:20 as i’m blogging this i think i’ll be ok if i have a cup of coffee around 10-11pm. this way i should pass out on the flight and arrive nice and switched back.
we want to visit place dus vosges/marais; see dept. store bon marche; go for drinks in the montparnasse; get a sunset photo of eiffel tower over river (i’m the driving force behind THAT one… its a pain because i know what photo i want but dont know where i can get it from); and generally have a good time on our last day. hopefully we’ll fit it all in.
the only thing i know, is that the food in that place SUCKED MAJORLY. ugh. at least our tourist karma has been fulfilled.
What ebook reader do you have?