Winter Vacay Part 3 - Paris

December 27^th – Paris Day 1

We arrived in Paris, in the morning, at Gare De L’Est and quickly walked over to Gare du Nord in order to pick up my brother’s friend who flew in to meet us and join us for the vacation. We picked her up and attempted to get tickets for Paris’s train system. After failing once we got help from a local, but ended up at a ticket vendor booth with a real person, not a machine. Worked out for the best and we proceeded to our hotel and check-in. We debated for a little while on what to do, what to see. We decided that the catacombs would be a good place to start.

Outside the catacombs there’s a crepe van and we decided to indulge. My first real crepe! Banana and Nutella. It happened that the queue for the catacombs was too long and we couldn’t get in. With the crepes in hand we were not too bothered, so, we took the time to relax and eat them.

Post deliciousness we walked down to the cemetery. Turned in to it and we soon realized we were in the Jewish section. Crypt stands next to crypt and grave in rows upon rows. Family names appear on each stone and each crypt. Some very familiar names are there and some not. Further down in the cemetery is a grave of a famous. . . Here’s his grave stone. A different take on a standardized idea?

We continued our walking tour at the Arch of Triumph. A giant arch in the center of Paris. It is the conclusion to the Tour de France and a memorial to soldiers who served in the French Revolution. There is the grave of the Unknown Soldier commemorating World War One.

We walked from the arch down the road and stopped at a few shops along the way. Towards the end of our evening we had dinner at a local café. Our dessert was a Banana Split.

December 28^th – Paris Day 2

The Louvre . . . all of it.

We arrived at the Louvre at around 9:30, but didn’t get to start wondering around until 10:00. We decided that since none of us are too much of art crazed beings that we would walk the whole thing. This became to be a draining task. We took one big break but made it through the whole museum available to us by 9:00pm.

The Louvre suited my taste as it, as a building, was a beautiful piece of architecture and art. Walking around in it was just as satisfying as looking at the art it contains. My favorite sections were the sort of sculpture park they had set up as two squares. My favorite pieces were those that depicted stories from the Tanach, statues of the four seasons and a painting of the five senses.

Since we walked the whole thing and tried to view each piece briefly we noticed some themes among works and gave them titles. Here are the three main ones:

The Book of Bunny Death. There is an actual book of bunny death. It is a cute and sick thing of a cartoon bunny dying in many different ways. The Louvre doesn’t host quite a variation, but manages to have many paintings of rabbits hanging from walls or at someone’s feet as killed game. We thought it would be nice to take pictures of all the paintings and compile a Louvre edition of the book.

The Inconvenient Shirt. Pun on the Inconvenient Truth. I hope you caught that. It is no secret that for many years artists have loved painting, sculpting, and photographing women. However, many of the paintings host what we titled the Inconvenient Shirt. This is their piece of clothing that manages to cover their whole body except for one breast. Sure, it makes sense in paintings where a woman is nursing a child. But otherwise, artists seem very good at making it appear that they told all their models to bring loose clothing to their sessions. Make sure their models . . . expose a little. Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction?

The Magical Penis Cloak/Cape. Women seem to have the problem of keeping their clothes on. The Men in most paintings seem to have this problem solved and sometimes appear out of their control. Many paintings we saw will have a naked man or child in them. Somehow, though, there is a piece of clothing just covering their . . . This piece of clothing is amazing. In some paintings it manages to defy gravity or appear out of nowhere.

* * *

We concluded are artistic evening with dinner at a Sushi place. Cheap wine was included along with another Banana Split!

December 29^th – Paris Day 3

Our final day in Paris, we decided to continue being touristy! We made it to the Catacombs on time, but still had to wait three hours to get in. Inside we enjoyed walking along the underground baths and seeing the bones of many dead piled up with skulls as decorations. It was quite creepy, but an interesting and challenging experience. I had never thought of burying the dead in such away. With modern ideals it seems so foreign. We truly value our post life space these days whether it be in the form of ashes or our own space in a graveyard.

We then had a delicious French lunch outside of Notre Dame and afterwards walked around the cathedral. As we walked through it a service was going on with someone chanting and speaking in French to a present audience. Tourists circled the main sitting area walking to chapels and taking pictures of the cathedral. The church now caters to tourists more than to religion.

Next we went to the Eiffel Tower. Prior to queuing to get take the lifts up, I began a new tradition. In St Andrews I agreed to take notes of my friends to places I travel, mainly by town. In that town I would find a recognizable land mark and burn their note there while having my picture taken. My brother took the photos and I lit my friend’s humorous message. “My baguette is bigger than yours. Don’t eat too many frogs… and mind your mustache.”

We then queued and after many hours made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We enjoyed the view of Paris and took pictures. I took one of Paris’s highest toilet (note: a urinal would be higher than a sit down john).

After the long day we returned to the hotel, but first stopped by a pizza place for two pizzas and our last Banana Split.