Last Stop - Paris!

Sat, Sept 27, 2014

I need to tell you this is the Eiffel Tower?  Really?

We walked to the Nice train station at 6:45am past groups of people that were STILL UP from the night before, partying hard.  Remember those days?  Found our seats on the train, and settled in for the 5 hour ride.  The seats we had were pretty comfortable, plenty of room, and facing forward, so for 2 hours we enjoyed the space.  Then a woman asked us if we had the right seats.  The seat numbers were correct…but we were in the wrong car.  DOH!  So we gathered everything up and moved to our less comfortable, slightly crowded, and facing backwards seats.

Once we got to the apartment, and the host’s father finally showed up, we decided to settle in.  That’s when we started noticing things that weren’t quite up to par.  The space was roomy, which is a rare find for Paris I’ve been told, but a couple of the chairs were broken, the terrace was dirty with dead and dying plants on it, and nowhere to sit, and the only floor lamp was broken.  We kept finding more things like that – an air of neglect about the place.  There was also a “For Sale” sign on the terrace, so perhaps the hostess wasn’t putting in the effort.  We also had a leaky toilet – ugh.  Hopefully that will get fixed soon, but meanwhile we hope to enjoy our stay in Paris.  Heading out to a comedy show soon to kickstart our week here!

Sat., Oct 4, 2014

We got to the airport this morning to head back to the States without a hitch, which is usually a good start to a long trip.  There’s so much to write about what our week was like, maybe I’ll just stick to the highlights:

Olivier Giraud and Joe Giraud Peterson

Favorite moment – when Joe got on stage in Paris!  Last Saturday we saw the show “How to become a Parisian in One Hour”.  We had front row seats, which I didn’t want because they’re right up against the stage, but it worked out well.  The comedien was very funny, picked on me, then Joe, so when he was looking for someone to come up on stage, I was shocked when he picked Joe!  He gave Joe a test about everything he told us about being Parisian and had him act it out.  Joe was so funny – the audience ate it up!  Joe is such a ham, it was perfect for him to be on stage.  My only regret is that I was so into the show, I didn’t even think about video-ing Joe up there.  Aarrghh!

Least favorite part about this leg of our trip – our apartment.  It wasn’t bad, but it was the longest stay we had ever had in one place (one week) and it was our least favorite AirBnB apartment ever.  The toilet issue never got resolved, and it became very inconvenient at times.  This weighed on our minds a lot because there was always the worry something worse was going to happen than the leak.  Also, our hostess never did anything to compensate us for this inconvenience – a free night, a bottle of wine, some chocolate, SOMETHING to say “I’m so sorry you had to deal with this on your vacation”.  But nothing.  And in my opinion, that made it worse.

Place de la Bastille

Monuments – we had been to Paris 14 years before and done some of the biggies – Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Place de le Concorde – so this time I wanted to so some other ones.  The Bastille no longer exists, but the square where it stood does, and there is a monument there.  I’m kind of a history buff when it comes to the French Revolution and wanted to hit some of those sites.  Unfortunately, the Conciergerie, a bigger, more brutal prison than Bastille, was closed until late October.  Went to the Place de la Concorde again, because this is where over 1000 people were beheaded in one summer alone during the revolution.

Museums – The Musee d’Orsay has many great pieces, and there’s an entire section of various artists’ work that I dubbed the “men’s fantasies of naked women”.  But I feel the real reason to go there is to take in the building itself.  Inside the main gallery just look up, look around, look down.  This former train station is awe-inspiring!

Skeptical about Arts et Metiers

Joe loves it!

Then there’s the Musee des Arts et Metiers.  Joe heard about this from a colleague and wanted to check it out.  He had to work for 3 days while I
got to do whatever I wanted, so on our last full day in Paris, I let him decide.  So we went here, and I grinned and bore it.  Bore it.  Boring.  Same difference.  There were times when I felt like someone had gone through their attic and said “hey, we could put this on display!” then put it on a table with a card.  Joe really enjoyed a lot of it, but even he said there was just too much stuff
and not enough explanation.  The thing about going to a museum in a foreign

Some big computer thing

country is that everything is written in that foreign language.  And
if you don’t understand that language, you are SOL.  Fortunately there are now recorded self-tour devices you can get…if you know about them before you enter the museum.  In both the Musee d’Orsay and the boring invention one, we didn’t discover they had these available until AFTER we were well inside the museum.  There were never offered to us, which I thought was kinda weird.

Some Mars thing?...I dunno

Some robot thing

The Musee des Arts did have the Foucalt Pendulum, which was fun to watch for about 5 minutes, and yet ANOTHER model of the Statue of Liberty (this was the 3rd one we’ve seen).  Why, you ask, are they so prevalent in France?  Well, I might know, if I could understand what the plaques said, but I couldn’t, so I really don’t know.

Americans – Lots of Americans in Paris (and in Nice, come to think of it).  But it’s nice when you actually run into someone you know!  Surprisingly, one of Joe’s old co-workers from the States was there the same time we were, so we got together with he and his girlfriend for dinner one night near the Eiffel Tower.

Rob and Joe

The reason we were in Paris in the first place was because of some meetings Joe had to attend, and the head of the team put together 2 evening events for the team to attend.  One began in his beautiful apartment, then off to a wonderful bistro.  The next night we had dinner on a river boat cruise on the Seine, on La Calife.  Really wonderful food, fun company, and beautiful scenery!

Parisians – Paris is more crowded than New York, and Parisians are definitely more aggressive about their space than New Yorkers, practically knocking you down to get a seat on the train, or walking right towards you on the sidewalk, daring you not to move.  I usually have really good radar in crowded cities, being able to weave my way around people, predicting where they will move.  The radar was not working in Paris at all.  They speak much faster than the rest of France, and of course, some are rude.  But some are very nice (and funny!) as well.

What I did this time that I regretted not doing my last trip here – explored the Montmatre neighborhoods, visited Sacre Coeur, and took a boat ride on the Seine at night.

Luxembourg garden IS on the tour but still lovely

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

My new favorite places to go – parks that are not on the tour guides.  Paris is a VERY loud city.  Louder than New York.  And there is not a lot of greenery.  So finding a park that is a little haven of greenery and that blocks out some of the noise of the city can be really nice.  Parc Mountsouris in my neighborhood (Montparnasse/14th arrondisement) is a decent sized park, a little less than a mile in circumference, but with lots of trees, a pond, and a hill.  A great place to hang out or, like me, go for a run, which is much nicer to do here than on the streets.

Another park I discovered is Parc des Buttes-Chaumont.  This is in the 19th arrondisement, is much bigger, with a tower so you can have a great view, a pond, and a waterfall.  The hillsides are pretty steep, but the steps are made of cement shaped to look like wooden logs.
 

A foie gras store - that's all they sell!

Food – yeah, there was a lot of eating here, but to the point where I would go an entire day not eating because I knew I would have another big meal at dinner.   Boeuf bourguignon, gratin dauphinois, foie gras, beurre blanc, croissants, foie gras, chocolate mousse, lentils du puy,  macarons, and more foie gras. “Where’s your restraint, Joanne?”  When I know I’m not going to have this opportunity for awhile to eat some of these foods in the area in which they come from, I wasn’t going to pass that up.  You know the saying “I’ll sleep when I die”?  Well, I’ll abstain when I get home.    And buy elastic waistband pants.

Cool tidbit – I took a walking tour through AirBnB (yeah, they’re trying this new thing) that went through the 2nd, 3rd, and 10th arrondisements.  Ludovic (the tour guide) pointed out colored tiles on some buildings that are in the shape of different space invaders (remember the video game?).  Apparently they’re on more than 1000 buildings throughout the city, so when Joe and I were walking around, we would try to find them.

Me in front of some cool building