Post #7: Paris, France

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." -- Miriam Beard

I arrived in Paris by train and headed directly to my hostel--or so I tried.  It was difficult to find despite the fact that I now had some experience navigating maps of new and unfamiliar cities.  It ended up taking me about two hours to find my hostel which in the end wasn't that bad, considering Paris was among the first large cities that I had visited up until that point in my trip.  

I checked in and headed out for my first day to explore the city.  I elected to rent a bicycle to tour the city which would prove to be a nice way to explore the streets while making the most of the time that was available. 

That day I visited Luxembourg park and the Eiffel Tower.  I make it sound as though it was fairly stress free but this proved not to be the case.  I found it difficult to navigate the city and even harder to ask for directions.  The stereotype that French people don't like speaking English was evident from the very beginning of my stint in France.  It is unfair to generalize as there are some people who enjoy conversing in English--or so I wanted to believe at the time (lol).  Thinking back, I am not sure how much merit this assumption actual upholds.  

I failed to get pictures of the park but noticed something quite peculiar while I was within it's quarters. Everyone was watching me as I cycled through the park on my bicycle--why were they watching me with such vigilance?  I quickly realized that I was the only soul biking through the park so ignorantly.  As it would turn out, bicycles were forbidden in the park and I was quickly informed of this in a not so polite manner (lol).   
 

After humiliating myself at the park, I headed to the oh so famous "Eiffel Tower".  I quickly realized why the tower is so famous and was instantly instilled with a sense of astonishment.  I decided that an elevator ride to the top to look out over the city was a top priority at that point.  However, as I got closer I saw a large conglomerate of people had formed and I thought to myself "that can't be the line....can it?".  Well, as it turned out it surely was.  It was demoralizing to see such a large line and I knew right away that I would not be venturing to the top of the Eiffel Tower that evening. 

Nevertheless, I found my destinations and was able to kick back and enjoy them while detaching myself from reality while savouring the moment.  

 The next day I headed to Versailles.  It is home to one of the most famous palaces in the world called the Palace of Versailles.  To give you an idea of the mass size of the palace I have provided some figures copied from Wikipedia:

Floor space	67,000 m2
Number of windows	2,153
Number of rooms	700
Staircases	67
Paintings in the museum’s collection	6,123
Drawings in museum’s collection	1,500
Engravings in museum’s collection	15,034
Sculptures in museum’s collection	2,102
Pieces of furniture and objets d’art	5,210

The garden

The ceilings were all painted--imagine the time

Looking out into the yard--it basically extends into the horizon...it is massive

Long road in the yard....there were numerous of these roads throughout the yard

This part of the yard was amazing--people weren't allowed to enter as you can see

I was desperately running short on shirts, so I made use of a Pubcrawl shirt that I got in Amsterdam--hahah how classy

The next day I made way for the famous "Louvre" museum--home to the Mona Lisa.  I found myself standing in a lineup that would have extended two city blocks;  I was told that we were lucky the lineup wasn't long (lol).  While in line, I turned around to see a pretty girl whom was also patiently waiting to breach the doors to the museum.   I was a little hesitant to start talking to her as I was tired and was soon becoming bored with the same mundane conversation that one finds themselves engaged in at the start of an encounter with a fellow traveller: where are you from? where have you been? where are you going? what do you do? how long are you travelling for? etc.  A lot of the time you find that you don't have anything in common with the other person and this is as far as the conversation goes.  But sometimes, once you get passed these tedious details, you find someone whom you can engage in an actual conversation with.  Assessing the situation, I came to realize that the lineup wasn't moving and reminded myself that it is a numbers game (lol); so I sparked up the energy to engage.  I turned around, introduced myself, as did she.  Her name was Fernanda and was an art history major from Argentina.  We talked as the line proceeded to move and as we entered the doors she informed me that she was already in possession of a ticket and was merely coming back from lunch.  I was a little upset as our conversation was just starting to get interesting so I took down her email and suggested lunch in the near future.  I said good bye and as it would turn out, we would meet up the next day for lunch--or so we tried.  More on this a little later though.  I got my ticket, entered the museum and enjoyed a great day viewing masterpieces from some of the greatest artists of all time. 

Entrance into the Louvre

Guys walking around with machine guns... in case someone tries to pull some Nicholas Cage type shit (lol)

Inside looking out

Like I said, very busy.... but apparently it wasn't that bad

The detail that goes into the ceiling is amazing

The Venus de Milo from 100BC which depicts the Greek goddess of love and beauty 

This was one of my favorite paintings....the story behind it really added to the affect

Courtyard full of sculptures

This is the Code of Hammurabi.  It is from 1760BC and one of the earliest documents that explicitly defined a code of Law.   

The Mona Lisa was quite lack luster.  It was hard to get close enough because of the large crowd, velvet rope and glass enclosure that contained the painting.  

After the Louvre I headed back to the hostel. That evening I decided to email Fernanda and suggested lunch the following day.  She promptly responded and we agreed to meet in front of a museum called the Pompidu--a contemporary art museum.  We decided to meet at 12:30 and I found myself arriving at the museum twenty minutes too late.  I didn't allocate enough time to navigate the metro and found myself trying to freeze time along the way as I eagerly looked at my watch--no luck.  I arrived and she was gone.  Nevertheless, I decided to head into the museum.  I was twenty minutes into my museum excursion when I came across a girl whom had a camera similar to Fernanda's hanging around her neck.  I diligently looked at her and was unsure as whether or not it was her.  I had met a lot of people up until this point and I only met her briefly for a couple minutes and found myself having a hard time recognizing her face.  I decided to approach her to inquire as to what her name was.  It was her and I was pleasantly surprised that I ran into her seeing as the museum was massive with seven huge floors to explore.  From this point forward, I found myself more and more intrigued by her as she was able to describe the art within the Pompidu and the meanings behind several pieces.  I would enquire about a piece and she would promptly break it down with little hesitation in thought--she really knew her stuff.  From this point on we enjoyed the museum together conversing back and forth about the art and in between talking about unrelated topics.  I soon began to realize that we shared similar personalities and a connection was forming.  After the museum we went for a walk down by the river and would spend the next three days together roaming around Paris--interesting enough seeing as that I was originally planning on leaving the next day.  That is the beauty about having a flexible schedule though.  It allows one to change plans on the fly as unexpected scenarios present themselves--such as this one :) 

The next day we went back to the Louvre because neither of us were able to see the entire museum the first day.  Once again, she was able to explain symbolism behind a lot of the art and help me appreciate a piece for what it was--an implicit story.  
 

The day after that we headed to the Monet museum.  We waited in line for FOUR hours in the pouring rain.  Luckily we had an umbrella and used this time to become more familiar with one another while I introduced her to the game of "I spy with my little eye".  Once inside the museum we were ecstatic not only because we were out of the cold but also because Monet's art was absolutely captivating.  If I tried to explain the art and the feeling that it produced within myself, I would fail on epic proportions.

After the three days were up I was a little reluctant to leave seeing as that I had made such a good friend--and potentially more.  However, I was meeting my friend Brady in Barcelona and didn't have many other options--I had to move on in my adventures.  Fernanda came with me to the train station to see me off and as we parted ways we both acknowledged that our time was special and we both found ourselves hoping that we would reunite some time in the near future--when exactly that would be,we were unsure.  I jumped on the train and found myself eye locked as I glared through the train window out on to the platform where she stood in her yellow tank top, frayed shoulders, among a sea of black suits and dark colours--it was ironically art in itself.  She had taught me that artists will direct light upon the image of importance in a painting and I found myself engaged in an image that was portraying exactly that.  Her yellow dress made her glow and as the train started to move so did the image;  it started to distort and I found my mind racing and trying to freeze the image indefinitely as though it were a fixed concrete painting. My efforts to do so proved to be futile and I realized that the image was rather ephemeral as I saw the wall beginning to appear out the corner of my right eye;  the last image I saw was her blow me a kiss and me blow it back--then she was gone.  Would I see her again? Only time would tell.