03.02.2008
Day Fifteen:
Le Tower Eiffel

Sleep is good, and after a long day like yesterday it was great to get a good night’s rest, something I haven’t had in a few days. I saw so much yesterday, it was hard to imagine seeing even more tonight The goal of the day though, was to hit the most important piece of Paris, at least in my mind, which was Le Tower Eiffel.

So after sleeping in a bit, updating the blog from last night, and getting a bite to eat, it was time to head off. I made a stop on the way again at Notre Dame, to check out the scene inside. Since it was a Sunday, mass was going on and the place was a zoo. I watched part of the mass and then took a quick circle around the place, but didn’t spend as much time there as I had wanted. I think on my next trip to Paris, I will have to spend more time there. However, I did find ‘ground zero’ and managed to get a show of my Jays making the trip around Paris.

Also, on the way, i found this ice skating rink out in front of some building of which i forgot the name of, but yea, pretty random. it reminded me of Pershing square in downtown.

I decided to cruise back to the Centre George Pompidu, which is a famous piece of modern architecture, mostly because of the escalators located on the outside of the building, that give it a very industrial look in addition to all of the exposed water and air conditioning piping. It’s a very nice building, as the pictures from yesterday showed you, but I wanted to go back today to check out the modern are museum and it just so happened that on the first Sunday of the month, all of the museums are free, pretty neat!

So the art was definitely modern, like this weird setup in one of the rooms, which, I’m not really sure meant anything to me, but who knows.

Also, this dwarf looking chair was pretty outstanding, so I thought I’d show you that too.

After the show, I decided to walk around the center a bit more, checking out the scene in this touristy type area, but it was pretty useless for buying anything since the French take this no work on Sunday thing pretty seriously. However, I did get this good sandwich from a deli down the road. It’s called a croquette monsieur, which turns out to be a ham and cheese sandwich, but it had some special coating on the outside, which I’m not sure what it is at this moment, but it was hella good. Weird.

Anyways, since I was meeting up with Marie and her friends again in the afternoon, I decided to walk back down Rue de Rivloi to people watch and observe some of the crazy fashionistas walking down the street. Along the way, I stopped under the Louvre to check out this small mall place that was pretty good actually.

After a walk down the Jardin de Tuileries which turned out to be ok, but it wasn’t as nice since it was pretty overcast and rather chilly today.

Marie got off o work today at the Theatre at 4, but we ran a bit late, and then we headed down the Champes Elysses, which turned out to be ok, nothing great though. It was much more commercial than I was expecting and the only thing that really caught my eye was the Arc de Triumph at the end of the way there and the 4 story LV store. Either way, it was rather disappointing with all of the US crap that has moved in there like Starbucks and some other very boring commercial clothing chains. So no pictures there really, except for the Arc de Triumph, which is a pretty nuts roundabout, and looked to be much much more confusing than what I was used to in Toulouse.

After that, it was only 3 metro stops to the Eifel Tower, and along the way, the boys decided that it was important to climb the first 2 stores of the Eiffel tower and then hit up the elevator for the way down.

We got to the Eiffel tower at dusk, which was nice because I got to see both the daytime and nighttime views in one shot. The boys decided to climb the stairs, like real men, and the girls decided to take the elevators. The girls probably had the right idea, but its not everyday you get to see the Eiffel tower, so why not climb it? At dusk, it was probably in the single digits Celsius, but it was going up two levels of the tower was not totally easy, but it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, although I did have to take of my jacket and I had a bit of sweat on my forehead. Once reaching the 2^nd floor, the next flight up to the top is elevator only, which is probably a good thing since I had been walking from my hotel in St. Michel all the way to the Champes Elysses.

The views from the Eiffel tower are amazing, probably one of the best views in the world I think. I was pretty speechless for most of the time at the top of the tower, and here are some pictures from along the way and at the top.

The trip to the Eiffel tower is pretty hard to follow up, but by this time, we were all starving and decided to head to Montmarte, which is were Amelie was filmed, and the church atop the hill called Sacre Coeurs. Since we had already done a fair amount of walking, we decided to try to take the tram up to the top of Sacre Coeurs instead of walking it. It’s not a long distance, but it was more than we were up for at the moment.

Sacre Coeurs is not that old relatively speaking (only from the 1900s), but to the average Californian, it looks pretty old to me. The inside is very nice, and is in a constant state of prayer. No pictures or videos were allowed inside, so I was not able to get any pics of the inside, but it was very nice, but not as nice as Notre Dame for sure.

After a quick trip to Sacre Coeurs, we went into the Centre Ville of Montmarte to eat dinner. We stopped at this very touristy restaurant which was decorated in very poor tasted as far as French authenticity goes. It was very much like going to Bucca de Beppo in the states, very gaudy, very cheesy, and totally not true to the French culture. The however, was fairly good. At almost every restaurant it seems, there is a ‘plat de jour’ or a fixed menu selection that is available with an appetizer, main course, and desert. Usually, there are several options for each, as well as several different price ranges, depending on what dishes you want to eat.

I decided to stick to the cheaper side, and went for the 15EU combo, which included a cheese appetizer that the boys were very excited about. I forget what the name of the dish was (sorry), but it was very good. It was a biscuit type thing, but very flaky and crispy covered in Roquefort cheese, which is known for being very strong. It was probably one of my favorite appetizers I have had so far. No pictures of it though, sorry.

Oh…and a quick side note, check out these two knife and fork sets. One set is what you are used to seeing (on the left), but the second set caught my eye as a little weird (on the right).

I guess in France, they have a separate fork and knife for fish, which is the 3 pronged fokr and that ‘knife’ looking thing that is more like a flat spoon than anything else. Marie says its quite common though, so I might be on the outside again.

Anyways…..my second course was boeuf burginion, which is a French beef stew. The sauce was very flavorful and it has a bit of a wine taste to it. The boys commented it wasn’t the greatest they have had, but it was still pretty good. I finished the meal off with a lemon tart with a meringue topping, which launched a discussion into the difference between a pie and a tart, which turned out to be more complicated than I thought, and I am not quite sure if even I know how to classify them. I guess its time for wikipedia to enlighten me.

After dinner, we decided to part ways, but not after finally catching the Eiffel tower sparkling. After it gets dark, at the start of every hour until midnight, one, or two in the morning (no one really knows) the Eiffel tower sparkles for 10 minutes. For the World Cup in 2000, they installed tons of these little strobe lights all over the tower. When we were at the top of the tower, the time changed and we experienced the sparkling on the tower, but we didn’t get a chance to see it from far away until now. Below, is a picture from the top of Montmarte, but it really doesn’t do the tower justice.

This was a nice end to my trip, in fact is represents the excellent trip I had to Paris. Even though I arrived alone, I definitely didn’t leave alone, thanks to Marie and her friends. They were such gracious hosts and really helped me enjoy the city, as a normal Parisian would, which is what I really wanted to experience. A tienne (cheers) to Marie, Charles, Julie, and Servan for the wonderful time I had in Paris; I can’t wait to go back!

Now that I've forced you to read through the whole blog, here are the pictures from Sunday!!!

Paris, France - Day Fifteen, Part 2

Tomorrow, it’s off to Cork, Ireland for a few days before finally coming back home. I can’t wait!

Au revoir!

PS-The high-res pics I have are awesome, but the internet connection here in Ireland is awful, so I'll try to get them up when I'm at the Moog building tomorrow, its just not working out here.