Off We Go

                                  Rue du Rivoli in the Marais

"Everything ends this way in France — 

everything.Weddings, christenings, duels, 

burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs. 

 Everything is a pretext for a good dinner."

~ Jean Anouilh

"Just think," I said to Mike as we climbed the 110 steps to our Paris flat this morning, "that this is the last time we'll have to climb all these steps."

"We might have to run out for something else before we go," he replied.

"Fat chance. If I don't have it now, I'm not going to ever have it." Climbing those stairs did me some good this past week, but not enough good that I was eager to have to climb them again.

Once we checked out with Valerie, we took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon train station.  Originally, we'd planned on taking a cab, but it was only two stops away by Metro, and we figured we could do it pretty easily since it was a Sunday morning.  Except for having to carry the luggage up and down stairs to and from the Metro platforms, it really was okay.

                                                         Moi on the train

Some of you may remember that we took the night train from Florence to Vienna a few years ago and had to spend an inordinate amount of time at the train station in Florence because the German train we were taking was so very late. Our "first-class" cabin was also so small that only one of us could stand up if we had both of our carry-on bags on the floor at the same time.  I didn't know quite what to expect given we had booked second-class tickets on this train, but we'd heard that the second-class seats were much better in France than other lines.

At any rate, I received an email from the TGV (The French train system) two days ago advising us that they would allow us to board 25 minutes before departure (11:07), and that if we weren't on board by 11:02, we were flat out o' luck.  We arrived at the station at 10:30, so we were doing pretty well.

"Where do we go from here?" Mike asked me when we arrived at Gare de Lyon.

"I have no idea.  We just have to find the right train."

"Where do we find that?" I'm not sure if he thinks I know this simply because I book the tickets and all, or if he's just asking a rhetorical question.  No matter, I roll my eyes every time he asks me something like that.

It took a few minutes, but we eventually found Hall 2 where we were supposed to wait, and the big DEPARTURE sign that didn't list which train we were supposed to board.  About 300 other people were standing watching the boards, and at 10:35, the Avignon-Marseille/St. Charles departure showed Train 15.  Almost at once everyone in that area turned and rushed toward number 15.

"DON'T STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY!" I had to say a few times.  It just amazes me that people walking in a crowd come to a dead stop in the middle of the road causing more than one person to trip over them and their luggage.  "MOVE TO THE SIDE."  Of course, most of these people had no idea what I was saying since it appeared that most of them spoke only French.  C'est la vie.

                                              Fields in Provence

Our seats were in car #17, and in this instance, it was one of the last cars in line, although there were at least two others beyond ours.  "I think we've walked half-a-mile just to get to this car," I said as we arrived.  We lugged our suitcases up the stairs, stored the cases on racks right behind us and took our seats.  As promised, the doors closed at 11:02, and the train was off at exactly 11:07.

"Gobbledy-gook.  Gobbledy-gook.  Marseille/St. Charles. Gobbledy-gook.  Gobbledy-gook.  Merci."

Mike, who has not been feeling well due to a cold, tried to sleep while I wrote, read and played games on the iPad.  The scenery was absolutely lovely especially given the fact that the sun was shining.Paris was nice, but after 10 or 11 straight days of cloudy, gloomy, rainy weather, I was ready for sun.  We passed farms and little villages, saw sheep and cows and grape vines and large fields newly planted with something. This could be Central Ohio, I thought a few times, but then I'd see an old stone farm house or the ruin of a stone manor and remember I was in France.

I had just asked Mike how much longer we had (10 minutes) when the train started to slow down.

"Gobbledy-gook.  Gobbledy-gook.  Avignon. Gobbledy-gook.  Gobbledy-gook.  Merci."

Sunshine, warm weather and Amaury, the owner of our flat, met us as we walked out of the train station.  We rode to the historic old town section of Avignon and checked into our home for the next week, a 16th century flat that Amaury and Gilles, the designers who own the building, renovated.  Instead of looking at slate and clay roofs through small dormer windows, we look at a lovely courtyard through windows set in a 16th century arch.

                 The view of the courtyard from the flat

Avignon is quite a change from Paris.  The constant whooping sirens in Paris unnerved me at times, especially at night.  The sound of traffic — zipping motorcycles, rushing cars, trudging buses — buzzed in my head.  The smell of baking bread and the tinkling of classes filled the air.  In Avignon, we've found none of that.

"Eet eez Sunday," he told us, "so eet eez var-ray qui-ET. But, zee week eez not much dee-fair-ent."  the bad thing, he mentioned, was that the grocery wasn't open, and neither was the market.  And, there are very few restaurants open on Sunday, too.

When we went out for dinner after a Skype with Jason tonight, we found a number of bars open, but not one restaurant.  Finally, we stopped at one place that had a sign advertising some food, and Mike went in.

"Zees eez note fair foot," the owner said. "I ken offair shou quiche weet tuna o baif lasagna."

"Are there any restaurants open tonight?" Mike asked.

"Oonly one," the owner replied, "boot zee foot eez no goot."

"We'll take the lasagna," I said. I wasn't walking any more.

It turns out the French lasagna was probably the best meal we've had in a restaurant since we arrived in France.  Apparently not everything in Avignon ends in a good meal . . . on Sundays at least.

A couple of side notes:
We did walk to the gardens of the Palais du Papes this afternoon.  To get there, we had to climb steps. . . We'd do 20 and think that was it, turn a corner and find 30 more, turn a corner and find 20 more.  (Photo below of one of the sections) It had been a whole 4 hours since we last climbed steps, and I didn't want to get out of shape.

Steps leading to Garden of the Palais du Papes

Also, Amaury told us that the view from the top of the hill was absolutely beautiful.  He was right (See photo below.)  There's a huge park there, and families were outside enjoying the wonderful weather.

                             View of the Rhone

Saturday Musings

                  A street in the 4th

"Paris is a hard place to leave

even when it rains incessantly

and one coughs continually

from the dampness."

~ Willa Cather

Today was our last full day in Paris. and it started out bright and sunny for once.

"Good grief!" I exclaimed when I woke up. "The sun is shining."

"Just until we go out," Mike deadpanned seriously.

                                        Patachoux

He was right. Not long after we had our petit dejeuner (mini breakfast — coffee and pastry), the clouds rolled in. The damp cold didn't keep us from walking, though. We estimate that we walked about six miles before we got back to the flat late this afternoon (in time to Skype with Mary and Riley).

Let me go back to the petit dejeuner. The French are very big proponents of breakfast, and you'll find them lingering over coffee and a roll or pastry each morning to get energy for the day. The cafes are full of them, and even McDonald's offers its version of le petit dejeuner, two small rolls, butter. jam and a hot drink (2,80 euro, not that we ate there).

The last thing I need to do is eat pastries or bread on this trip, but I'll admit that I have not abstained.

"We're on vacation," Mike says when I moan about wanting something that I shouldn't have.

"I'm not on vacation," I snap back. "I'm working. Besides, I'm trying to stay on this nutrition plan (fancy term for diet)."

"You don't need to diet on vacation." Sigh.  Of course, I have no willpower when I see patachoux or croissants, so I always have one in the morning. I will admit to having another a few times at night, too. (Shanna and PE {my nutritionist and my doctor}, if you're reading this, I'm only kidding.) Look. We go up and down those 110 steps at least three times every day, and we walk like crazy people.

Here's the good news. I hardly ever say, "Holy crap!" when we start up the stairs now. I just take a deep breath and hike. I'm proud to say that I've made it up six of the seven flights without stopping most days, too, and then I only stop because I can't breathe.

A park in front of one of the Louis's palaces

A few people have written and asked me about my impression of Paris this time. If I may, allow me to expand.

"This weather is crap," I say to Mike at least two or three times a day.

"Yep," he replies each time, "but at least it has kept the crowds down." That's very true. I've mentioned this before, but had we come later in the year, the tourists would have driven us nutty. On the rare occasions that the sun has come out, the city's been beautiful to watch. We're living in the 4th arrondissement, which we feel is the most perfect place. It has wonderfully old streets with charming buildings, great shops, cafes, and boulangeries.

We've enjoyed the architecture of the city, too. I'm quite amazed that they've kept high-rise buildings out of the city itself (except for the Montparnasse Tower). You can see the difference in the architectural styles in different arrondissements even if you know nothing about the particular design periods. The number of monuments and palaces astounds me, and more than once I said to Mike, "No wonder the people revolted against the monarchs. How many people lived in these palaces?" (Of course, I wonder that about some of the mansions in the US, too.)

     The Palais Royale (shot from a Louvre window)

I found Papier, a store I visited when we were here in 2002. It was the first place I ever saw round paper clips, and I actually bought some to sell at Paper Moon.

"I was here 10 years ago," I said to the clerk as I paid him for the paper I bought.

"I vas noot," he laughed back. "But zee stoore eez he-air 36 yairs." The store still has a wonderful collection of paper, pencils, notebooks and albums, and it's much more modern than I remember. The old spiral staircases still lead up to the office and down to the basement storage room. They also still sell those paperclips by the gram. (If you bought any of those flat, black paperclips in 2002, this is the place from which I bought them.)

                                   Papier still has the paperclips

The food has been great, even when we've just bought a little baguette of ham and cheese to share as we walked around. We've gone to a number of markets and bought fresh food from green grocers a few times because I've cooked dinner four times this week. Tonight we walked in the rain to a small cafe in the Latin Quarter and had French roast beef — beef roasted with carrots and stewed celery. The potatoes were cubed and deep fried, the only weird thing about the meal.

"Do they know how to cook potatoes any other way?" Mike grumbled/ I'll have to make something different for him next week.

The down side to all of this week has been the weather, really. Mike has a bi of a sore throat and is coughing (Merci to the pharmacist who showed us which cough syrup to buy.), and I'm cold constantly.

"We didn't get to XXXXX or xxxxx again this trip," I mentioned to Mike as we walked back to the flat this afternoon. I forget which two things I brought up, and it doesn't really matter. There were a number of things we didn't see because we just didn't want to deal with the cold and rain.

"We'll just have to come back," Mike said.

"We'll see."


Tonight is our last night in Paris for tomorrow we head to Avignon. Amaury and Gils, the two guys who own the flat we're renting there, promised that the weather in Provence will be warm and sunny all week. Thank heaven.

I checked next week's forecast for Paris, too. The temperature is supposed to hit the 70s, and the rain will stop tonight.

Of course.

The Louvre, Part Deux

"Keep good company — that is,

go to the Louvre."

~ Paul Cezanne

We woke up to rain this morning. Again. For the fifth or sixth day in a row. Okay, I thought. I can deal with this today because we're going to the Louvre. We won't even have to step outside in this mess.

"I can't believe this crappy weather," I said to Mike. "Does this city ever dry out?"

"It's okay," he replied. "We're going to the Louvre, so we'll be inside and dry most of the day." I rolled my eyes because he always says what I think.

After putzing around a few hours, we headed to the Metro around 11:30. A couple of guys got on the train at the same time, and they immediately starting playing music on their trumpets and saxes. When we got off of the train, we walked to the exit and heard someone playing a string bass down the hall. I took a photo looking down the hall in her direction, and she was on me in a split second

"Pleez let me see zee peec-chur schou tek." She was not happy.

"No," I said as squirmed out of her grasp.

"Delete zat peec-chur oaf me," she insisted.

"You don't know she took one of you," Mike said. "And, it's in public, so we don't have to.

"Pleez delete zat peec-chur NOW."

"Look, no peec-chur," I said showing her my camera view screen.

"I don' bee-leefs schou." She pushed me against the wall, but Mike got between us and pushed her away so I could escape through the exit.

"Yikes," I sighed once we got into the long mall area leading to the entrance of the Louvre. "She was something else."

                           One of the HUGE tapestries

"She probably thought you were going to turn her in for playing there," Mike reasoned. "It will be okay."

We entered the rotunda where we had waited forever the other day while the "general assembly" of Louvre workers decided to strike. Surprise! There was no line to get into the Louvre if you already had a ticket which, of course, we did thanks to the Tuesday debacle.

  Note the arthritis in the toe joints of this sculpture

We're both taken with sculpture, so we headed to that area immediately. As we climbed the steps from the first level to the second, the sun came out (It figures.) and cast beautiful light on the marble and bronze pieces in the collection.

We're quite amazed that the sculpture (and paintings) are so accessible in the Louvre. There are signs all over advising patrons not to touch anything, but there are really no barriers between visitors and the art.

I won't bore you with every little detail about the five+ hours we stayed at the museum today. We walked every floor and salon spending more time in some areas than in others. We both marvel at the detail in the sculpture.. Some have such defined muscles and joints. If you look at the close-up photo of the foot, you can see the arthritis in some of the toe joints.  We also cannot believe the size of some of the work.  I asked Mike to stand by a few of them just to give some perspective on how big they are. (Below)














Mike and two of the HUGE paintings




Of course, life with us is never boring, especially if we're traveling.  We like to kid around a lot.

"You're the only one who appreciates my sense of humor," Mike said to me at some point today.  I couldn't respond because I was laughing too hard.

A little backstory:  After we moved back to Las Vegas a few years ago, we were walking around the Forum Shoppes or Fashion Show or something, and Mike posed with one of the mannequins so I could take a photo of them.  It's now our practice to do it wherever we are — store, mall, museum, etc. — just to have a little fun.

So, back to the Louvre.  As you can see from the photos below, Mike posed with a few of the statues at the Louvre.  For the record, he did NOT touch any of them.  We were by a girl who did touch one piece of marble, though.

"NON TOUCH!  NON TOUCH!!" screamed the not-on-strike museum worker.  "NON. NON. Non."  He was angry, and she was scared and embarrassed.

About three hours after we entered the museum, and shortly after I took a photo of Mike and one of the stone-heads, a loud alarm sounded, and huge steel doors closed off hallways from the center atrium.

"GOBBLEDY-GOOK.  GOBBLEDY-GOOK. GOBBLEDY-GOOK.  GOBBLEDY-MERCI."  An  announcement in English followed the French announcement, and this time we understood.

"Attention, please.  All visitors are asked to go to the nearest exit and follow the directions of the museum workers. Thank you."

We walked toward one of the hallway doors and asked one of the museum workers what to do.

"No Een=glish," she said and pointed us out of the atrium.

Once downstairs, we asked a security guard what we were to do since there were people still buying tickets and milling about the area.

"Go oot.  Ootside," she demanded pointing us to the exit.  We followed others whom she directed that way and entered the courtyard just as, you guessed it, it started to rain.

Not anxious to stand in the cold and drizzle, we headed to lunch across the street.  We didn't know what was going on, of course, but we speculated that a fire alarm may have gone off since the steel doors closed off different parts of the  museum.

"Maybe they're striking again," I said.

"Youf-d bean heere loong eenoof, toorist," Mike said. "We strike a-gain."

"Eet eez rainin' a-gain. Times to leafs know."

"Avril fooools!"

Just as we were finishing lunch, the skies opened up, and the rain battered the street.

"It figures," I moaned. "I'm not going out in this."

"We'll wait a bit," Mike replied knowing darn well he would have to carry me out of the cafe kicking and screaming to get me into that weather.

When the rain finally slowed to a drizzle again, we left the cafe and went back to the museum where, once again, we walked right in. We headed back to the sculpture exhibits that we had missed the first time we were in the museum.

"Let me take my coat and scarf off before we go up," I said to Mike, and we walked over to a bench where another couple was sitting.

Hearing us speaking English, they knew we were from the States and asked where we were from.

"Las Vegas," we replied simultaneously.  "How about you?" Mike added.

"We're from a small town in Tennessee," the man said.  "You've probably never heard of it.  Centerville."

         Douglas & Molly Bates with us at the Louvre

We informed them that we did, indeed, know where Centerville was since we'd lived in Nashville for 14 years, and we talked to them for the next 15-20 minutes about Nashville, Tennessee, Xavier, Cincinnati, Paris and the Louvre.  Douglas and Molly are also the ones who told us that the alarm that sounded was a fire drill.  They knew that because some PhD student from the Sorbonne was standing next to them when the alarm went off.

"He told us to just ignore it," said Douglas, "so we did. No one made us leave."  Of course not.

Mike and I spent another two hours or so going through the museum, and the sun decided to show up again for the late afternoon.  By 5:00, we were both a little tired of all that culture, and we decided to head home.

As we bought our Metro tickets, we heard the sounds of that string instrument wafting our way.

"Holy crap! She's still here," I said. "Do you want to go the other way?"

"Just walk on the other side of the crowd," Mike replied.  "She'll ignore you."

Staying on the edge of the crowd, we hurried past the bassist and toward the trains.  She either didn't notice me, didn't remember me, or didn't want to lose any possible tips by chasing me down again.

As we climbed the steps back at our subway station stop, we noticed that the sun was shining.  That, however, didn't last long.  By the time we got to the corner, drops of rain dripped on us.

It figures.

Cheer, Cheer for... Oops, Wrong One...

        Notre Dame from the back

"Paris was a universe whole and entire

to herself, hollowed and fashioned by

history; so she seemed . . . with her

towering buildings, her massive cathedrals,

her grand boulevards and ancient winding

medieval streets, as indestructible as nature itself..."

~ Ann Rice

Paris was gloomy and damp again today, and we decided to make it a relatively easy day. We started out at probably the best street market we've seen in Europe and then headed for L'Open Tour, one of those tour buses that you can find in almost every city in the world these days. We tend to ride them to learn a little bit about the places we're visiting, especially if, as in this case, the city is huge. With a good company like L'Open Tour, we actually learn things we didn't know and see places we didn't realize existed.

L'Open Tour has four lines that travel different parts of the city and hit something like 90 sites. We did one line after the market and got off near Notre Dame to catch the main line.

"Do you want to see if there's a long line to get in the cathedral before we take the other bus," Mike asked me.

"I'm not too keen on standing in another line," I replied, "especially if we are standing in the damp, cold air." Mike thought, however, that we should give it a go since we were right there, and off we went. There was no one in line.

"I don't believe it," I said.

"Maybe they went on strike to support the Louvre workers," Mike joked as we walked through the huge door and into the very dimly lit cathedral.

      Part of the cathedral's facade

Do you know much about this grand church of the Catholic faith? I most certainly didn't know a lot. Located on Ile de la Cite (one of the city's islands in the middle of the Seine, Notre Dame stands on land that has always held some sort of religious building. The Celts held religious ceremonies there, and the ancient Romans built a temple there. In the 5th or 6th century, the Christians built a church on that spot.

In 1163, then Bishop of Paris Maurice de Sully decided that the church was neither large enough nor grand enough to represent Paris as the seat of the Kingdom of France nor to serve as the church of kings. He ordered that a cathedral be designed and built to serve not only Paris but also as a prototype of future European cathedrals.

Work on the cathedral started in 1163, but the work was not done until 1365.  While the architecture is French Gothic, some of the later work actually reflects the different time, naturally.  The iconic flying buttresses, one of the most recognizable features of the cathedral, were added much later when the walls at the end of the church started to crack due to stress from its size and height.

During the French Revolution, the people destroyed a lot of the statues and artwork in the cathedral.  They tore down the 19 of the 20 bells in the church and melted them to make coins.  Only the 13-ton Emmanuel bell was spared and is still in the cathedral. Notre Dame fell into disrepair, and there was a move to destroy it, but Victor Hugo's book made people realize its value, and they refurbished the church.  In addition to adding new statues, bells, and artwork, the renovation also included a controversial spire. It took 20 years to complete the work due to its size (and controversies).  The cathedral underwent another restoration between 1991-2001, this time with more attention to maintaining the historic aspects of the architecture and art.

How big is Notre Dame, you ask?  First, let me tell you that as massive as the cathedral is, it is not the largest (nor the tallest) church in the world.  It's not even in the top 20, believe it or not.

    Two of the stained glass windows

Notre Dame is 420 feet long, and its two towers stand 226 feet high.  The spire, which was added during its restoration in the 19th century, is 295 high.  Massive stained glass windows line both sides of the church and include a number of rose windows (above, left).  The largest of the rose windows measures 511 inches in diameter.  There are three organs in the cathedral.  The smallest organ, a portable one, accompanies soloists and school choirs.  The choir organ is from the 15th century, has one keyboard and 2000 pipes. The great or grand organ (the largest organ in France) has five keyboards, 190 ties, and 8000 pipes.

             One of the small chapels

Along both sides of the church are a number of small chapels, confessionals, statues, and altars.  The cathedral's treasures include a piece of Christ's cross, one of the nails used to hang him, and the actual crown of thorns.  While several people are buried in the cathedral, there is no one of any real importance in there.  The bodies of kings and queens of France are in other churches around the city.






















Statue of St. Denys  Patron Saint of Paris    and   The Main Altar

Priests say several Masses and hear confessions daily even as tourists crawl the aisles.  The main nave is roped off except for two small openings. Signs all over the side aisles ask people to be silent, and surprisingly, they were while we were there.

Notre Dame is celebrating its 850th anniversary this year, and they are refurbishing a lot in the church.  The lighting and bells are being redone, and the organs are being tuned up.  If you're interested in learning a little more about Notre Dame, you can click here for the official website of the church.


One side note. . . . These churches (and palaces and such) always amaze me.  Do you ever stop to think that people had to build them without the help of the modern conveniences we have today?  How could they get bricks to such great heights?  Yes, we know they used the pulley system, but it is still mind-boggling to think that they could do it back then.

And then, it dawned on me that Notre Dame was built way before Christopher Columbus set foot on American soil.  Hard to imagine, isn't it?

My strike against the Louvre is over now, and we'll head that way tomorrow. However, we're going in the afternoon.  I refuse to stand in line again.

Three Strikes & You're OUT

                                        The crowd a little after 9

"Demonstrating and striking are strong

local traditions in France...The French do

not value consensus and do not negotiate...

the classical sequence is to go on strike first

and then negotiate."

~ H Rochefort & P Rochefort

My alarm went off at 6:45 this morning. (Just a little aside before I go any further. Consider this: It was 12:45 am on the east coast and 9:45 pm on the west coast, and I was getting up before most of you had even gone to bed. Thanks a lot.)

At any rate, I got up and got ready so that we could get to the Louvre way before it opened. We wanted to get our tickets and get in line before the crowds hit. Mission accomplished. We took the Metro, arrived by 8:30, got our tickets, had coffee and were in line by 8:45 or so. I walked up the the iron gate to ask if we were in the correct line and noticed ONE x-ray scanner beyond the gate. Great.

"I have tickets," I said to the female guard who was standing on our side of the gate." Do I stand here or there? (I pointed to the line of 50 or so people that Mike had joined.)

"Gobbledy-gook. Gobbledy gook." She pointed and pushed me towards the end of the now-growing line. For once we had picked the correct option.

"It should be opening soon," Mike said to me a few minutes after I got back in line. "It's good we got here when we did. Look at all the people." The line was continuing to grow and now snaked around the rotunda. The security gate opened about a foot and a rather large guard rushed out and headed for the end of the line. He pushed the end out of the rotunda and down the main entrance hall of the "mall."

"What time is it?" I was getting tired of standing.

"A little after 9," Mike replied. "I guess their clocks are a little slower than ours."

"Eez zee French work et-teak," the man in front of us said. "Zay open en zare time." At 9:20, the same man walked up to the security guard and talked to her for a few seconds. When he got back, he told us, "Zay vil open at 10:15. Zay air halfing a shgen-air-al azzemblee."

"General assembly?" It dawned on us that he meant a meeting. "Oh, a staff meeting."

"Oui. Steff mee-ten."

     The crowd a little after 9:30

At this point, we were a little irritated that they hadn't mentioned the "general assembly" when we were talking to one of the workers yesterday. (Actually, I was really irritated because I had gotten up and ready so early. I digress.....) We continued to stand. The line continued to grow. The noise level increased by tenfold. Security ran around like proverbial chickens with their heads cut off, moving signs from one location to another and back again. Every few minutes, the iron gate opened about a foot and then slammed shut. People kept walking up to the front of the line to see what was going on.

By 10 am, and I was hot, irritated and cranky. A lady and her two children tried to stand in front of me.

"Excuse me," I said trying to remain calm, "but the end of the line is down that hall." She ignored me. I raised my voice. "I know you can understand me. You are not cutting in this line." She didn't look at me. I stuck my leg out in front of her and gently pushed her out of the way with my shoulder. "Go to the back."

She tried to stand behind us, but that couple stepped in front of her, too. I glared at her, and she ignored my look. Finally, about three people back, she and the kids cut in front of two couple who were too busy texting to notice.

People continued to come up to the front to see what was going on. By 10:20, everyone was buzzing with anticipation. A security guard brought out a sign that read, "From This Point, 45 Minutes to Enter." She pushed it down the mall hall. A collective sigh of relief went up from people in front of us.

"Pardon. Gobbledy-gook. Gobbledy-gook," a smiling old lady said to me. She showed me her ticket. "Gobbledy-gook." She pointed next to me.

"Non. Go to the end of the line. Back there." I waved my hand. "Back there. Way down the hall." The smile gone from her face, she shrugged and walked toward the hall. I noticed a man, his wife and three kids standing just beyond the stanchion near us. They edged closer. I gave him my now-famous stink-eye, and he stared back. I won the staring contest.  His friend, though, tried to move in front of me, and I shoulder-butted him out of the way.

Trying to figure out what's going on

"GO TO THE BACK OF THE LINE," I said. "You are NOT CUTTING IN FRONT OF ME."  He and the group stood back a bit.

By 10:30, people were starting to push. Someone else had cut in line behind us, and they pushed up to get more room for themselves. Others walked through the line and tried to get up to the iron gates.

"The end of the line is down the hall," we told people. "You cannot cut." Disgusted with those who were trying to get to the front of the line, Mike walked up there and started telling them to go to the back. A tall man who was about 10 ahead of us in line stood there and helped him.

"They're having a meeting, and it's running late. Go to the end of the line." The two of them were pointing and gesturing while clearing out the area next to the gate. Someone poked me on the shoulder, and I turned to see the smiling old woman from before.

"Gobbledy-gook. Gobbledy-gook." She showed me her entrance ticket.

"You are NOT CUTTING IN THIS LINE. GO TO THE BACK." I was not happy.

                 Mike keeping or-dair

I was hot, tired, and more than cranky.  I get very antsy in crowds, and pushing and shoving make me very nervous. My blood pressure was not at a good level, and I was doing all I could to keep from screaming when I felt someone poke me on the shoulder again.  I whipped around to see the man I shoved standing there.

"Excuse me, Madam," he said to me.  "Do you speak English?"

"You know G-D well I speak English."

Tell me, Madam," he continued. "How much would it cost for me to buy that coat?" He rubbed the arm of my coat, and I snapped it away.

"WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU ASK ME?"  I was pretty livid.

"How much, Madam?  How much would that coat cost in Paris? " He grinned.  "In Euro, of course."

Gobbledy-gook. Gobbledy-gook." It was my turn to speak a language he didn't understand, and I used the opportunity to say a few choice words in Spanish.  "LEAVE ME ALONE AND GO TO THE BACK OF THE D@MN LINE."

I turned around and said, "Where is my husband?"

The guy in front of me said, "He eez keep-in zee or-dair...unlez zee crow=ed haz mowed heem doone."

At around 11:00, Mike found out that the museum workers were on strike. No one ever announced that to us because, I guess, they were on strike. As we left, we told the people in line (I estimate there were close to 2000 people in the line that snaked through the mall.) that the Louvre was closed because of the strike. I have a feeling some would still be in line tonight had we not told them.

When we got back to the apartment, we found out that the workers walked out to protest the lack of help with the increasingly nasty pickpockets.  You can read about it here.

                "Za Louvre is closed."

We have our tickets, so we'll head back to the Louvre this week sometime, but it won't be tomorrow.  

I'll be on strike.

Scam It!!

"It's Paris. You don't come

here for the weather."

~ Adrian Leeds

It was raining when we woke up this morning, so hard so that I decided to stay in bed a little longer than Mike (well, two hours longer). By the time I yanked myself out of bed and got ready, it was around 10 am. Oops.

After we had our morning croissant and cafe, we headed to Notre Dame in hopes that there wouldn't be a long line to get into the church. The line for the tower was more than a block long, and the line to get into the church itself was probably double that.

Scratch that idea.

Off we went to St. Chapelle with the same hopes. . . and the same results.

"What time do they open tomorrow?" Mike asked me.

"At 9."

"If I can wake you up in time, we can go to Mass at Notre Dame at 7:45 and be here be 9." Mike was being optimistic.

"Don't hold your breath." I was being realistic.

Next we headed to the Louvre which, like all museums in Paris, was closed because it was Tuesday. Sigh. From there we headed to the Place de la Madeleine, dodging raindrops until, as we got to the Madeleine area, the skies opened up. To make a long story short, we walked in and out of shops around the Madeleine and finally, around 2:15, decided to head back to our flat. It was pouring rain. Our flat was miles away. i was tired. We still walked. :-P

We were in a very haute shopping district when a lady (Photo above) bent down and "picked up a gold ring. She showed it to me.

"Zhou drope theez?"

Coincidentally, this was the same woman who had shown me the same ring on Saturday when we walked to the Eiffel Tower.

"It's a scam, lady," I sneered at her. "Scam."

"Gobbledy-gook. Gobbledy-gook." She sneered back at me and laughed. I turned around half way and saw another woman showing a similar ring to a different tourist. She tried to put the ring on the woman.

"Scam," Mike and I both said.

I turned to see where my friend from Saturday was, and she was in the process of "picking up" the ring again and shoving it into another lady's face. That lady was less-than-pleased and tried to gab the woman. The scammer took off with the scam-ee in pursuit, and Scammer #2 took off across another street. I pulled my camera from under my poncho and followed #2 across one street and back to the original corner where she disappeared in the crowd.

Low and behold, though, Scammer #1 was "picking up" the ring again and trying to pass it off on yet another tourist, this time a man. I aimed the camera at her.

"GOBBLEDY-GOOK!! GOBBLEDY-GOOK!!" she screamed at me, turned, and grabbed her butt in what, I assume, was a grand flip-off-French style.."GOBBLEDY-GOOK!! GOBBLEDY-GOOK!!"

About five blocks later, we crossed another street and a teenage girl asked me to sign a petition for something. I refused and again grabbed the camera. When a second girl approached Mike and asked him, I turned to snap her photo, and she raised her cardboard "clipboard" to hide (Photo below).

"Why zhou take mah photo?" she wanted to know.

"Scam!" Mike said to her.

"GOBBLEDY-GOOK!! GOBBLEDY-GOOK!!" She and her four cohorts took off down the street, and when they saw we were walking the same way, they started to run, the "petitions" flying all over the place. (We were't following-following them.They just ran in the direction we happened to have to go to get home.)


We've seen the scams all over the place. The petition scammers ask you to sign to end drug or child or something abuse, and once you sign, they demand a "donation" to help out. The Parisians are not the only ones doing it. We saw it in both Rome and Prague two years ago.

The ring scam. though, is a bit new to us. The scammer supposedly finds a gold ring on the round, and he/she approaches someone who "dropped" it. Of course, being generous, the scammer insists that the scam-ee take the ring and keep it.. . . . and maybe reward him/her with a few Euro for being so generous for giving you a nice piece of "gold" jewelry.


"How can anyone fall for that?" I asked Mike as we continued home in the downpour. "Are people that gullible?"

"They have to have some victims are they wouldn't keep doing it," he said.

I guess he's right.

I'll have to tell you about the beggars at some point. They're pretty interesting, too.

Side note: We got home around 4:00, and my pedometer showed we walked almost 17,000 steps. According to my calculations using Mapquest and the average number of steps in a mile, we walked about 7 miles today, most of it in the rain.

I guess I walked off that croissant.

\

You Call THAT Art?

                                  Georges Pompidou Center

"... The whole of Paris is a vast

university of art, literature, music."

~ James Thurber

"Holy crap." I was standing at the top of the spiral staircase that leads from our flat to the ground floor seven stories below.

"It's easier going down than up," Mike encouraged me.

"It's steep going up or down, the steps are too narrow, and 110 steps (I miscounted yesterday.) are still 110 steps."

"Off we go."  That husband of mine is always so positive.

Once we were on solid ground and through the two locked doors that lead to Rue St. Paul, Mike asked where we were going.

"Are you interested in seeing the Bastille?" We hadn't seen it before, and our flat is pretty close to it, so I thought we'd enjoy seeing it.

"Why not?" he said, and we headed north on Rue St. Antoine.

                                                         1034 Colors

Why not indeed.  Unfortunately, what we didn't know is that there is almost nothing left to the Bastille. If you remember, the revolutionaries stormed the prison in 1789, freeing the prisoners and killing the head of the prison. The government ordered the destruction of the building, and the people took pieces of it all over France to show the power of the revolution.  All that's left now is a statue commemorating the overthrow and a very little bit of the building's foundation.

Had I checked all this out before we walked to the Bastille, we probably wouldn't have gone.  The walk was nice, though, and we ended up walking east to the area where Victor Hugo lived before heading back west to the Marais.

                                     Painting by Joan Miro

Mike was just walking and walking, and I was, by the time we hit the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), getting tired and cold (Does this seem to be a recurrent theme?).

"Do you want to go to the Pompidou Center?" I asked Mike.

"What's that?" he asked me for the umpteenth time (another recurrent theme).

"I don't know."  I knew it was a museum, but I'd told him that umpteen times, and, well, you get my drift, I'm sure.

We stumbled on the museum accidentally on purpose (The map had it a few blocks north of where it actually is.) and bought tickets that gave us access to all the exhibits.  One was a special exhibit of designer Eileen Gray (of Ireland), and the other two were Modern Art (pre-1960) and Contemporary Art (1960-today).

                               Painting by Jackson Pollock

We spent a good three hours at the museum, and I enjoyed going through it.  Unlike Musee D'Orsay, the Pompidou was not so full of people what you couldn't see the paintings.  Actually, in some cases, it might have helped to NOT see the art.  You're probably asking yourself why I'm saying that...and even if you're not, I'm going to tell you.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of contemporary or modern art. In most cases, I can't see how the heck someone thinks some of this crap is art.  Who decides that a huge piece of plywood holding 1034 rectangles of color is art?  (See the second photo above.)  One of the sculptures we saw today was a stack of old, used tires.  Why is the guy who piled those on top of each other an artist while Melvin who stacks the used tires at Firestone is just the guy who stacks the old tires?

Look at the paintings by Miro and Pollock (both above). Miro's work, to me, looks like blobs of black ink next to a red hash mark.  Heck.  I get that just by spilling paint.  What in the name of heaven was Pollock on when he painted that thing?  Of course, at least it has a little bit of  form to it.  Most of the Pollock I've seen consists of canvases filled with paint splatters, drips and smears.

And then there is Pablo Picasso...

                              Painting by Pablo Picasso

Mike and I saw an exhibit of Picasso's early work once when we were in NYC for something.  The paintings are actually realistic, and if you Google him, you can check them out. At some point, though, he must have had some of the same thing Pollock did.  The painting above is called Woman Reclining At Night. Missing from the photo I took are the three other stars and the moon which, I guess, indicate that it's night.  My little Riley could draw better than that, and he'd have to hold a brush in his mouth.

"Do you think," Mike asked me as we walked back to the flat, "that these guys paint this stuff and then laugh because someone calls it art and someone else actually buys it?"

No doubt about it.