Lisboa: The City That Should Avoid Rain at All Costs

This weekend I traveled with two of my roommates to Lisbon, Portugal. We were leaving on Friday morning so decided to go out and enjoy the bars until late Thursday night. Of course this decision (along with that to eat three microwaved pizzas at 4 am) was regretted immediately upon awakening. Moving sluggishly, we managed to arrive at the airport with time to spare, and waited for our forth travel companion, Rob, to arrive and meet us. The minutes rolled by and we laughed drunkenly that he wasn't going to make it, I guess only half kidding since he had been out the night before with us, also. With twenty minutes before boarding we starting getting nervous and called his phone a few times, each with no response. Eventually, our plane started boarding and literally as I was finding my seat, his roommate called me. Apparently he had slept through his alarm and woken up ten minutes ago and wasn't going to make it. Stunned, we found our seats and swore never to get that drunk again before a flight, knowing that could have been us.

We landed in Lisbon, Portugal around noon on Friday and took the bus into the city. From there we began an adventurous walk to find our hotel. Our hangover hit us as we struggled to translate the map, walking uphill in the afternoon sun while carrying all of our bags. Stopping to occasionally ask for directions, we encountered our first real language barrier. Although written Portuguese appears very similar to Spanish, it sounds like a mixture of French and German when spoken. We would ask for help once in Spanish and again in English, giving them the choice of the two languages they had the best chance of knowing. Unfortunately, every Portuguese person we encountered would blindside us by ignoring our obvious language problems, and would ramble at a mile-a-minute speed in Portuguese, not a word of which registered with us. And to exacerbate the situation, each Portuguese guide person had a friend with they would inevitably start arguing between themselves in front of us as to which direction was the best. I am also pretty positive that 40% of the people we talked to were either drunk or were cursed with the worse speech impediment possible. From the translations we were able to muster, we gathered that our hotel was in a very bad area, with prostitutes, and thieves. Eager to encounter such an elegant neighborhood, we trotted off in the direction in which the advice-giving truck driver had pointed. Twenty minutes later we arrive in said shady neighborhood and dropped off our belongings in a surprisingly quaint and clean small hotel room. Then off we went into the city.














We walked down the long sloping hill toward the town center. We crossed through a few different plazas which were nice open areas surrounding a fountain or sculpture. All of the main streets were made of small black and white stones. They are intricately organized into detailed designs repeated throughout the plaza and streets. Off the main streets, the streets became small narrow alleys between apartment buildings, and often they were just narrow cement staircases winding up the hills between the buildings, only wide enough for maybe two people at a time. With none of the streets marked, and the narrow stairs the only path to the stop, it took us a good amount of time to leisurely climb our way to to the top of the hill, where we came upon the castle, Castle of São Jorge. It is located in the highest hill of the historic center of the city.

We spent time in the Feira da Ladra, or Theive's Maret, which is Lisbon's best known flea market. Literally translating "Theive's Market" because it is said when your watch or purse gets stolen, it will inevitably show up here to be sold by the local hustlers and gypsy crowd. It has taken place every Tuesday and Saturday since 1881 on the edge of Alfama on the Campo de Santa Clara near the Igreja de Sao Vicente de Fora. Most of the professional traders on the flea market have meanwhile adapted themselves and their wares primarily to tourists, so a lucky bargain is unlikely

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to be found. Amateur traders can only be found in a small area of the market. The amateur ones typically have a blanket in front of them covered with the widest assortment of items that it is nearly impossible to take them seriously. One example included: forks, books, buttons, dishes, cell phone chargers, mismatched shoes, used underwear, wallets, nick-nacks and children's toys, and keys.

One of my favorite parts was the small colorful tiles that covered all of the buildings, called azulejos. Wherever one goes in Portugal, azulejos are to be found inside and outside churches, palaces, ordinary houses and even train stations or subway stations. They constitute a major aspect of Portuguese architecture as they are applied on walls, floors and even ceilings. They were not only used as an ornamental art form, but also had a specific functional capacity like temperature control at homes. Many azulejos chronicle major historical and cultural aspects of Portuguese history. The art was introduced to Portugal, via Spain, by the Moors, who had learned the craft from the Persians. The word azulejo is derived from the Arabic word Zellige, meaning "polished stone". The Portuguese adopted the Moorish tradition of horror vacui ('fear of empty spaces') and covered the walls completely with azulejos.

We saw a few other plazas and monuments, although the city seemed to disappoint me. It was like we were walking around trying to find the Lisbon that everyone talks about. Yes we saw the beach, the narrow winding streets and small stair alleys between the houses climbing up the hills, but it seemed eerie that something was missing. There were not many young people (or many people at all for that matter) in the streets, there weren't many sites to see, the city was poorly taken care of an in a much more distressed economic state than I expected. A weird side note was that we noticed more physically handicapped people that weekend than I typically see in an entire year at home. For instance, within the first couple hours in Lisbon, we saw FIVE blind people! I am not sure if they just have a really poor healthcare (but they are in the EU so I would assume this has all been brought up to their standards) or if it is because people are unable to afford medical attention at all? But I have never even seen that much physical deformity in a developing country. It was a very bizarre trip, and needless to say, we stopped drinking the water there just as a precaution.

Paris Part III: A Quiet End to the Storm

The last day I woke up in the hostel around 9:00 am and grabbed my breakfast and checked out. I headed back into the city and went right to the Grand Palace, since it was the museum I had wanted to see the most but it wasn't included in our Museum Package for the two days. My flight wasn't until 6:00 pm so I set out to enjoy a leisurely day of sightseeing alone (although this time, intentionally).

I arrived at the Grand Palace around 9:30 am and, while enjoying the blasting sounds emanating from my ipod, I waited in line for about an hour plus. Although I am typically the most impatient person, which is saying something since I am already seen as an "impatient-American" when traveling through Europe, I didn't mind the wait and possessed an uncharacteristic calm during my neverending wait.

The Side Entrance to the Grand Palace

The neverending line, snaking down the marble stairs and around the side of the Palace

A fountain out front of the palace

Inside they had an amazing exhibit which showed all of Picasso's masterpieces alongside the masters that inspired him. Throughout Picasso's career, he was inspired by the classical artists of his day, and often did cubist or abstract versions of the classical paintings. Throughout his career, Picasso kept a collection of thousands of postcards and slides of art he admired. But the Spanish master wasn't interested in copying them explicitly. Through sketches, still life paintings, nudes, portraits and early cubist works, the exhibition at Paris' Grand Palais notes connections between the 20th-century Spanish artist and earlier painters, taking up several floors in the giant palace. The exhibition begins with some of Picasso's earliest works, which mirror the realist style of the classical masters. Picasso was a child prodigy and had mastered academic painting and drawing by the age of 14, which leaves me none too surprised that he moved on to the loud and outrageous style of cubism and abstract work during his later years. His versions of the classics (often several versions of them) are hung next to several similar paintings of the masters upon which the paintings were based. Co-curator Anne Baldassari described Picasso as a "cannibal" — he ate up works and let them digest. Then he would produce something entirely his own. It was amazing to see how Picasso could take the most boring, realist piece of work and produce a colorful, screaming abstract piece of work with so much more energy and emotion than the original.

This exhibit holds more than 200 works from Picasso, El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Titian, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Delacroix and Manet, entitled in an otherworldly exhibit entitled "Picasso and the Masters", drawn from public and private collections worldwide (so I guess it helped this exhibit that the other Picasso museum was under renovation and could lends all of its works). News articles and reviews describe the ability of bringing so many masterpieces together in one place -- including Goya’s "La Maya Desnuda", which last left Spain in 1930 -- as a "miracle".
The EUR 4.5-million budget for the show, which runs until 2 February 2009, is one of the largest in French history, with almost a fifth used to insure the paintings, together worth an estimated EUR 2 billion. On our bike tour the guides told us there was actually a huge controversy because they couldn't get enough insurance to cover the artworks because there are so many of the greatest works, that they actually devalued the estimates for the paintings so they could be insured!

Although I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside, I found some photos online which hopefully will give you an idea of what the exhibit was like:



The Original "Rape of the Sabine Women" painting by Nicholas Poussin
One of Picasso's many reproductions of the work.

The walls were also covered with quotes from Picasso about art, God, or life in general. Here is a sampling of them:

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. "

"Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? "

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. "

"Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. "

"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal."

"Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions."


After the exhibit, I grabbed some food and headed back to the Rodin Museum for round 2, where I would hopefully get inside. Oddly enough, the other Rodin Museum is located in Philadelphia, across the street from the foot of our large art museum, and I took a field trip there for art class in high school. Unfortunately, the Rodin museum in Paris (where Rodin was from) was not much bigger. I walked through the museum and revisited the surrounding gardens at a leisurely pace and was still out of there within forty minutes. Some highlights from the Rodin Gardens:







Finally I headed to my last tourist destination for the day: The Eiffel Tower. I wanted to see it during the day since I was told it is so different and uniquely beautiful at either time of the day. I arrived and was surprised to see thousands of people running around in spandex everywhere. Apparently my tourism was coinciding with some 10K race, and unfortunately that meant I had to navigate through thousands of sweaty bodies, all while carrying my giant weekends bag and most likely knocking over exhausted athletes and their supportive children. I think I took a picture of the tower every twenty paces, so to avoid giving you a flip book of my field of vision as I walked, I'll show you a few that turned out pretty nice right before my camera died, drawing an end to my documented weekend:





At least the athletes helped take pictures of me on my solo journey to revisit the Eiffel Tower

View from under the center of the tower.


This ended my tour de France. I returned to the center of the old city and walked around through the Latin district, letting myself get lost and found again. I enjoyed an early dinner at another Kebab restaurant and took my time locating a metro and getting back to the airport.

I was definitely surprised by how much I liked Paris. Like most red-blooded Americans, I assumed I would hate Paris and find the people horrible, the food disgusting, and the atmosphere pretentious and uninviting. As much as I tried to dislike France, all of my preconceptions were proved false and Paris has become one of my new favorite cities.

Paris Part II: Just When I Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Worse...

Picking up where I left off on the last post, I had hung up from a phone call with my friends on the other side of town after confirming our 9:00 am (Sharp!) meeting time at the Louvre. I set my alarm and fall asleep in my hostel. End scene.

I wake up to the window shining light on my face. I look around to the other vacant beds in the cell of a hostel room. I fumbled under my bed for my handy Radioshack travel alarm clock. The slightly blurry 9:55 am stares back at me: panic ensues. I turn on Janelle's phone, which opens to a text message stating "We are at the Louvre - where are you - did you go inside?" from Kapy, and before I could even try to respond the battery dies and I am without contact. I panic even more. I lunge out of bed and frantically try to throw on any article of clothing in sight, which of course takes ten minutes longer than the one minute it should take since I am rushing and fumbling everything I manage to get my hands on. So ten minutes later (which of course felt like an eternity) I fly down the four flights of wooden stairs and land in the lobby. Being me, I demand my free breakfast, while taking my first breath in probably ten minutes. Then I tried calling Kapy's cell phone number from a pay phone in the lobby, which I had brilliantly scribed on my Paris map in case of such a dire situation. After the machine ate 6 euros, failed to connect to her cell phone, and the man behind the counter yelled at me, I bolted from the hostel in tears toward the metro. I realized I couldn't figure out which metro to take or how to buy a ticket, my sobbing continued at a more pathetic rate. With mascara pouring down my face, I tried to ask every passerby how to buy the ticket without success. Then, as if a sign from God himself, a flamboyant British man covered in baby clue cashmere came running over and hugged me: "Oh Love, stop crying! You are in Paris, and a beautiful girl should not be crying in Paris!" a string of "oh love/darling/dear's" later he brought me over to the appropriate gate and handed me a metro ticket, "Take this ticket, love - I bought them in bulk. Now go to the Lourve, call your friend, and enjoy Paris" and with that I thanked him and whisked through the gate, onto to metro, and was Lourve-bound.

So I finally arrive at the Louvre around 10:20 and upon finding out meeting spot abandoned, realize I have no plan of action. I blindly run around the Louvre hoping by some grace of God to see them through a window, like an unrealistic scene from a movie. Still crying, I realize I should just make the best of this horrible situation and enjoy Paris alone. I mean, if Carry Bradshaw could do it in 'Sex and the City' after her boyfriend abandons her for his artwork, I could surely do it. The idea of me wearing couture dresses, Manolo Blaniks, and eating pastries alone somehow comforts me as I get into line at the Louvre. I zone out watching scenes from the last season of "Sex and the City" in my head and shuffly blindly toward the big glass pyramid to enter the Louvre. It is now 10:45 am and I have the whole day ahead of me to enjoy the City of Love alone.

Just as a depression was settling over me, I catch a glimpse of a familiar red and white scarf in the front of the line. I scream out, and the girl turns around - by some miracle it is Janelle and Kapy. Being the emotional trainwreck that I am at this point, I run ahead of people and leap on top of them, ecstatic. What are the odds of finding two people in line for the worlds most visited art museum, which typically sees 8.5 million people per year, or about 25,000 people a day (obviously more on a Saturday like this). The Parisian gods were certainly looking out for me on this one. It turns out they had gone inside when they sent that text message, hoping to find me amongst the 35,000 pieces of artwork (an equally unlikely task). However they had gotten lost inside and decided it was easiest to exit the museum then reenter to go to the next exhibit. Gleefully, I accompanied them inside on their second attempt. We spent a good few hours inside seeing all the main exhibits and bursting out periodically about how amazed we were that we actually found each other. Some highlights from the Louvre:

Looking up at the famous glass pyramid entrance.

The Mona Lisa.

Me between some sculptures.






Venus

Kapy & I in front of one of the many items stolen by Napoleon from Egypt

The three of us outside the Louvre entrance, where we miraculously found each other!


Then we ran off to a delicious lunch at a Turkish kebab restaurant, then to Notre Dame, where we smuggled ourselves onto some tour with a nun tourguide who had keys to the sacristy and took us around the inner parts of the cathedral that most people never get to see. She was so cuet and knowledgeable about the entire cathedral - it definitely made it a more interesting experience. Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction by Viollet-de-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" in French. Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and its construction spanned the Gothic period. Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttresses, or arched exterior supports. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses but after the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. In response, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued as such. The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. During some points the cathedral was completely abandoned and at some points even used as a stable for extra farm animals. French novelist Victor Hugo, an admirer of the cathedral, wrote his novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in part to raise awareness of the cathedral's heritage, which sparked renewed interest in the cathedral's fate. A campaign to collect funds to save the cathedral followed, culminating in the 1845 restorations.During the 19th century, an extensive restoration project was completed, returning the cathedral to its previous state.

The archway to enter the Cathedral.

Tall ceiling and gothic archways

The sacristy which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of... sorry sister.

The front of the cathedral.

The famous rose window.


Next we went off to the Rodin Museum, only to arrive as it was closing so we perused the Rodin gardens which housed some of his larger sculptures and enjoyed the sunshine. Across the street is Napoleon's tomb. We climbed the steps to the huge door that houses his tombs and is surrounded by equally impressive gardens. Next we tried to get to the Picasso museum, only to find it was under construction and was closed, so we consoled ourselves with Banana and Nutella Crepes at a local restaurant.

To end our day of touring, we headed to the Museum of Modern art which is a fascinating piece of architecture. The architects wanted to make the inside only for artwork so the outside holds all of the important infrastructure, bathrooms, escalators, heating pipes, etc, so the inside is one huge gallery upon the next. It was filled with bizarre artwork which were accompanied by stories of the manic artists and their quests to express themselves in their art. Highlights:

Me playing in some artwork.



A mirror inside a painting.

This was a huge room because the artist wanted to create an environment. It was like being in an egg.

Man made prism?

View of the Eiffel Tower from the Modern Art Museum at Sunset

Again...

The plaza below..



Afterward we bought some food and wine to go and headed off to the Monte Martre area. We hiked up stairs along the hill to reach the top where the Basilica of Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) was lit up by bright spot lights giving light to the hill below it. Along the side of the hill people sat with wine, enjoying live music and the crisp night air. Around the plateau on which the Basilica sits, there were tons of tents selling and sampling wines, cheeses, and other delicious handmade foods. From the top of the the hill, you can see out over Paris for 30 km in each direction - we could even see the bright blue glow of the Eiffel Tower. It is built over the revered scene where the first martyrs of Paris met their death. We bought two more bottles of 7 euro wine, and sat among the locals on the hillside and looked over Paris enjoying our last night on the town.

After we had drank our fill, we headed back down the hill toward to Moulin Rouge strip. We ran around in the colorful Vegas-esque streets and walked to the Moulin Rouge, which is French for "Red Windmill," in reference to the red windmill that adorns the roof of the building. Built in 1889 (the same year as the Eiffel Tower) the Moulin Rouge is a tourist destination, offering musical dance entertainment for adult visitors from around the world. Unfortunately for us, this entertainment costs about 140 euro per person, which was outside of our budget. So to compensate we persuaded bouncers at different strip clubs to let us in for free (or to at least give us free drinks inside) so we could enjoy a low budget night of red light district entertainment.

Afterward, we hopped back on the metro around 11:00 pm and went to our final destination for the evening: the Eiffel Tower. We arrived to the area and had a late meal under the blue glow of the tower, splitting another bottle of wine. Finishing off our wine, we headed through the park to approach the huge glowing tower. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris and when it was completed in 1889 it was the tallest tower in the world, only to be surpassed in 1930 by the NY Chysler Building. More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, most recently nearly 7 million visitors per year, making it the most visited paid monument in the world. It was built as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, the World Fair marking 100 yrs after the French Revolution. Oddly enough, Eiffel originally planned to build the tower in Barcelona, for the Universal Exposition of 1888, but those responsible at the Barcelona city hall thought it was a strange and expensive construction, which did not fit into the design of the city.

The shape of the tower was therefore determined by mathematical calculation involving wind resistance. Several theories of this mathematical calculation have been proposed over the years, the most recent is a nonlinear integral differential equation based on counterbalancing the wind pressure on any point on the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point. That shape is exponential. A careful plot of the tower curvature however, reveals two different exponentials, the lower section having a stronger resistance to wind forces. The tower was met with much criticism from the public when it was built, with many calling it an eyesore. Newspapers of the day were filled with angry letters from the arts community of Paris. French novelist Guy de Maupassant — who claimed to hate the tower — supposedly ate lunch in the Tower's restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where one could not see the structure. Today, the Tower is widely considered to be a striking piece of structural art. Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years, meaning it would have had to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris, which planned to tear it down. However the tower proved valuable for communication purposes and it was allowed to remain after the expiration of the permit. The military used it to dispatch Parisian taxis to the front line during the First Battle of the Marne, and it therefore became a victory statue of that battle. I found the tower both striking during the day against the fall leaves and blue sky as well as during the night when it glowed a clear blue in honor of the EU.

Paris Part I: A Rought Start is an Understatement

This weekend I travelled to Paris with my roommate Kapy and her friend Janelle. What was supposed to be a last minute easy trip to Paris turned into a if-it-can-go-wrong-it-will-go-wrong weekend for me. Here begins my tumultuous and emotional saga:

So earlier that week I realized I probably wouldn't fit Paris into my fall semester travelings. I mentioned this on a whim to my roommate Kapy who was going to Paris that weekend. After some impulsive decision making, I decided to join her and her friend Janelle that weekend. I went online, booked a flight for two days later and hoped to stay with a friend of a friend at her apartment. These plans were obviously made when things were going smoothly for me. But alas, things can never continue so swimmingly for me. I was pretty much on my own in terms of organizing my weekend because they were taking the Euro-rail train there (about 14 hrs each way) because they had bought the entire pass and were planning on economically traveling Europe using it. Furthermore, they were couch-surfing at a different person's house each night (couch surfing for the non-travelers/older-generation is when you find someone online who has a spare couch in a given city, send some emails, get to know then, and crash on their couch - it sounds way more dangerous and sketchy than it actually is; especially since it is pretty much organized and run by the couch-crashing post-college hippie community). Anyway, so this leaves me on my own to meet up with them in order to tag along on their Parisian adventure.

At this point I am booked to leave at 6:00 am Friday morning from Barcelona. Everything is fine until 12 hours before my flight leaves. Then my housing falls through. With no other options available given the time constraints and lack of hostel availabilities, I book a pricer hotel, and cringe as I type my credit card numbers onto the website. I brush it off as my one big expense of the trip and try to console myself with the idea of taking a bubblebath for the first time in probably 10 years. Some friends come over after I finish packing and I have a bottle of wine while I wait for my departure time to roll around and they prepare to go out for the evening. Given my obsessive compulsive nature inherited from my father, I begin to shuffle through my flight itinerary, my online bank statements, and the airline website repeatedly, memorizing the flight times and numbers until I catch small script at the bottom of an email: "do not head to airport until you receive second email from the airline." Paging back to my inbox, there is only one email. I click to my bank statement: the pending transaction for the flight has been removed but never sent to confirmed transactions. I begin to feel sick. I go to the company's website... my flight is not listed under "my itineraries." I begin to cry.

I ran screaming into the hallway, alarming all those around me and likely within a one mile radius. I grab our RA Laura from her room and through tears tell her she has to call the airline for me because I can't understand them (in Spanish). She calls several numbers, the first three don't work because it is now 12:00 am. Finally she gets through to someone at a different travel agency who searches for my reservation in all of the databased by my credit card number. She finds no flight. She apologizes. I have no way to Paris now. And I have four hours.

Sitting at the table pouting and cursing Visa (they have canceled EVERY flight I have booked, although this was the first time I was not given notice) I realized I could (a) stay in Barcelona and be bitter I missed out on a trip due to my satanic credit card company, or (b) find a way onto that flight in any way possible. Luckily for the sanity of my roommates, I opted for (b) and begged the man on the phone to find a seat on the 6:00 am flight to Paris. I explained that no one told me my flight was canceled, and the past five times Visa has done this I at least get the "we regret to inform you..." email so I can hurry and rebook and call them, making blind threats until they process my card. Eventually by some sort of grace he took pity on me and put me on the flight, but not before mentioning that the ticket is now $500 (mind you that was my budget for the whole weekend, since the flight should have been at most $100). I threw my hands in the air, passed my credit card to Laura and told her to do with it what she must, and poured myself another glass of wine. Of course this wasn't the end of my troubles, as the phone died 1/2 way through Laura booking the flight, although by some saving grace when she redialed the number she got a hold of the same travel agent. Ticket secured. I have three hours.

Message pops up online from my dad: "Visa Security Called. You need to get in contact with them." My blood starts to boil. From this day forward I will dedicate a good portion of my time crusading against PNC Visa, as they are the most horrible business ever made by man, and toy with my emotions like a satanic puppeteer. I panic, call them on my computer, scream at them to stop doing this, the woman on the other end tells me no, they will continue to do this every time I book online. She goes through everything I have bought online in the past two weeks. I cry again telling her please don't cancel this flight. I leave in three hours. She says they won't, but makes no promise that PNC won't. Between the two of them, they are conspiring to turn my life into a havoc-filled inferno. I beg her about six more times and finish my glass of wine (I'd also like to argue that they should foot the tab for my stress-induced wine expenses). I have two and a half hours.

Hoping everything is good, I throw the last of my belongings into a bag and catch a taxi to the airport. After checking in and doing a short little victory dance in the airport lobby, I realize I left my phone charging due to using the entire battery while attempting to rectify this Visa-debacle. I have no way of finding Kapy and Janelle when I get there. I worry a little, but for now, it is 4:00 am and I am too tired to be stressed. I fall asleep stretched out on chairs in front of my terminal gate and wake up an hour and a half later for only 10 minutes to run, board the plan, buckly myself in, and fall back asleep. I wake up at 8:00 am in the Charles de Gaulle Airport. I am in Paris!









I run through the airport, find the train, and after butchering the French language while asking for directions, I bought my ticket and hoped for the best. The train whisked my directly to Notre Dame, where our bike tour was set to begin at 10:00 sharp. With an hour and a half to kill, I meandered through the small streets, grabbed breakfast and a coffee, and went back to sit at the foot on the Charlemagne statue and pray that this was the right meeting spot since in my haste I forgot to write down any details. I sat eating a roll of graham crackers and feeding some to the pigeons, being that they were my only company in the Notre Dame plaza that early in the morning. The plaza began to fill, and I continued distributing these tasty treats to my aviary companions while growing nervous as no bike nor bike tour was in sight. A short asian woman then approached me and motioned to her camera. Assuming she wanted me to take a picture of her in front of the cathedral, I nodded and removed my ipod. Then she stepped back and started taking pictures of me feeding the birds. Although the companionship felt nice, I felt guilty wasting her time and film so I started calling to her that I wasn't from Paris, French, or anything worth photographing. She of course ignored me, and continued to snap away for another minute, much to the amusement of the crowd around me and my own embarrassment. Eventually right before 10:00 the tour group of fifteen or so came over and we checked in with our two guides (Paul from New Zealand and another man from Florida). As I checked in they noticed I registered online by myself. "All alone I see," he said. I hastily explained that I had friends, they just happened to be the two that weren't on time, and I just got here early. With a pitying glance, the assured me that they believed me, and I think they were oddly surprised when my two friends showed up a few minutes later and proved I wasn't a sad lonely liar.

After jumping around in excitement that I found my friends, we walked off to the bike station, where we gathered our bikes and I dropped off my suitcases. After mounting my bike, it was the first time I realized that I have not ridden a bike in over ten years. This apparently didn't occur to me when I booked the tour, and became painfully obvious when it took me about fifteen minutes to finally balance myself on the bike, although I was barely able to peddle. This awkwardness and state of peril (both for myself and other pedestrians) lasted for the first hour of the tour. The tour guide kept emphasizing that they never had an accident on the tours and were determined not to lose a tourist this time. Eventually I was able to master it, and the tour became my own little Tour de France, so I suppose to cliche about remembering how to ride a bike is very true, although I'd still remember to be careful for the first hour or so.

We biked (with ample and long pauses) all around Paris through the big tourist areas and small quiet streets. It was a great way to get oriented with the city and it helped that our tour guide was amazingly gorgeous and made us forget that we were growing tired from biking around streets bustling with tourists. We went over tons of bridges connecting old Paris (in the center) which is a tiny island in the middle of the river, with the surrounding districts, which are numbered with 1 being the center, and spiraling outward with the numbers growing. We biked through small narrow streets and alongside dangerous highways, and the whole time Paul kept reminding us to "group up" when we had to all bike within inches of each other which was far too intense for our biking skills. Therefore it would entail us all yelping and screaming as out bikes toppled over onto one another and within inches of incredibly expensive European cars. We even rode through the Lourve (which is somewhat forbidden) where we saw some random Russian pop band that none of us knew but lots of people were taking pictures of!


Our bikes!

There is a famous graffiti artist named "Space Invader" who constructs little graffiti pictures from tiles of characters and video game creatures from the 1980s. Some of them are even made out of rubik's cubes which he played with to have the color tiles exactly the right way to make the picture.

Me, Kapy, and Janelle inside one of the millionaire apartments where famous people such as the author Victor Hugo ("Hunchback of Notre Dame") lived. Inside the apartment structures they have gorgeous gardens which we snuck into!

Tons of boats parked along the Seine River which runs through Paris.

The Seine River in Paris


After the tour, we went to an amazing restaurant and got the biggest omlettes I have seen in a long time with plates of fries and (free!) tapwater, which I also have not encountered since the States. After refueling for the day, we began our excursions. We had each bought the Paris Museum Pass which allowed us to enter pretty much all the museums for two days.

First we went to Musee d'Orsay. The Musée d'Orsay is located on the left bank of the Seine River and is housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography and is best known for its extensive collection of the most famous impressionist masterpieces by painters such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne.

Musee d'Orsay

An overview of the ground floor with tons of sculptures.

Van Gogh's Self Portait:


Water Lillies by Monet:


Woman with Umbrella by Monet:


Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lillies by Monet:


Degas' Little Dancer:


The Clock Portal through which you can see outside the museum:


It was incredible to see so many of the famous works you learn about all through school housed under one roof! It was literally painting after painting after sculpture of some of the most famous works in the world! It was so breathtaking!

After the Musee d'Orsay, Kapy and Janelle headed back to the woman's house they were staying at. I started my walk home, resting occasionally to grab a chocolate crepe and coffee, looking at the local street art and even returning to Notre Dame and the surrounding gardens. While resting on a bridge I took out my map to begin the long treck back to my hostel. Glancing over I noticed about two dozen National Guard officers standing around vans and passing the day in the gorgeous Parisian sun on one of the many bridges. I must have made eye contact or looked especially lost or lonely because when I glanced up from my map there were a few standing in front of me. Soon they were asking me why I was in France, why don't I speak French, will I return, and tons of other questions that were so adorable in their broken English and after a few minutes their friends came over and the crowd of National Guard Members standing around me began to multiply. Not minding the company, I sat and talked with them and decided to take advantage of their local navigational skills and asked them how I would get to my hostel. They seized the opportunity to be my knights in shining armor and about twenty of them escorted me across the bridge and part of the way to my hotel. They led me to the main street and told me to continue for 12 minutes and I would almost be there. I thanked them and began on my way. I walked along the river and through tons of cute dog parks and plazas, past little artists shops and bakeries and soon realized that I had been walking for 35 minutes and not found the street the officers described. I was confused by the map so I approached a woman having a cigarette outside a building. I asked her how to get to my hostel and she couldn't help me so she brought me inside to the main desk and asked her coworker. He was hysterical and kept denying he knew English but would say little catch phrases he must have picked up on tv or from movies saying "It is impossible!" or "I am a genius!" in completely inappropriate moments in the converation. He called the hostel and got directions for me, and told me he was done work in two minutes so he would walk me there. I waited in the lobby of what turned out to be a chemical engineering plant of some sort and waited until Xavier (his name) finished and escorted me on the 15 minute walk to my hostel. We parted ways, I checked in, and took a quick nap until 10 pm.

Weird shaped trees in the Notre Dame park.


Man making me a delicious crepe!

Because I did not have my phone, Janelle lent me hers which was almost out of batteries so I left it off until 10:00 when they decided to call. I was out to a romantic dinner alone at a local kebab restaurant when they called and decided that since they were staying almots an hour outside the city, we wouldn't meet up that night, but vowed to meet promptly at 9:00 am in front of the Lourve the next morning. We confirmed the place and time about 10x with one another before hanging up. I returned to the hostel, set my alarm, and fell quickly asleep by 11:00 pm.