Paris, je t'aime.

Yesterday around 1:00 we boarded the train in Avignon, bound for Paris. It was an uneventful trip; except for the weird snacks we bought for the trip, which included paprika-flavored Pringles and goat cheese and pepper flavored Cheeto-type thingies. Oddly yummy.

Our room at Hotel des Tuileries

As soon as we got off the train at the Gare de Lyon, the true Parisian experience began: a homeless man passed out spread eagle on the floor of the train station, a woman dressed as the devil selling kisses for 50 cents on the metro, etc. And without wifi access on my phone, which was unexpected, we got a little lost on our way to the hotel. With the help of the friendly people at the Paris tourist office, we finally made it there just as it began to rain. Our room is pretty tiny and seems to be covered with shiny metallic silver wallpaper. Despite this, it's actually very cozy and chic. And we could not have asked for a better location: about a five-minute walk from the Louvre.

The Tuileries gardens in the rain

After we settled into our room, we made the short walk over to the Tuileries gardens, despite the steady rainfall. Along the way, we admired the bright flowers of the gardens, Napoleon's triumphal arch commemorating his victory at Austerlitz and the magnificent Louvre museum with its huge glass pyramid. We wandered through a nearby artists' fair, smelling the great aromas coming from the food vendors, and realized we were hungry. We ventured deeper into the neighborhood, passing by one of my dad's favorite Parisian hangouts, Willi's Wine Bar, and choosing a bistro called Le Pain Quotidien ("the daily bread"), which claimed to be a "communal table" featuring lots of organic offerings. I'm not sure what qualifies as organic in a country that doesn't allow genetic modification of food, but my small mesclun salad and pot au feu (soup with vegetables and quinoa) was delicious nonetheless.

We earned this.

Our meal finished, we continued our walk around the quartier, seeing the Garnier Opera, Harry's Bar Americain full of its American college pennants and the wide variety of Asian restaurants. As the evening wore on, the effects of our relatively small dinner wore off and we were lured by tantalizing aromas into a small Mediterranean take-out place, where we couldn't resist getting a pizza to share. It was one of the best things I've ever tasted.

So much inside these walls!

Today, our first stop was the Louvre, where we spent a couple of hours wandering through the vast collection of art. The sheer number of pieces was overwhelming. There were some old favorites to see, though: the paintings representing the four seasons by Giuseppe Arcimboldo and the Winged Victoria of Samothrace. However, as sacrilegious as it may sound, I think we had more fun in the stores attached to museum where we found so many cool little things! Giant wooden robots, colorfully designed wallets and purses, Swatch watches and the like.


We walked through the Tuileries as the sun began to come out, making our way to the Orangerie museum, which houses Monet's waterlilies as well as various works by Soutine, Picasso, Renoir and others. A much smaller and more manageable museum than the Louvre, we enjoyed walking among the various paintings and getting absorbed by Monet's huge canvases.

Once we finished there, we moved on to see the Invalides, the museum of military history and Napoleon's tomb. Deciding that French military history was not worth the ticket price, and content to take pictures of the exterior with its massive golden dome, we moved on.

The Thinker

Our next stop was the Rodin museum, one of my favorite places to visit in Paris. We came in out of the pouring rain to linger among the works of this incredible sculptor, seeing such famous sculptures as The Thinker and the Gates of Hell. Rodin was so talented at sculpting the human figure that his contemporaries even accused him of fraud!

The last stop on our planned visits for the day was the Eiffel Tower, a must-see monument to say to least. We admired it from the Champ du Mars park on the southeast side, then crossed under it to the pavilion at the Trocadero to get a different angle. Along the way, I devoured a crepe filled with Nutella and whipped cream. What can I say, I'm a sucker for Nutella.

With sore feet, we boarded the Metro back to the first arrondissement and rested at the hotel for a little while. We caught a TV show called Ces Animaux Qui Nous Fait Rire ("these animals that make us laugh"), which was basically clips of animals doing funny things. After a long day of sight-seeing, it was a nice break.

When dinnertime rolled around, we ventured out into the neighborhood hoping to eat at one of the many Asian dives we passed yesterday. Being that it is Sunday, a lot of things were closed, but eventually we found a place simply called "Noodles," which seemed to be an amalgamation of various Asian cuisines. They had some killer pork dumplings. Walking around afterwards, our sweet tooth led us into a small Italian restaurant just behind our hotel for dessert: a sort of berry parfait with marscapone for me, and a Limoncello sorbet for John. The perfect ending to a fun day.