The Humaniteers in Paris

Well, I am now back in the United Kingdom after venturing to Paris with Patrick for four days. I am already experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the crepes, French pastries, baguettes, and delicious coffee concoctions that kept us going during all of our sightseeing adventures. One thing is for sure, they definitely know how to bake a loaf of bread down there in Paris.

We ended up having an amazing trip and thankfully did not run into any major problems resulting from the strikes that were going on during our trip. We both made it to the airport without delays and only spent a few minutes wandering around trying to figure out the RER train and metro into the city so we could check into our hotel. Then, with our Lonely Planet and Frommer's guidebooks in hand, we set out to see the city.

We had drawn up an ambitious schedule for ourselves, with hopes of conquering as many attractions as possible during our four day trip. We both purchased Paris Museum passes to save us a good deal of money on the main tourist draws and cut out time waiting in line to buy tickets. Now, I should explain the name of this particular post. I owe the title to Patrick, since he was the one to coin the phrase "Humaniteer" this past spring in the midst of lectures and discussion groups covering the French Revolution, Romanticism, Goethe's Faust, Freud, Don Giovanni, and Modernism, just to name a few. We both took the two-year "Western Tradition" Humanities sequence at Davidson, which is a survey course covering philosophy, history, music, literature, and religion from the Ancient World all the way up to the 20th century. Therefore, while we were in Paris we decided to commit ourselves to seeing as many Humanities related things as possible.

After settling into our hotel, we walked over to the Latin Quarter in search of dinner. Being the Food Network watching, Top Chef crazed food lover that I am, I had done a lot of research on restaurants in Paris to try to find us a few good places to eat without completely blowing our budget. So with Patrick's excellent sense of direction and map skills, we made it to the road and the street number of the restaurant I had chosen for us... only problem was that there was no restaurant by that name anywhere to be found. Rather than worrying about it too much, we just let our growling stomachs lead us to the restaurant right next door. It was on rue St. Severin right in the heart of the Latin Quarter, which made it pretty touristy as a result. But nevertheless, we had a nice pre fix three course dinner for a reasonable price and then wandered towards the Seine to see Notre Dame.

Getting a picture on our first night after dinner before heading back to rest up for the jam-packed day of sightseeing we had planned for Thursday

We woke up early on Thursday well rested and ready to conquer Notre Dame, St. Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower. Given all the ground we had to cover we knew we needed a good breakfast to keep us going. We ended up eating breakfast in the first place we came to that was open since we were pretty hungry by that point. It was quite an interesting experience since we soon realized that it was an entirely organic café. But we enjoyed our bio friendly, fair trade breakfast for the most part and just sprinkled several extra packs of sugar on everything to make up for its uber-healthiness. Ironically, when we walked back outside we realized there was a bakery right next door... which is where we breakfasted every morning after that.

Now, Patrick being the absolutely amazing person that he is, not only tolerated, but encouraged my obsession with bookstores that first morning. We had passed the famous Shakespeare & Company the night before on our way to dinner, which caused me to emit a muffled scream and jump about a foot up in the air. So when we veered off in the opposite direction of Notre Dame I gave him a confused look and asked where we were going. "Back to your bookstore," he replied with a smile. I don't think I've ever loved him more than that moment. Haha, only joking of course, but I was quite excited. The store was originally owned by Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate, who was the first person to publish James Joyce's Ulysses in 1922. The shop was once considered the center of literary culture and modernism in Paris and was frequented by authors such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein. Um... can you say COOL? I think my initial reaction was justified.

BOOKS

After I had oohed and ahed over the rows of shelves groaning under the weight of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of amazing, glorious, beautiful books, we headed off to officially start our day. Notre Dame was very impressive and after we figured out our camera settings, we both managed to get some nice pictures of the Rose Window (Humanities stop number one).

Then it was up to the towers courtesy of our Paris Museum pass! We were both out of breath after trekking up a seemingly never ending spiral staircase, but the views from the top were well worth it.

Picture with the gargoyles! I was also very, very excited to be exploring the home of The Hunchback of Notre Dame - one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. When we went up to see the bells, I half expected to run into Quasimodo

After seeing St. Chapelle and attempting to visit the Conciergerie, (where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were imprisoned) which ended up being closed for restoration, we headed off in search of lunch. A hankering for crepes and some yummy crusty baguette bread led us to a little street corner bakery on the Ile St. Louis. Now, the lady in charge was either having a really bad day or it is just completely normal for people to yell like that in Paris. Patrick and I just stood there watching in amazement as this woman snapped at the poor teenage boy working for her, lashing out at him for even the slightest mistake. The poor kid was so flustered and fumbled with the cash register a little bit, causing his boss to turn from slicing the banana for our crepe to slap at him and nearly chop off his hand. I mean, that Nutella and banana crepe was superbly delicious, but not worth anyone losing fingers over. Once we made it out of there with our sandwich and crepe we sat on the steps leading down to the river and enjoyed our picnic lunch. It's lunchtime right now and man would I would give anything for one of those delicious baguettes!!!!!!

Walking along the Seine after eating our lunch

Then we were off to the Louvre to check some more items off the Humanities sightseeing list. Apparently it would take nine months to see every single one of the 36,000 works of art housed in the museum, giving each one an adequate amount of time. Seeing that we weren't really equipped to do that in terms of time or mental capacity (I think my brain would explode) we just settled for seeing the highlights. We still spent over three hours in there though and covered a good amount of ground as we wandered through each wing.

Venus de Milo

Audio guide!!! We just bought one to share - more money leftover for crepes!!

There's the Mona Lisa in the background! With about 100 tourists...

After trekking through the museum for all those hours, we were glad to return to the world of daylight and fresh air. We wandered through the Tuileries Garden and saw the Place de la Concorde before walking down the Champs Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately, our hopes of walking up to the viewing platform were dashed when we found out it was closed due to the strike. But we decided to come back later on in our trip and give it another go. Despite snacking on crepes sucre throughout the day, our energy was flagging so we then set our sights on dinner. I took us to a little bistro in the 7th arrondisement where we feasted on salad, duck, fish soup, and delicious creme brulee before walking towards the Eiffel Tower.

View from the tip top!

Trying to figure out camera settings. Mr. Master Photographer did a pretty good job in the end

WINDY!!!

We were absolutely exhausted after all that walking, so it was all we could do to make it back to the hotel and conk out to rest up for day two and a schedule consisting of Versailles and the Catacombs. However, we woke up feeling well rested and ready for another big day and managed to get to Versailles around 11:00.

The audio guides continue...

There it is!! The Hall of Mirrors

Marie Antoinette's bed

Wandering through the gardens

Time for the catacombs!!!! AHHHH!!!! It was pretty scary down there... none of the pictures we tried to take of the actual skulls and bones came out very well, but trust me, it really was creepy.

That night we ended up going on somewhat of an adventure for dinner. We decided we were craving Indian food, so I did some research and took us to an arrondisement that was supposed to have great ethnic food. Once again, the place I had found for us ended up being closed, this time for the strike we think (although our French was definitely not up to reading the sign...), so we ended up in this random little restaurant on Bradley Alley, which my Lonely Planet book said was a good place for Indian food, where we ordered chicken vindaloo and curry. Just enough to refuel us for another day of sightseeing.

For day three, our agenda included the Museé d'Orsay, Napoleon's Tomb, a boat cruise on the Seine, and the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.

Patrick and the elephant statue outside the Museé d'Orsay

The same kind of boat that we took our cruise on

There's Napoleon!

In front of Les Invalides, where we saw Napoleon's Tomb

Nice view of the Eiffel Tower as we power walked towards our boat cruise trying to get there on time

On the boat! And being silly per usual

Passing by Notre Dame

After our cruise was over, we decided to walk back to the Arc de Triomphe and make a second attempt at going up to the top. Unfortunately it was still closed due to the strike, but we decided that we were very lucky if that was the only thing from the strike that affected our trip.

Just took pictures standing in front of it instead

To make up for missing out on the 284 steps to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, we took the metro up to Montmartre to see the city from the dome of the Sacre Coeur. Climbing to the top involved roughly the same number of stairs, so perhaps it is a good thing we didn't attempt both (as you can see from this picture of Patrick at the top...).

But the panoramic view of the city was worth it

After resting from all of our walking, Patrick took me out to a nice dinner to celebrate our one year anniversary. We went to a restaurant called Les Dix Vins and definitely experienced some authentic French cuisine. The menu was presented to us on a little chalkboard... and was written entirely in French. After spending ten minutes pouring over the list of dishes and attempting to use my Spanish to help me understand another romance language, we gave up and asked for a menu in English. (Good thing we did too, who knows what we would have ended up ordering! Some of the items offered were pretty intense and we were not really feeling adventurous enough for sampling tripe, frog legs, or calves brains...).

For my entreé, I was presented with prawns, complete with heads, antennae, eyeballs and all. Then for my plat I received fish... but not just any fish. An actual, head on, tail on, scales and all, fish staring straight up at me. I felt sort of bad eating the poor little thing, but it just tasted so delicious that any sense of guilt melted right away along with the delicious buttery lemony sauce covering my plate. Patrick's meal was equally delicious, he ordered a duck and goat cheese tart and then had himself a nice manly steak with potatoes au gratin. For dessert we savored his creme brulee and then a chocolate covered pear for me, before meandering back to our hotel in a food coma.

On our last morning in Paris we had two main goals - return to the Louvre and see the three famous Humanities paintings we had somehow missed and then make it to the once in a lifetime Monet exhibit showing at the Grand Palais. During our three hour trip to the Louvre on our first day we managed to skip over the French painting room which housed Liberty Leading the People, the Women of Algiers, and Death of Sardanapalus, all three of which we had studied in Humanities and that we absolutely could not miss, being in Paris and all.

There! Now we can check it off the list!

The Monet exhibit we sought out began in September and continues until January 24th, so it was lucky that our trip fell during this time. It is the first major exhibition in France of Monet's work in over 30 years and there were over 200 paintings on loan from both French and foreign museums. We left the Louvre excited for the exhibit and thinking that it was just around the corner at the Palais Royal. Well, come to find out it actually was at the Grand Palais... there are too many palaces in Paris! We ended up practically sprinting the two miles or so along the Champs Élysées with our rolling suitcases in tow to get there in time to see the exhibit and still get to the airport on time. We then proceeded to wait in line for about an hour and a half, shivering and blowing on each others hands to keep our fingers from freezing off. But we were bound and determined, and refused to leave the line even when others started bailing out. It was most definitely worth the wait, we were able to see paintings beginning with his early landscapes in Normandy and ending with the famous water lilies.

Waiting in line. Chilly, chilly, chilly.

After seeing the Monet exhibit, we booked it to the airport and both made it home without any problems. Overall we had a wonderful trip and it is really just now hitting me that I have now been to Paris. It really hit me when I woke up this morning and drank my cup of instant coffee instead of savoring a café au lait or café mocha accompanied by a heaping mound of whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top. Oh well... I will be in Vienna in exactly one month to visit Patrick so there are most definitely more outstanding coffee creations in the near future.

For now, I am back to a reality minus crepes and croissants and with plenty of reading, papers, and presentations to keep me sufficiently occupied. It will be nice to slow down for a little while before embarking on another round of adventures beginning the first weekend of November. For now, study, study, study and just enjoy Edinburgh! I love how it really does feel like coming home whenever I get back from a trip. Flying in and looking down on the city last night made me realize that I actually had missed it while I was gone for just a few days. And it even rained in honor of my homecoming!! Shocker. Welcome back to Scotland :)