I Drew the Eiffel Tower upon Her Dress

It looks as though my travels are going to be ending soon. Today was the last full day I'll be in Europe, and I tried to make the most of it here in Paris. Hopfully I did everything I could, I certainly wore myself out. I still have some packing to do tonight and I want to get up early to get to De Gaulle as early as possible but I'd like to update this while it's still fresh in my mind so... looks like I'll lose out on some sleep. I need to try and sleep on the plane anyway I think.

I took 139 photos. One hundred and thirty-nine. That's all in one day! I think that's definitely the most pictures I've ever taken in my life. Now, given, some of these were shots I took multiple times that I'll only keep the best one of, but still! My plan of attack was simple. No shops would be open, no time for museums, so I would concentrate my attack on seeing landmarks and areas of town. Pretty sure I hit all the big ones, but let's see, where to start.

I woke up a little after 6am and got ready. My breakfast was the most delicious croissant I've ever tasted, from the patisserie across from the Metro. I got a daypass for the Metro and I certainly got my money's worth. Now I've been warned about pickpockets in Paris and in the Metro specifically, but maybe Sunday is their day off? I certainly didn't have a problem, and the Metro in Paris was the nicest one I've been to in my travels.

Right, so I took the subway to Place Charles de Gaulle, home of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most recognizable Parisian landmarks. It's one of the big three - l'Arc de Triomphe, le Louvre and of course, la Tour Eiffel. Oh and Notre Dame! I don't know, it's hard to rank them, but I did them all. So back to l'Arc de Triomphe at 7:30am, Sunday morning. Desolate. If Paris had tumbleweeds, they would have been there. But beautiful. Part of why I wanted to do it was to see Paris' streets empty. One of my favorite photographers, Eugene Atget, who photographed Paris' streets and buildings almost exclusively, always awoke in the morning for this reason.

Following the Arc de Triomphe, my next goal was the Eiffel Tower. I figured if I went to the biggest tourist attractions first I'd get those out of the way before pickpockets woke up. There were still a fair number of people there at the Tour Eiffel, waiting in line to go up. I don't know how long it would have taken to wait but I kept thinking I'd need to conserve my day and not get too in depth with anything. I took some pictures, and put on a couple Eiffel-related songs ("Alec Eiffel" by the Pixies and "Burning Hearts" by My Favorite, from whence the subject for this entry came). I felt pretty inspired, I can tell you, being there, and as I made my way to the South pillar, I noticed that it had almost no line, and I saw on the sign that this was a line to ascend the steps yourself if you wanted. It wasn't even 4 Euros.

Well, I quickly decided to do it. The climb was steep and a lot of people had to stop and rest. I took a break on the first leg but I think that dance marathon the night before last did me well. There are two observation decks, and a lot of stairs between each one. I took probably 30 pictures at the Eiffel Tower alone, maybe more. It's totally different from any tower I've been on, except maybe the Eiffel Tower at King's World, which I can't remember too well anyway. Everything looks and feels like a factory. You still feel secure thanks to lots of metal fencing in between you and instant death by falling, but you can still see what it might look like to fall. The views are spectacular. My only qualm was that since it was so early in the morning it was so light in the sky that pictures were kind of hard to take well. The camera keeps either wanting things too dark or too light because the difference between the land and the sky is so great.

I took a short tour of the gardens around the tower and then plotted a course past the Paris Hilton towards the Metro. No, not that Paris Hilton. Since there wasn't much else on this side of the city, I considered going to the Corbusier Museum. Corbusier was if not the most famous modern photographer, second only to Frank Lloyd Wright, and a lot more influential in Europe. He was actually Swiss-born, but he did a lot of his best-known work here. Unfortunately for me the museum was closed anyway. Well, nothing ventured.

Next up was les Champs Elysees, the most famous street in Paris. I actually could have gone to l'Arc and taken the Champs Elysees from there, but I didn't know that I'd be going back down it this soon. So I hopped the Metro back over there and started walking. First I came to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, or the big and little palaces. They were both very impressive, so I snapped some pictures but had to move on. This will be a theme throughout the day if you're paying attention. Next was the Place de la Concord. There they were dissembling stands of benches that I believe were used during the Tour de France. There's an obelisk here with some writing on it. I don't understand French so well and there were no signs anywhere, so I had to go back on my four years of French for help. Not much came to mind. It was neat anyway.

Then came le Jardin des Tuileries, which was sunny and beautiful and relaxing. People were reclining in the shade on metal chairs. My hunger was starting to peek out but I felt completely at ease, so I decided just to follow form and lounge on a metal chair for a little while. I read a chapter in my book, and got up completely refreshed. There was this moment when I put some music on and one of the songs from that French CD I bought in Geneva came on. It's a kitschy '60s number but it's kind of serene and happy-go-lucky. You know, the kind of song you just know will have a flute solo about a minute into the song. At that point in time everything in the world felt perfect, like a finished jigsaw puzzle. I was totally at ease, in no rush, haing a good time. It occurred to me that there are a lot of niceties about travelling alone, just because you do whatever on Earth you feel like doing.

Well, I got to the Louvre after my little walk, and it, like just about everything, was gorgeous. Now, I comitted some kind of tourist sin by touring the grounds of the Louvre but not going in. Yeah I know. The thing is I knew it would take me all day in there and I needed all day for other things. I did vow to come back though, and spend more than a day so I could do things like go to the Louvre.

I crossed the Seine and I was, according to signs, now on the famed Rive Gauche, the Left Bank. To be honest I don't know where that starts and stops, but the section I was in was pretty stuff. Lots of antique shops and realtors, nothing fancy and artsy. I was in Saint Germain and near le Quartier Latin. I should have done more research but I remembered hearing about le Quartier Latin and it looked like it would be East Village-y, so that had been one of my goals.

I don't know where one neighborhood begins and the other ends, but I started seeing cafes so I decided it was time to eat. I settled on Leon, a Belgian restaurant, in fact I think a chain around here. Their specialty is mussels, and at first that's what I was going to get. Mussels and some gaufres (aka waffles). But as I looked over the descriptions I decided instead to get Encroite (sp?), which is a cut of steak with, I think, Bearnais sauce on the side. I wasn't so keen on the sauce but the steak was awesome. I was completely full and content and ready to make the most of the rest of the day.

As I delved deeper into the Quartier Latin, I started to see signs of life in the shops. Yes, although just about everywhere closes on Sundays, some shops open for a few hours after lunch and before dinner. I managed to hit three used CD/vinyl places that were right in a row. Unfortunately I didn't find much of excitement. I was feeling pretty beat though, so I decided to go back to the hotel for a bit and take a little rest since I'd been up so long already. On the way over I found a couple more shops open and got a couple more things, but that was pretty much it for shopping in Paris.

After my break at the hotel it was around 5pm. I wanted to do two more things before anything else, go to the Ile de la Cite and Notre-Dame, and see the Centre Pompidou. While at the hotel I checked and noted the Centre was actually open until late that evening. Imagine my surprise! I went to the Ile de la Cite, which I think is a really well-preserved area on this island in the middle of the Seine. Unfortunately there was no way to find out since it's walled in. They probably open it to the public, but not on Sunday nights. Notre-Dame is nearby though, so of course I had to check it out. The bells were tolling as I approached and it made for a very fitting introduction to the structure. I've gotten a bit numb to all these cathedrals but this one still managed to impress me.

So now I had only the Centre Pompidou, which is a crazy structure housing Paris' modern art museum. Outside it kind of looks like a weird water processing plant. I got a ticket, which wasn't too bad, and started checking out the exhibits. There was an exhibition on a Modernist French architect which was so-so, an exhibit on modern African art which was mixed, and the permanent exhibition. Their collection is impressive. Name a modern artist and they had a piece represented. Picasso, Dali, Magritte, Warhol, and on and on. Everyone but the Impressionists pretty much. Still, the disappoining bit is that none of the pieces by anyone well-known impressed me much. They are all minor works and me-too purchases by the museum with a couple exceptions. One being Dali's Guillame Tell, which I was able to appreciate very much, and the other being Marcel Duchamp's famous Pissoir. Now, not to knock that artwork as a historical achievement, but it looks about the same in pictures as it does in person. Some of the works by lesser-known architects were very good, but mostly I didn't like the idea behind the exhibition, which was to try and tie in groups of artists doing vaguely similar things. Like a room of artists who had a female nude in their piece. Sorry it just didn't cut it for me. If you take them out of historical context you've got to have a pretty good excuse to tie them together in my mind.

The exhibition I'd most wanted to see, called D-Day: Today's Design (well that in French), turned out to be in a completely different part of the museum, and by the time I'd gotten to it you could no longer enter the exhibit. So I was a little bummed about that, and hungry by now. I tried finding a restaurant with French cuisine but all I could seem to find were ethnic restaurants and bars in which the only thing that was French was a Croque Monsieur, or toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Ok, I can make that at home, Paris! Dejected, I plotted out a course to the metro and tried in vain to find something on the way over, away from the touristy les Halles, the area I'd been in. Nada. So I just got some fast food and came home. Well, I was tired, and it sounded just as authentic as eating Italian in Paris.

Ok, to recap. I loved Paris. Everyone was super-nice to me here. I think the people who find the French rude don't try to speak any French to them. Think about it, how would you feel if someone came up to you at your job and started speaking in Chinese or Spanish or, imagine, French! You'd be pissed they didn't at least attempt to use the language of the country they were standing in. Plus the French have an inferiority complex being so close to England.

Honestly though, I found Paris to be the most like America of anywhere I'd been. I can see why the French are so determined to keep their culture and language intact when they are bombarded with everything American except apple pie. Levi's jeans, McDonald's (where they do serve a Royal avec Cheese), the Fantastic Four (les Quatre Fantastiques), American music (I heard "Fade to Grey" in a record store again today. They're English but still, it's close), you name it, they have it. But I think the cool thing about the French is they recontexturalize everything American they adopt.

Some people say the French hate us but they're wrong. They totally love us! They adore Jerry Lee Lewis and American funk and soul. They just like to pick and choose what they like about us, and one of the things they hate is our current foreign policy, which I would have to agree with them on anyway. They also try their damnedest to adopt American things as part of a spectrum of different foreign influences. Italian, Brazillian, African, Turkish. All these things have their place here too. They don't seem to see why we should get some special treatment.

Well, I was hoping to upload pictures tonight too but it's already almost 1am and I need to finish re-packing to make my small bag heavier and my big bag lighter so that I don't exceed any weight limits. I'll try and post an update from an airport somewhere in the world tomorrow, and I'll definitely be having something to say once I'm back about the whole experience.