Tour Eiffel

On Sunday (2nd of November) we headed for the Catacombs once more and once more we gave up! The lines were exceptionally long and since there can only be 200 people inside at any given time and there were already 175 in there at that point, we estimated that it would take at least a couple of hours of waiting – something we did not desire at all.

We decided to go to the Eiffel tower instead and walked up to the second floor from where you have to take the elevator to the third, which of course we did. However, I like the second floor more than the third because the third always seems so crowded due to its small size. Of course it’s fascinating being so high up and all, but I like to have some space around me!

We ended up going home already in the middle of the afternoon because I wanted to get a little downtime to get some energy for going back to work the next day. We watched the last episodes of the first season of Dirt on dvd and cooked at home. So the last day of our wonderful holiday was spent very leisurely.

Sartre & Le Train Bleu

On Saturday (1st of November) we wanted to go and visit the Catacombs however they were closed (I had suspected this since it was a national holiday) but we decided to give it a shot anyway. It rained pretty much cats and dogs, however we decided to go to Cemetiere Montparnasse, which is very close. So we sort of got our sightseeing in the land of the dead anyway. How is that for weird? Well actually I don’t think that’s weird at all. At home we often cross the cemetery when we are out walking and in my mind I think it must be nice for the people buried there to hear actual living people speaking. I know it’s sort of stupid, but from an emotional point of view I find it comforting. From a realistic point of view I find it very comforting that when you’re dead you’re not the one who is sorry about it. You’re just gone and that’s it.

We found Sartres grave which was our goal, even though none of us are great fans of Sarte. To me he was one of these pretend-to-be-philosophers. Or maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand him. You decide what you think ;-) But I’ll prefer Descartes or Rousseau anytime when speaking of French philosophers.

We got take away food from a great eco bakery at the end of Rue Mouffetard and then headed over to the Museum of Natural History because we wanted to see the Musee d’Homme which has Descartes brain on display. However when we got there there was a huge line, since it was autumn holiday in France during that week, and a warning posted outside that there could be lines after the ticket office to get into the exhibition as well so we gave up on it and we’ll go another time. Actually we didn’t really do anymore during the day as it was raining so heavily, we just walked through the Jardin des Plantes and took the metro back and relaxed for a couple of hours before dressing up for dinner.

And dinner was just awesome. We had reservations for 8 o’clock at Le Train Bleu which is just the most beautiful restaurant I’ve ever dined in and the most expensive I think! But well worth it. Le Train Bleu is a historical monument. It opened in 1901 and was renamed Le Train Bleu in 1963 after the legendary train service that brought the Parisian upper class to the Riviera in summer. It has had guests such as Coco Chanel, Jean Cocteau, Dali, Brigitte Bardot and last but not least the lovely Jean Gabin (whom I just adore in La Grande Illusion from 1937). We ordered a great salad for entré, Jacob ordered the beef fillet and I ordered the grilled vegetables, both dishes were outstanding. For dessert I tried the rhum baba, which was very “rhummy” meaning that I think I would have gotten drunk had I eaten all of it (it was huge and they poored a lot of rum on it). Jacob got the profiteroles, which I think are a bit wrong when served with ice cream in them but apart from that I love profiteroles very much! All in all one more very lovely evening ending, with the short walk back in the crisp cold Parisian November night.

Montmartre & Moulin Rouge

PICTURE: The "I Love You-Wall" just behind Place des Abesses. A great place for kissing! Notice the Danish: Jeg elsker dig just above the German: Ich liebe Dich.

On Friday (31st of October) we headed for Montmartre and started out scouting the souvenir shops on the street going towards the hill from the Anvers metro station. Lots of kitsch yes, but I did find a couple of items I liked. Just didn’t want to buy them right there and then and have to drag them along all day. That’s the good thing about living here – I can return when it’s more convenient.

We took nice pictures of the carrousel beneath the stairs up to Sacre Cæur and lots more on our way up. We went inside the church, which is really one of the most beautiful churches ever. Afterwards we walked a bit in the area near the church were I found my new green hat in a nice little shop. It’s a bit big but at ten euros and in freezing weather I decided it would be a good deal anyway.

After that we did the obligatory stroll through the Place du Tertre, which looses some of its charm in the cold, but the advantage is that there is more space to actually look at the paintings and the artists who are drawing pictures of people. We then went down to the Rue Lepic and saw the Café les Deux Moulins were Amelie works in the Fabolous Life of Amelie Poulain. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is a movie you absolutely have to see. It’s a very intelligent and beautiful love story, modern but still with some of the adventure and beauty which is otherwise only seen in old movies.

The adventure we had next on our list was to go to Antoine et Lili in Rue des Martyrs to find a very special dress for an important birthday party. Browsing through the clothing racks in this store will improve your mood no matter what. Their clothing is very special and a lot of it comes in very intense colours. I think I gathered five different pieces and as soon as I had tried the first one on the sales assistant said that it wouldn’t work. Which I complely agreed with. It made me look like a hippopotamus. There was actually something really reassuring about his behaviour – I’m absolutely sure that he wouldn’t have let my buy a dress which didn’t look great on me. The second dress I tried on was great, but not fancy enough for the birthday party. I might go back another day to buy it but before I even entered the store I had said to myself that I would only be allowed to buy one item and one item only as their clothes are quite pricey.

The third dress was the dress! A lovely green Asian-inspired creation made of dark green heavy silk. There was no doubt about it. This was going to be my dress for the party. I just loved the way the sales assistant spoke to me as if I were actually a trendy person, I who usually just throw something on and then that’s just it! He sure knew how to make the customer feel good and make her return, which I absolutely will. They have so many great items there. And I loved that he gave suggestions for various ways to style the dress without trying to sell me more stuff. After buying the dress I was so happy that I made Jacob take some snapshots of me being genuinely happy! After that we visited a shop in the Rue des Trois Freres were I have bought a nice day dress on another occasion but this time there was absolutely nothing interesting. Which I guess was lucky for my wallet!

Now it was time to go to the lovely maison de thé in Rue des Abesses, where I have gotten nice crêpes earlier. This time I decided to have crêpes with honey and lemon. This was a great combination. The room is so lovely decorated and it’s just so nice to make a stop there. Before the visit we were actually panicking a bit about what to buy Jacobs mom, for whom the grand birthday party was to be. And things turned out to be as they always are. Once we had given up for the day and retired to the tea house we found a lovely shop just next door and went in just to look, not actually thinking about the present at all and then I found a nice red leather bag which would just be perfect for her. She has a really cool style, effortlesly stylish and trendy despite her age and even though this is a “young” shop I just knew she would like it. We then decided to also buy her the Moulin Rouge perfume and returned to their shop, which we had visited earlier in the day, and tested it. It’s great. I want it for myself as well!

Then it was time to go back home and change into fancier clothing. We returned to Montmartre for our 20 o’clock reservations at Chez Svetlana, which I just love and finished our meal just in time to go for a walk in the area before the grand event of the evening: the Moulin Rouge show. Walking in the Boulevard Clichy on a Friday night really is a bit different from walking on most streets. Every 25 meters someone offers you to go inside to see a live show. And you hear all over “ladies free, ladies free.” Well not this time for us anyway! Also there are a lot of sex shop with many items on display in their windows.

At 22.30 we went to stand in line outside the theater as the show began at 23.00. Standing in line I noticed this American couple of whom I thought “she’s only with him because he has a lot of money,” and “he is only with her because she is young and has had breast implants” and so forth. As it happened we were placed at the same table as them and got to talk with them before the show and I just loved the fact that they disproved all my prejudices about them. They were so lovely people both of them and really interesting to talk to. I just love it when that happens because the next time your thoughts about another person is based on prejudice you’ll say to yourself, it might not really be the way things seem.

The show was awesome and I even liked the champagne which came along with it – and I only like it when it’s very sweet. The girls were very sexy. All the guys were of course gays and I can say that with some certainty as I’m actually one of these people who realise that not all dancers are gay. My brother used to be a dancer and he is very straight! One of the male dancers however was a bit hot but the problem is that the guys wear too much clothing. That isn’t fair! ;-) Apart from the dance acts there were also acrobats, who were absolutely amazing, and a magician and lots of other acts. The show didn’t end until 1.30 and we hurried to the metro station as the metro ends at 2 o’clock. We returned home very happy about this day and we’re happy that we were lucky enough to get to see the show, as my mom and dad had given us the tickets as an early Christmas present as they’re so expensive. But they’re so worth it!

Château Versailles

On Thursday (30th of October) we went to the Château Versailles. It’s a little less than an hours trainride from Paris to Versailles, however we had to change trains because the traffic was irregular (as always!). When you arrive to Versailles it takes less than ten minutes to walk to the castle. I was actually a bit surprised that it is so near the rest of the city. We waited in line for more than an hour to buy tickets and it was freezing, so I would certainly recommend buying tickets in advance. For instance at the FNAC.

We did however finally make it to the front of the line and decided to have the castle tickets sans Marie Antoinettes estate, which proved to be the right decision because the weather was really against us in the afternoon! The castle is very impressive, but we had both thought that there would be a lot more to see. Maybe I will go back another time to do the 1½ hour guided tour that takes you into rooms that are otherwise not open to the public. It was really interesting to walk around these old rooms and imagine the lives of the people who lived here. I’ve been thinking a lot about a certain concept lately. Actually I think it’s something my brother said that started this line of thinking. He had read Homer’s Odyssey and he was surprised that the story – despite its age – was so sophisticated and portrayed reality with just as much accuracy and insight that we write today. That has made me think about the real people, who only live on in our minds as historical characters in books. They were real people too and had real emotions that were probably not so different from what the rest of us feel, if any different at all. Of course they were surrounded by different circumstances, but I don’t think that the fear Marie Antoinette must have felt is any different than the fear people would experience today if their lives and existence were threathened. It makes for a more intense exploration of the castle, when you keep that in mind. Especially visiting the beedroom from where she fled was a very special experience.

My interest in Marie Antoinette, which has always been there in some way, was sparked further by the book I got from my cousin Michael for Christmas a couple of years ago (Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser). It is very insightful, well written and it’s supposed to be well researched as well. I spend a good part of the end of June 2007 reading this book at my lovely terrace after exams were finally over and I can tell you it was a real treat! Also the film directed by Sophia Coppola is lovely, even more because the role of Marie Antoinette is played by Kirsten Dunst whom I just love.

The only downside to visiting the castle (except for the lines if you haven’t bought a ticket in advance) is that it’s very crowded, so its hard to take great photos inside. But at least you’re actually allowed to do photos and that’s just great! Another thing which is worth paying attention to is that if you exit the castle and the courtyard you cannot re-enter. We exited after visiting the castle to go and have lunch at the café and then we couldn’t re-enter to visit the souvenir shop. We managed however to get into the bookshop from where a friendly member of the staff led is into the castle again. The souvenir shop wasn’t that impressive however, and I’d say that you get more out of spending money in the bookshop, which was really nice and had Antonia Frasers book in stock as well!

Then it was time to visit the grand garden, however as I mentioned earlier the weather turned on us. From being simply very cold to being very cold and very rainy. So our visit to the garden was limited to a short 45 minute walk and the pictures we took there (including the one above) were taken while we alternated holding the umbrella over each others head!

Coming back to Paris we went back to the appartment and went online to search for an interesting place to have dinner. We found the Curieux Spaghetti Bar but once we found it we decided against it because the music was too loud. I’m sure we will go another time because the menu and the interior design is quite interesting, however after freezing most of the day and ending up being quite tired it was just not the evening for a “we’re-eating-in-a-trendy-disco” dinner. Another time. We ended up heading back to our new favorite Le Diable des Lombards and I ate exactly the same wonderful club sandwich once again.

Louvre, Tuilleries, Concorde & Champs Elysees

On this day (Wednesday 29th October) it was very cold in the morning and we did some misty shots of us in front of the Pyramid at the Louvre and, not least, in front of the Chevaux Marly which along with Napoleons appartment (in the picture above) is my favorite places in the Louvre. Besides the Marly horses and Napoleons appartment we also visited the section on Mesopotamic art, a bit of the section on Egypt and large format french paintings and of course Mona Lisa.

I have never experienced the Louvre as crowded at it was this day, but of course it makes a difference that this week was also a school holiday here in France. After the visit we strolled through the Tuilleries and bought sandwiches which we could actually sit outside eating because as the day went by the sun did it’s best to warm up Paris. After that we walked to the Place de Concorde and up the Champs Elysees where we browsed through the Adidas and Nike shops.

Then we went home to change into nicer clothes and left again headed for Champs Elysees for the opening of an exhibition in the Maison du Danemark called Marinus et Marianne. It was satirical pictures made by the arist Marinus for the Magazine Marianne until spring 1940. He manipulated photographies and showed Hitler in very compromising situations, for instance as a ballet dancer. He also made Hitler sit down with Roosevelt to play cards.

After that we went to the area around Les Halles and found Le Diable des Lombards which has the best hot club sandwich I’ve ever had. Okay, maybe second best, I don’t know, there is tough competition from the one at Froggys in Odense, Denmark, but the two are worlds apart and sans comparaison. I recommend them both! Le Diable was decorated for Haloween – it is an American inspired restaurant after all!

Forum des Halles, Printemps, Galleries Lafayette & a funny Cartoon Shop

This day (Tuesday 28th October) was all about shopping, or at least “lêche vitrine” as Printemps and Galleries Lafayette mainly carry extremely expensive items such as Valentino dresses that cost about 4000 Euro and upwards. The day however started with browsing the Les Halles district and watching the odd Pompidou center from the outside. I’ve been inside before and for me the main attraction was the outside escalators. At least on that day but they have lots of temporary exhibitions that changes all the time. So I might give it a try another day again, but I guess a lot of it is just too modern and modern in a way I don’t really like.

Jacob insisted on visiting Forum des Halles which I find a bit boring but of course we went to see it anyway. I think some of the architectural ideas are good but in my opinion they end up not being so well executed as they should have been. Despite their great efforts at getting natural light several floors down it still seems dull and dark inside. The contrast to Printemps and Galleries Lafayette which we visited afterwards is very stark. The two department stores are very grand indeed and it is interesting to browse the clothes there and get some new great ideas for styling. However at some point I got enough of looking at high fashion that I cannot afford to buy anyway and I just wanted to get out!

On the way back we passed by the Opera Garnier which is a very beatiful building and then we took the metro to one of our favorite crêpe makers near Place St. Michel. We walked back home and found a funny store on the way which sold cartoon figures, especially lots of Tintin stuff which Jacob was very excited about!

Rousseau, Foucaults Pendulum and Shakespeare & Co.

On Monday (27th of October) we went to see the Saint-Sulpice where Silas murders the nun in the Da Vinci Code. The Catholic Church however denied Ron Howard permission to shoot inside the church so they recreated the church as a computer-generated virtual set from pictures taken inside the church. I like this church very much. Some people find it to dark and depressing but I like the sweet melancholy of its darkness. Afterwards we went to the Jardin du Luxembourg where d’Artagnan duelled in Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. On the picture above is the beautiful Fontaine de Médicis.

From the garden we walked to the Pantheon and this time visited the inside and saw Foucaults pendulum. It was Léon Foucault who made the pendulum in 1851 as an experiment to show that the Earth rotates. It consists of a 28 kilo ball suspended on a 67 meter wire from the ceiling of the Pantheon. At that time it was already well known that the Earth rotates, however Foucaults pendulum was the first dynamic experiment to show it to the skeptics! After admiring the pendulum we climbed the stairs to visit the dome which reveals an incredible view of the city. Upon descending the many stairs we paid our respects at Rousseaus tomb and at other famous people’s tombs: Voltaires, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugos in the Crypt.

Then it was time for walking in the rain towards one of the main attractions in Paris: Shakespeare and Company, the lovely bookshop owned by George Whitman. I had saved this one for Jacobs visit and of course when you’re booklovers it’s quite romantic to visit a very special bookshop in the rainy afternoon. This visit left me feeling that I could be perfectly happy owning a bookshop like this and doing my own writing on the side. After the bookshopping we walked to Notre Dame which is so incredibly beautiful.

One more word about the bookstore: George Whitman opened the bookstore in 1951 and since then it is said that more than 50.000 people have slept there, as George invites writers to stay with him. All you have to do is work a couple of hours every day in the bookstore and read one book a day. I even read he makes crêpes with homemade syrup for his guests on Sundays. Sounds like an exciting way to spend some time in Paris!

The original Shakespeare and Co. which was situated near the Odeon Theatre was owned by Sylvia Beach who edited and published James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922. It was frequented by the “lost generation” which counted Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others. It was closed in 1941 because Beach denied selling her last copy of Ulysses’ Finnegans Wake to a Nazi officer.

Tigers, acrobats, horses and clowns!

Yes, we went to the circus on Sunday in the opening weekend of the Cirque d’Hiver, but before that we took the metro to La Muette and went for a nice Sunday promenade around Lac Inferiuer and in the Jardin Pre-Catalan in the Bois de Bologne. The circus however was the highlight of the day. It was simply magnificent.

They opened with their tiger act: two normal-coloured tigers and one giant white male tiger. The show was amazing and the tigers were extremely beautiful and it just made me cry because I get what it is about - working with animals – it’s about trust, respecting the animal and still being the one in power and it’s a beatiful thing. Even though I have only worked with horses and they are not dangerous per se, such as a tiger, it’s still pretty much the same thing really. And it made me cry because it’s such a terrible thing when your life evolves around one thing, such as working with horses, and you have to give it up to accomplish something else. I gave up my horses to travel abroad and even though I hate not having a horse now going to Switzerland was the best thing I have ever done in my life. Thank you very much to the lovely Schuler family who made it such an incredible experience. I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about our year together.

Back to the circus. Of course there were horses at the circus as well. A very beautiful white horse that was a bit stubborn. I don’t know if the rest of the audience noticed it that much but it did not want to do what she wanted it to. There were also six lovely ones in the same very rare colour and they did great however. Aside from the animal acts there were of course clowns and they were very good. I think it’s good for the soul to be able to have a child-like enthusiasm for clowns. Another thing very different from any circus I have ever seen was a group of rollerscate people, they were really good and their act was extremely nervewracking.

After the circus we walked back to the Place de Bastille and ate at Café Indiana, whose Chicken Curry has become one of my favorites.

Litterary Loop in the Latin Quarter

On Saturday we let ourselves be inspired by Lonely Planets walking tour suggestion in the Latin Quarter, with lots of detours of course. I have always had a biased relationship with guide books. On the one hand I totally love them because I love to dream about other places and on the other hand I loathe them because they remind me of tourism. Just the other day I read an article on souvenir-shopping which argued that there a two ways of shopping for items in another country. One is to buy the obvious tourist crap and the other way is not to. I pride myself with mainly buying items that are “Paris” or “Berlin” or “Barcelona” or whereever to me but don’t scream souvenirs. I don’t want to be a tourist because that’s not the way you really experience anything true or authentic. I guess that’s why I tend to stay longer abroad instead. I am more curious and I am not truly satisfied by the tourist experience. I want to be a traveller, not a tourist.

As you can see I have a biased relationsship to tourism and guide books, however I have improved my relation to the suggested walking trips in some of them and hence we set of to the Latin Quarter inspired by Lonely Planet. What I like about using the guide books this way is that you actually get some useful information on the places you pass by on your walk.

Now I know for example where Hemmingway lived from January 1922 to August 1923 with his wife, where he wrote “Farewell to Arms” and where he hung out. I also know where Sylvia Beach edited and published James Joyce’s Ulysses and later denied selling a copy to a Nazi officer in the original Shakespeare and Co bookstore which was then closed. We missed out on the hotel where Oscar Wilde died of meningitis but we will find that next time. After many hours and half of the walk in the book and a lot of detours we went window licking in Rue Mouffetard (window shopping in French is called leche vitrine and litterally means window licking, cute isn’t it?). Lots of lovely food and clothes shops and nice looking restaurants. Afterwards we went towards Place St. Michel and bought great crêpes on the way and walked home over Ile de la Cité and Ile St. Louis.

In the evening we went walking in the Marais and ate a great Italian Restaurant called Jardin du Marais. Afterwards we went to the Hôtel de Ville and recreated our own version of Robert Doisneau’s famous photograph “The Kiss” and I must say we succeeded pretty well but this blog is only a censured account of life in Paris so I’ll leave it out ;-) Afterwards we walked home along the other bank of the Seine and did some more censured pictures!

Dinner at Place Vosges

Friday my boyfriend Jacob arrived – a little later than planned because the traffic on the RER B from Charles de Gaulle was ”interrompe”- a word one doesn’t want to hear here. Usually it means that traffic goes on but becomes very delayed. However he finally did arrive and we went out to have dinner at Place Vosges. Lovely location but dreadful main dish and the experience was only saved because of the great company and the crêpes for dessert which were okay. But it is great being able to dine outdoors in the end of October, even though I feel bad about it because of the impact it must have on the environment to keep all these outdoor heaters going!

After dinner we toured the Marais and found a lovely sign outside a maison du thé: le thé des ecrivains – the writer’s tea. I like that name. And until I actually have time to write fiction again I have to hang on to the fact that I believe myself to be a writer, just one who is not working right now. Some people say that the definition of a writer is someone who writes, which I generally believe is true. For now however I have to be satisfied with the fact that I have actually completed an entire novel of 300 pages and that I feel that I go through life perceiving it in the way only a writer or another form of artist could.