Hi everybody,
Now that I'm back from my last weekend trip I need to catch up on some blogging. Two weekends ago was our Paris trip and when we scheduled it we found out that it was Bastille Day on that Saturday! It's basically their day of Independence celebrated on the day the people stormed the Bastille prison back at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. So when we got into town and got settled in our hostel on that Saturday morning, we decided to partake in as many events as we could. Number one, the Louvre had free admission all day so we couldn't pass that up. We walked through as much of the museum as we could manage in the four hours or so that we were inside and saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and ancient egyptian artifacts. We had most of it explained to us by the audio guide for the museum which turned out to be a Nintendo 3DS of all things (I got a good laugh out of that one). The Louvre is a massive three story museum with a couple of sub basements for special exhibits and the entire building covers a massive plaza in the center of Paris. There are enough works of art to keep anyone busy for several days or even a week depending on how often you stop to examine different art works. By the end of the day I had seen some of the famed paintings from school art books, including The Oath of the Horatii and Liberty Leading the People. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see the Mona Lisa because they closed that section of the exhibit right as I walked up to it around closing time, but overall the Louvre is a must see if you enjoy almost any kind of art.
Later that evening we had to deal with some rather crappy service at a restaurant that resulted in us leaving after two ridiculously overpriced beers. This ended up being a small theme in our trip which made us realize why Paris is NOT our favorite city. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is really expensive, and a lot of the service was unfriendly, or just plain rude. It may have been simply because we were just another two American tourists, but whatever the reason I didn't appreciate it at all.
On a sweeter note, Saturday night's main attraction was the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We showed up about an hour early to find seats, only to discover the place was already packed with what seemed like well over 100,000 people if not more. When the sun finally dipped down around 11pm they started the awesome show of fireworks behind and around the Eiffel Tower, a giant 20 ft. diameter disco ball suspended between the two levels of the tower, and shimmering lights all over the tower's metal skeleton. The funniest part of all of it was that the music choice was almost all American 80's pop music (I guess it hasn't died just yet).
Sunday was our day of walking around the city. We made it up the walking section of the Eiffel Tower (They let you go 2/3 of the way up and then ask for more money to take the elevator to the top... No thank you) and ironically managed to find a cheaper cup of coffee at the restaurant up there than we had anywhere in the park surrounding the tower. We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and the shopping strip leading away from it (which happened to include several concept car stores which Kris and I couldn't pass up). Next we visited the Cathedral Notre Dame which was an astounding view from the outside but we didn't make it in the building because it was close to closing and the line outside was over an hour long. We then grabbed some beers and a cheap dinner at an Irish Pub and a sandwich place nearby, respectively. Seeing as everything is really expensive in Paris we just decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel after that.
Monday was our last half day in Paris and we spent it walking around the Lafayette Galleries and visiting the Opera house, and the Church of the Madeliene, followed by a trip to a carnival set up on the park of the Louvre museum. We rode the massive and ridiculously fast centrifuge ride that swings you around in a giant circle (with around 5.5g's) and spins your seat upside down at the same time. That was a really fun time and Kris managed to get a short video of it to explain it better. (I'll get him to post it to Youtube later so I can share it) Then we spent the rest of the day lounging in a couple of chairs by the fountains in the Louvre park since, you know, that was FREE.
To sum it up, Paris is fun but really expensive and the people have a tendency to not like tourists at all so it's not my favorite city I've been to.
Brian
