The French
Jan. 12th, 2004 07:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrFor starters, and to be fair, we didn't start out for Paris in the absolute best of moods. I won't go into why, it's really on relevant to the people that were present. On top of that, the Tool that bought our tickets bought them for eight am - which normally would be tolerable except that we had just gotten back from Scotland and my sister ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rykaineand I had gone two days w/out any real sleep. Gomes amasugiru wasn't much better off.
The eurostar was really nice, probably the nicest train ride I'd had since getting there. The funny part (to me anyway) is that you barely spend any time in the tunnel itself. Twenty minutes under the water, the rest of the two hour (three?) ride is just rather dreary looking landscape.
Now, I don't speak French. I took three years of it in highschool, my sister took four, then I started Japanese and she's living in Russia right now. But we wanted to at least try. But whenever we tried, nearly all of them just kind of glared at us and then started speaking english. I think of the several I spoke to, only the taxi man and the guy at the convience store were actually nice.
Most of the fun was spoiled, I have to say, by the excessive crowds. I had no idea that many people would be skulking around Paris in the dead of winter. Don't EVER go there in the summer, you'd probably get run over or something.
Speaking of running over, the French (Parisians anyway) have no fucking clue what traffic laws are. I swear the pedestrian lights - hell all traffic lights - are just for decoration. Seriously, I can't even recall how many times I or one of my party was nearly flattened by an idiot frog pretending he knew how to drive.
We did have fun, don't let my bitching convince you otherwise. Versailles was cool, if crowded. We only did "Section A" b/c we didn't feel like handing over 20 Euros to every section of the Palace. If you ever go, I highly reccomend A - it has the coolest stuff. Especially the Hall of Mirrors. Also in that section is...I forget it's name, but it's a long gallery of war paintings. My sister and I got a picture of one (well, a section of it) that definitely had two (very male) soldiers kissing. That rather surprised us - Gomes maintains they're father & son, but I think there's room to debate they might be something else...that's my slash moment of the trip.
What did we do next? Oh yeah - the Champs Elysees (which I can't spell correctly right now) and the L'Arc de Triumphe (this language is a pain at 7:30 am). Very, very cool - but again that whole traffic thing. I'm glad they at least let you go under the damned street to actually get to the Arc. Half of it was covered in scaffolding, but the other half was still cool.
Sunday was the coolest (maybe second coolest, b/c I really liked Tuesday despite the suck factor). We did Le Louvre, and it was worth every moment. I think my sister and I might have rushed Gomes a bit, though we really didn't try or even want to, through the Egyptian stuff. My sister and I were mostly there for the paintings (followed by sculptures) but Gomes is a bit more varied in her (non)artist tastes. It was rather funny when we got to the mummies, I had no idea my sister disliked them so much...we also saw a couple of really Asian looking pieces in the Egyptian exhibit - apparently they were consorting w/China or something. But that just be Gomes and I trying to sound scholarly and intelligent.
But oh the paintings...they were gorgeous. The only thing that disappoints me is that I couldn't get prints of the ones I liked b/c they only sell prints for the ten most famous/popular ones. I was really disappointed by that - the gallery in DC sells prints of damn near every painting in their displayed collection. Of the paintings I am hard pressed to pick a favorite. I didn't know until that visist that I seem to have a thing for Napoleon - I think I must've gone "Oh, I like that one" every time I saw a picture of him. Only then did we look and see it was him again. Going to Versailles and the Louvre, I got to see both copies of the Coronation. My sister damn near died when she saw her favorite David painting ever, The Oath of the HoratiiShe literally ran down the damned hallway when she spotted it. I'll have to get back on my fav painting.
My fav sculpture is the Winged Victory I guess I am rather predictable - but I've loved this sculpture for years, it made me happier than I can describe to finally see it.
This is going on way too long. The last thing that really, really made me happy was our last day there. Actually, most of that day SUCKED. The large chunk was my fault - these guys wanted to draw our pictures, fine okay - stupid but I figured harmless. Except they tried to demand 50 Euros for it and turned ugly when we wouldn't give it to them. Then the Eiffel Tower wound up being...not that interesting really. That sounds terrible, but we actually just wound up going for a walk.
Next was Sacre Coeur, better known as Stairs O'Death. We opted not to inside, but the view from there is I think the best in Paris. And stuff on Monmartre is surprisingly cheap.
But oh, the last thing we did - at Invalides, in the war museum there. *smiles stupidly* Napoleons's tomb - that kicked so much ass I think I may have to rank it above the Louvre. I can't help it - it was amazing. The man is buried in like six coffins, surrounded by angels, each representing a different victory. Not to mention the dome and rest of the building. All that for just one man - it sounds morbid to say "I stood in the same room as Napoleon's corpse" but it really meant a lot to me. He kicked ass, and my sister and I agree that him and David are the only two good people to come out of France.
We were glad to get back to English speaking territory. Two days later we went home. But that's an adventure to be told another day.
rykaineand I had gone two days w/out any real sleep. Gomes amasugiru wasn't much better off.The eurostar was really nice, probably the nicest train ride I'd had since getting there. The funny part (to me anyway) is that you barely spend any time in the tunnel itself. Twenty minutes under the water, the rest of the two hour (three?) ride is just rather dreary looking landscape.
Now, I don't speak French. I took three years of it in highschool, my sister took four, then I started Japanese and she's living in Russia right now. But we wanted to at least try. But whenever we tried, nearly all of them just kind of glared at us and then started speaking english. I think of the several I spoke to, only the taxi man and the guy at the convience store were actually nice.
Most of the fun was spoiled, I have to say, by the excessive crowds. I had no idea that many people would be skulking around Paris in the dead of winter. Don't EVER go there in the summer, you'd probably get run over or something.
Speaking of running over, the French (Parisians anyway) have no fucking clue what traffic laws are. I swear the pedestrian lights - hell all traffic lights - are just for decoration. Seriously, I can't even recall how many times I or one of my party was nearly flattened by an idiot frog pretending he knew how to drive.
We did have fun, don't let my bitching convince you otherwise. Versailles was cool, if crowded. We only did "Section A" b/c we didn't feel like handing over 20 Euros to every section of the Palace. If you ever go, I highly reccomend A - it has the coolest stuff. Especially the Hall of Mirrors. Also in that section is...I forget it's name, but it's a long gallery of war paintings. My sister and I got a picture of one (well, a section of it) that definitely had two (very male) soldiers kissing. That rather surprised us - Gomes maintains they're father & son, but I think there's room to debate they might be something else...that's my slash moment of the trip.
What did we do next? Oh yeah - the Champs Elysees (which I can't spell correctly right now) and the L'Arc de Triumphe (this language is a pain at 7:30 am). Very, very cool - but again that whole traffic thing. I'm glad they at least let you go under the damned street to actually get to the Arc. Half of it was covered in scaffolding, but the other half was still cool.
Sunday was the coolest (maybe second coolest, b/c I really liked Tuesday despite the suck factor). We did Le Louvre, and it was worth every moment. I think my sister and I might have rushed Gomes a bit, though we really didn't try or even want to, through the Egyptian stuff. My sister and I were mostly there for the paintings (followed by sculptures) but Gomes is a bit more varied in her (non)artist tastes. It was rather funny when we got to the mummies, I had no idea my sister disliked them so much...we also saw a couple of really Asian looking pieces in the Egyptian exhibit - apparently they were consorting w/China or something. But that just be Gomes and I trying to sound scholarly and intelligent.
But oh the paintings...they were gorgeous. The only thing that disappoints me is that I couldn't get prints of the ones I liked b/c they only sell prints for the ten most famous/popular ones. I was really disappointed by that - the gallery in DC sells prints of damn near every painting in their displayed collection. Of the paintings I am hard pressed to pick a favorite. I didn't know until that visist that I seem to have a thing for Napoleon - I think I must've gone "Oh, I like that one" every time I saw a picture of him. Only then did we look and see it was him again. Going to Versailles and the Louvre, I got to see both copies of the Coronation. My sister damn near died when she saw her favorite David painting ever, The Oath of the HoratiiShe literally ran down the damned hallway when she spotted it. I'll have to get back on my fav painting.
My fav sculpture is the Winged Victory I guess I am rather predictable - but I've loved this sculpture for years, it made me happier than I can describe to finally see it.
This is going on way too long. The last thing that really, really made me happy was our last day there. Actually, most of that day SUCKED. The large chunk was my fault - these guys wanted to draw our pictures, fine okay - stupid but I figured harmless. Except they tried to demand 50 Euros for it and turned ugly when we wouldn't give it to them. Then the Eiffel Tower wound up being...not that interesting really. That sounds terrible, but we actually just wound up going for a walk.
Next was Sacre Coeur, better known as Stairs O'Death. We opted not to inside, but the view from there is I think the best in Paris. And stuff on Monmartre is surprisingly cheap.
But oh, the last thing we did - at Invalides, in the war museum there. *smiles stupidly* Napoleons's tomb - that kicked so much ass I think I may have to rank it above the Louvre. I can't help it - it was amazing. The man is buried in like six coffins, surrounded by angels, each representing a different victory. Not to mention the dome and rest of the building. All that for just one man - it sounds morbid to say "I stood in the same room as Napoleon's corpse" but it really meant a lot to me. He kicked ass, and my sister and I agree that him and David are the only two good people to come out of France.
We were glad to get back to English speaking territory. Two days later we went home. But that's an adventure to be told another day.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-12 01:57 pm (UTC)