Paris: Part Two

Paris was one of the best places I’ve ever been. Even though the weather was not good at all, it was cold and rainy; we still saw a lot of the city. By the end of the weekend I could basically navigate the metro with out a map and I felt totally comfortable. Our second day in Paris all of us took a day trip to Versailles. It’s insane there! We had to wait in such long lines but we got to explore the gardens first and then do the tour of the palace with the audio guides. I now understand why the French revolution happened because if the monarchy was living like that they definitely had it coming. The entire placed is entirely gilded in gold and it’s enormous. Just the gardens would probably take an hour to walk through. There is also the most wonderful art inside the palace. My obsession with ceiling painting is a lot worse after seeing this palace. It’s just so ornate and elaborate and I loved it so much. I also liked going there because I don’t really know a lot about French history and the French baroque style so it was nice to become more familiar with that area of art history. 

Roomies at Versailles!

After seeing the palace, all of us were pretty tired so we got on the train/metro to go back to the apartment and relax a little bit before going to the Eiffel tower that night. In Paris, I was amazed by how late the sun goes down. It doesn’t get dark until like 10 or 10:30 at night so we headed out to the Eiffel tower around 8 to take pictures and pop some champagne and also watch the light show. The Eiffel tower is unreal. It’s so much bigger than I imagined and I wanted to cry at the sight of it. None of us could actually believe our lives and that we were in Paris standing by the Eiffel tower. I have had these preconceived fantasies about Paris since I was a little girl and I can honestly say that it’s everything I wanted and more and I have to go back. Being by the Eiffel tower at night with the lights and good people was magical and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. 

On Sunday morning, some of my roommates wanted to go to the French open and try and scalp tickets for the finals between Nadal and Djokovic. I would have liked to do that just to say I had gone but I was starting to panic because I hadn’t seen any art museums yet and I was exhausted as well. My roommates aren’t huge on museums and I’m the type of person that could live in them so I decided to pass up the French open, sleep in and go to the Musee D’Orsay. I was in heaven between all the Monets, Van Goghs and Degas’. Last semester at Mary Washington I took a Post-Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism class asnd we spent a lot of time studying Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Seurat all of which I finally got to see. I spent a couple hours in there literally gawking at these paintings, some of which I had been studying for years and couldn’t believe I was actually seeing with my own eyes. Degas’ dancer figures are incredible and I was so happy to see so many Rodins as well. After the museum I met back with my roommates, who ended up going to the French open, at our apartment and we got food and just took it easy our last night in Paris. The weather was awful and I was so tired so I didn’t even feel bad staying in. We also had to wake up early to check out of our place and go to the Louvre. 

The Louvre was an interesting experience. It’s an understatement to say that the museum is huge. It’s hard to fathom how much art is in that museum. We were in there for a couple of hours and barely made a dent. They try to make the experience as easy for you as possible but as a technologically challenged human being I couldn’t use the Nintendo DS audio guide that you can get for very long, although it is awesome because it has a GPS and tells you right where you are going. The Louvre cannot be done in a day rather has to be done in a few days or months in order to be done right. I would consider myself an art lover, but even I was way to ADD to handle going to the Louvre. It’s also crowded and I’m definitely claustrophobic so overall I didn’t love the experience. But the art that I saw made up for it. It was amazing to see things like the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People, and The Raft of the Medusa among countless other extremely famous works of art. I feel way more legitimate as someone who studies art now that I’ve been to the Louvre just because so much is there. After the Louvre, the roommates and me got lost trying to find this crepe place that Sarah’s dad recommended and ended up walking a lot of the city and then finally ending up shopping at the Champs-Elysees. The most ridiculous part of this experience was seeing the ginormous Abercrombie and Fitch store that is there. It was legit like a small palace and you could smell it from down the street. It was complete with models and people dancing to techno music. My roommates and I could not stop laughing at how strange it was. Walking the Champs Elysees was a nice way to spend my last few hours in Paris and at least I can say that I’ve been there even though I didn’t buy anything and the shopping area didn’t impress me that much. After our day out, it was back to the hotel to grab our luggage and get back on the metro to get to Paris-Beauvais and fly back to Bologna on a late flight in which we had to spend the night in the airport because trains to Florence don’t run all night. I was sad to leave Paris. Aside from Florence, it’s with out a doubt my favorite city and I need to go back, perhaps even on this same trip. There’s just so much to see and do there and I love the energy that I get from being there.