Paris, day one part two

Musee d'Orsay

I am very sorry, but I forgot to mention a very important part of our departure to France. Mostly this is important to Pat: as we were packing up the car and pulling out of the driveway at my place, Dad ran over Pat's foot. I'm not really sure how. The door was open, Pat's foot was still on the ground, and Dad backed up. Oops. Good thing he wasn't hurt, because we all thought it was pretty funny and were laughing too hard to help out.

Anyway, after our Notre Dame adventures we thought it would be nice to walk along the river to the Musee d'Orsay. Little did we know, Paris is gigantic. What we thought would be a short stroll really took about 45 minutes. But we did it and it was worth it. The Musee d'Orsay is an art museum built in an old railway station, so the architecture is strikingly different from the Louvre or any other art building you can imagine. The first floor is former private collections, the top floor is primarily impressionist works, and inbetween there is a fair amount of random stuff. The museum boasts that it "picks up where the Louvre leaves off," which is pretty true. We enjoyed the cafe before the art, then wandered separately until closing time.

We then sat around outside, glad to be off our feet, while Dad consulted the travel bible (a.k.a. Rick Steve's guide to Paris) to see where we should go to dinner. Rick suggested a place that wasn't too far away, but gave no address or exact location...so naturally we decided to go there. And, naturally, it was actually quite a lot further than we anticipated, and not very easy to find. Chris and Dad used their French to ask for directions, but nobody we asked knew where the place was. Finally a lady took pity on us and helped us out. She also scolded a group of waiters who didn't know where our restaurant was (which was pretty awesome to watch, and something that we could all understand through her expressions and tone of voice). Our restaurant was nowhere near the street corner that Rick claimed it was on, but we managed. It was actually quite delicious.

To end the night, we decided to take a cruise down the river Seine. The cruise took us down one bank, up the other, and turned around right in front of the Eiffel Tower. We timed our cruise just right, exactly at sunset so that we left in the light, came back at dusk, and reached the Eiffel Tower right as it lit up. Pretty magical.

The clock at the Musee d'Orsay from the inside. It looks like something out of a fairytale.

Some of the more well-known pieces in d'Orsay: a few Van Goughs...

...some Monet

...a little Degas (for the record, Degas creeps me out. Mostly because he had a fetish for preteen ballerinas.)

...and Whistler's Mother.

Of course I had to take pictures of the giant polar bear. It is my mascot, after all.

Chris and Dad asking for directions. This guy led us in the wrong direction, but at least he tried to help.

At dinner (finally.)

A bug flew into Pat's left eye.

Bridges from the river cruise boat

On the river cruise. One of the guys on the bridge poured water all over the people at the front of the boat.

Notre Dame

Tons of people on the river banks

Magnifique!

Chris, pretending to be the Eiffel Tower

The ceiling of our boat was lined with thousands of life vests

The Beginning of Paris: Notre Dame

The boys waiting, like we did so often in Paris.

There are so many pictures from Paris that I had to break them up into lots of smaller posts, because otherwise it takes days to upload all of the pictures together.

Our first day in Paris began with a trip to the train station to buy a ticket for my journey back to Freiburg. In the train station we got lost, wandered around, asked a guy for help with ticket buying who explained everything to us but couldn't actually sell us the ticket, found the people who could sell us the ticket, waited in line forever, then waited some more while Dad bought museum passes. This trend continued for most of our Paris trip: long lines, confusion, bureaucracy, bad directions... (As an interesting side note: I'm currently writing a paper on the European Union, and found in my research that the EU's bureaucracy is based on the French bureaucracy. I am now a little concerned for the future of the EU.)

We did, however, manage to sucessfully navigate the subway system. As an added bonus, none of us had anything stolen. This doesn't mean we didn't lose anything - I dropped my camera's lens cap into the metro tracks within the first few minutes of being there. Chris threatened to go in and get it, but didn't (thankfully). We took our subway to the center of the city and started our Paris tour with Notre Dame. I had seen it before, but this time was certainly better. For one, Pat was there to explain some of the architectural features; Dad found the top of a prayer candle that fits my camera lens exactly, so I've now got a new lens cap; and this time we got to go to the top! Our museum passes, which 'supposedly' let you cut lines, did not save us from the hour long wait at Notre Dame. It was worth the wait, though!

Pat at Notre Dame

Chris

Look at the reflection in Pat's glasses

The center of Paris

Pat, explaining how the water system works

My new lens cap. It actually goes on the top of a prayer candle, but it fits exactly

This guy entertained us while we waited in line.

Crepes!

Chris got yelled at for touching the bell. Later he and Pat would set off an alarm at the Louvre for touching a painting. Oops.

Tiny door to the belltower. No wonder Quasimodo was a hunchback!