A great thing about our hostel is that nobody showed up to claim the other beds in our room. So, Hannah and I had the entire room with an ensuite bathroom all to ourselves, it was like a hotel for a hostel price. Unfortunately this hostel did not offer an all-you-can eat breakfast like the hostel in London, this means I suffer from terrible mid-morning hunger pains that I usually subside by eating a yummy French pastry or crepe, (okay I’m exaggerating the hunger, but I had to supply some kind of excuse for my ridiculous food consumption.) Nutella crepes have become my new favorite food, and when ever I am tired, hungry or frustrated I get one. Needless to say, I have eaten many crepes in the past couple of days.
This morning I headed out the Sacre Coeur Church. You have to climb a mountain to reach it, and I’m not exaggerating the church literally sits on a mountain above Paris. The morning fog was burning off as I walked up the hundreds of stairs to get to the top. Paris looked so dark and dirty compared to the bright white exterior of the Sacre Coeur. The church is the color white that you would imagine God’s robes to be. Standing on that hill over looking Paris, in front of that beautiful church, I felt a little bit closer to God… or maybe it was the thin air, I was awfully high up…
I realized that I was just a short walk away from the Moulin Rouge, so I decided to take the time to go see it. Apparently Pigalle is still a hopping sex district, adult shops lined the streets and Hannah was solicited by a prostitute of unidentifiable gender.
I found a great little bakery along one of the backstreets and I ordered some lunch and then helped Hannah order hers. She insisted on paying with change and it was taking her forever to count it out. The clerk made a rude comment in French and I joked along with him and in French told him that, “my friend never learned how to count, please forgive her.” The clerk laughed and Hannah asked me to tell her what I said, I just told her I told him a joke, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her…
Next I headed to the Arc de Triumph. As I looked at the arch the picture that kept running through my head, was that of Hitler leading is armies under the arch during World War II. I remember reading in a book, that after the allied troops freed Paris the troops made sure that a French soldier was the first to march under the arch. I visited the grave of the Unknown Soldier and said a prayer for my grandfather back home. I, and a generation of Americans, have been spared the pain of a world war. I couldn’t imagine the sacrifice that my grandparent’s generation had to make.
One of the great things about being 17 in Paris is that I get into all of the museums for free! My visit to the Musee D’Orsay was fantastic, I have never really been a huge fan of impressionist art, and I think that is because I have never seen any impressionist art in person. Seeing the art of rejects of the Academia in person changed my mind completely. I could hardly keep from dancing myself when I stumbled upon the exhibit of Degas models. You could tell that Degas understood a dancer’s body when you looked at the models, their bodies seemed more lifelike than the tourists around me.
While I was looking at a Renoir I pushed out of the way by some Japanese tourists who wanted to take a picture with the piece. After they took their picture an old Frenchman behind me told the tourists they should look at the art, not just take pictures of it. I laughed and translated the French for one of the girls in the group; she smiled and then went on to the next painting. I turned to the old man and, in French, told him that I liked to look at the paintings. We sat in front of the painting for a couple minutes together, and then I moved on… god, what a fantastic moment.
Photos
Only Parisians could take something as generic as a metro stop and turn it into a work of art
The Sacre Coeur is enchantingly beautiful
Gorgeous... just gorgeous
Not exactly what I pictured... but I guess I can now say I've seen it
If you look closely you can spot some tourists trying to cross the 6+ lanes of traffic to try to get to the center... idiots, the arc is surrounded by underground tunnels!
I'm not a big fan of war memorials, they seem to often to glory the practice of war, but I think the graves of unknown soldiers I think serve as important reminders of the costs of war...
