|
|
 The Casino Theater Chuck and I and our friends Skip and Diane headed over to Catalina Island this past Saturday for the 25th annual Catalina Island Museum Silent Film Benefit. The museum is located in the Catalina Casino, as is a movie theater and a ballroom. The movie theater was the first to be constructed for either sound or silent films and the jewel in its crown is a 1929 pipe organ.
When we were in Avalon for Chuck’s birthday in March, we saw the ads for the silent film benefit but forgot about it until a few weeks ago when we quite spontaneously decided to go see the film for Skip’s birthday. The part that really caught my eye was the film they were showing: Wings, a 1927 silent film that was also the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. What made this even more exciting was that the film was going to be shown with live organ accompaniment.
I’ve seen a few silent movies, but the sound has always been prerecorded (like this version of The Kid). I never gave a lot of thought to what role music played in silent movies until this weekend. The organ became the voice of the film – it provided the emotions, it let us know when bad or good things were about to happen (like every time a German came on screen – cue the bad guy music!). Taking the music away would have left us watching actors make faces on screen (and very dramatic over-the-top faces they were! Of course, when you can’t talk, your face and body are all the tools you have to express yourself. Clara Bow especially was a hoot, showing pretty impressive athleticism and real knack for physical comedy).
But back to the music -take Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid – here’s a version with no sound. Weird, huh? Without music it becomes so much harder to get what is happening with the actors on the screen. In the case of the Wings screening what was most amazing of all, when we remembered to notice because we were so sucked into the film, was that the organist was down by the screen at the organ, watching the movie and playing along to all of the action! He was interpreting all of the action – the flying, the dogfights, the tragedy, the fun, the romance – on the fly (so to speak, again). Wow. Just wow.
This was a pretty long movie for a film with no dialog: over two hours. But the time literally flew by (Wings, get it?) as the music swept us along with all the action and drama. I can’t wait for next year’s benefit. I hope they show The Sheik!
Now I feel a need to watch The Purple Rose of Cairo again.
 my mom and me, circa 1965 Mary Ellen Flick, Nov 13, 1914- Oct 23, 1967.
My mother died ten days after my tenth birthday. She had a brain tumor that they tried to remove when I was six with limited success. It left her aphasic and changed. We learned to read together – me for the first time, her for the second. She spent four hard years fighting her way back to almost normal only to have the tumor come back and finally kill her.
Over the years, I’ve always wondered what sort of relationship we would have had if she had lived. Would we have respected each other? Would she have called all the time to see how I was? Would she have approved of the person I turned out to be? Would we be Facebook friends (okay, unlikely given that if she were alive today she’d be almost 98, but still…)? The list is pretty endless because the list of things I didn’t get to share with her is very long: all my various graduations, jobs, romances, marriage, a lifetime of failure and successes, failure and joy. A thousand little moments in life that we could have shared.
My memories of her are a combination of snapshots that as the years have passed have become less and less clear to me. Are they my memories or are they the memories that other family members have shared with me? I don’t know the difference anymore.
Here are things I know:
- I have her big feet and her big hands
- I still have the last tooth fairy note she ever wrote me
- She was younger than I am now when she died
- This list should be longer
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I miss you a lot.
 the kitchen sink
Well, it took a lot longer than anticipated (due to our failure to anticipate how long it takes to get kitchen cabinets, among other things), but our front house kitchen remodel is complete! And even better, the house has been rented. Okay, at a bit less than we had hoped, but still, rented! So double yay and yippee! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Pics of the whole saga are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/osheas/sets/72157629005496987/ Our beach bungalow celebrates its 100th birthday this year, and now it can do so with pride!
Lessons learned:
- Order kitchen cabinets ASAP. They will take longer to arrive than you anticipate.
- A good contractor is worth his/her weight in gold. Listen to them, grasshopper, and learn!
- It’s going to cost more than you think/budget. No matter what. Suck it up.
- Sometimes okay is good enough. Perfection costs extra.
- Bathrooms. Look away. Stay focused. Don’t get sidetracked when you’re doing a kitchen remodel.
- You will get stressed. This is normal. Forgive yourself. Take a deep breath. It will eventually get done.
- There will always be something you wish you had done differently. So it goes.
- Color is hard. But really, purple is just flat out wrong.
- Don’t plan the remodel to coincide with tax season. That’s just stupid.
There are probably more lessons that I learned but those are the ones that stand out. I can’t stress number nine enough – we were dumb enough to do that and it really, really added to number six exponentially. We are, however, extremely pleased with the outcome, so pleased that it was hard to rent it out. It felt like giving up a puppy for adoption. I wanted to ask the renters questions like, “Will you take care of the house?” “Will you love it?” — in other words, we got emotionally caught up in the remodel and put a lot of ourselves into it. Dangerous to do in a place that you won’t be living in. So I guess I should add to the list: Don’t get emotionally involved in your remodel. Oh, and number five – oops. We didn’t look away. But we (mostly) controlled ourselves and kept it cosmetic.
Still, the results speak for themselves, IMHO:
 before |
 after |
 before |
 after |
 before |
 after |
 before |
 after |
So now we start saving for our kitchen remodel. It’s a bittersweet outcome, but that’s life in the money pit.
 We’ve been home for a few days now and already Europe and our time there is receding in my memory (kind of like the jet-lag). But casting my mind back, when last I left us, we were off to Delft.
Delft turned out to be a really cool town! We took the local train and it was about an hour there. We walked first to the DOK Library, which is a really amazing public library (it calls itself a library concept center) that has, among other things, a coffee shop inside the library and encourages people to take their beverages and food into the library to enjoy. They also have a Microsoft Surface (which was displaying pics from the huge railway project that’s going on), gaming stations for kids, and music listening stations. We walked around soaking in the coolness and snapping pics like tourists. Libraries really are the most wonderful places!
After leaving DOK we headed off in search of old town Delft, after first enjoying a yummy lunch some beer in a local eatery which was a simple matter of following the church tower. The Nieuwe Kerk was built in the 14th century and has a very tall bell tower that you can climb. It’s over 350 feet high and the staircase is a crazy narrow winding spiral that goes on forever. this constituted my “do something every day that scares you” it was that high and that narrow – and at various stops you could go out and walk around the tower compounding both the beauty and the terror.
We spent the last day of our trip back in Paris due to the fact that all of Europe takes a holiday the day after Easter and we couldn’t book any train seats for Monday (they were completely booked). Who knew?
We spent our last two nights in Roissy (where we stayed when we were trapped in Paris by the volcano), and even stayed at the same hotel (which was much better in our memory than reality, sadly). We spent our bonus day in Paris touring Sainte Chapelle (which really does have the most amazing stained glass) and the Conciergerie (where we learned boatloads about the French Revolution), which neither of us had seen before (as an aside, the amazing thing about Paris is that no matter how many times you go there, there is always something that you haven’t see before! The only city I’ve been to that is like that is Washington DC).
And just like that, our trip was over! We flew home, enjoying a lovely flight on Air France in comfy Premium Voyageur seats where I got to watch The Iron Lady, J Edgar, and cried my way through Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Good times!
Things I noticed/learned:
- Is it me, or does 3/4 of the population of Paris smoke? I think we’ve become massively spoiled living in California (where we are about three steps away from basically making it illegal to smoke anywhere in the state limits). Blech! But at least they can’t smoke inside restaurants.
- Euros! They are really the best invention ever! you only have to change money once! And the bills are different colors so you can’t confuse them!
- Playgrounds – wow! In America most of the playgrounds we saw would have been deemed death traps and closed down. And yet those crazy European kids were climbing, swinging, falling down and getting up to their hearts’ content and their parents watched without concern.
- American culture has a lot to answer for. The droopy pants look and the Justin Bieber hats are all the rage among the young.
- I had the misfortune to listen to some Dutch rap, and learned that the term motherf*cker is the same in Dutch as it is in English!
- If you have an iPhone, turn OFF Photo Stream before you go. Otherwise you will accidentally use up a boatload of data (oops!).
Pics are here.
 world's most expensive grand marnier We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday, and are staying at (as everyone who hears we are staying here tells us) a five-star hotel. Chuck’s remark on seeing our room was, “I expected something bigger for a five-star hotel.” Actually, it’s a pretty good sized room and is (la-di-da!) on the executive floor. The only perk this seems to give us is that we get to take a special elevator that only goes to the executive floor. As we got in pretty late we ate at the hotel, and stopped for a nightcap at the bar where Chuck had the most expensive Grand Marnier either of us had ever seen (it was 35 Euros a tiny glass).
Anyway, it’s a nice hotel but it’s a little off the beaten track of the main tourist spots like Dam Square and Museum Square. Both were a 20-30 minute walk which wouldn’t have been such a big deal except it is COLD here – as in mid-40′s at the high end. And we didn’t really bring adequate clothes for those temps. So yesterday I convince Chuck that it would be a good idea to take a brisk walk to the center of town, to get a feel for the place. that was pretty much how the day went – we were on our feet all day walking or touring museums. We started at the Diamant Museum as we read that they sold advance tickets for the Van Gogh Museum and theticket line there had scared us off. We ended up really enjoying the Diamant and learned lots about diamonds and the diamond trade. We also were able to get advance tickets for the Van Gogh Museum so headed over there next and spent over two hours roaming its three floors. Next we were off to the Anne Frank House, using our iPhones as navigation devices which worked as long as they could maintain a GPS signal which, unfortunately for us, wasn’t all the time(I know: your’re thinks hey, why didn’t you just ask for directions? Come on, what’s the fun in that?. We did get there eventually and spent about 30 or 40 minutes in line to get in. Seeing the house and museum is well worth the wait, but access is not for the faint of heart or the out of shape. The stairway to the Secret Annex is as it was in 1942 when the Frank family went into hiding and it is steep – as in ladder steep. I watched a couple of people really struggle to get all the way to the top. But it was sobering, sad and completely worthwhile.
 We got out of the Anne Frank house about 7:30pm so walked over to see the red light district. We were a little early so the action hadn’t gotten nearly as crazy as we heard it gets later at night (hey, we’re old!) but it was still pretty, well, sobering and sad. It all seemed kind of grimy and icky. I get that it’s the world’s oldest profession, but wouldn’t it be awesome if we could evolve as a species o the point where we could retire this particular profession?
Walking away from the red light district we went into a coffee house and checked out the menu for cannabis. it was mind blowingly extensive (and neither Chuck nor I had any idea what we were looking at – test tubes full of what looked like ashes were quite popular, though). In the end we bought a brownie and left with our eyes watering from all of the smoke.
By that time were starving and tired so we went to Dam Square and had dinner at the Grand Cafe, which was a funny mix of traditional Dutch and Asian dishes. I had split pea soup and stir fry. Chuck had split pea soup and mashed potatoes cooked three ways (not kidding – I told him it was good practice for Ireland). By the time we finished, we were too pooped to walk back to the hotel and too tired to figure out the tram so decided to take a taxi. We went over to a hotel and caught one and when we said we wanted to go to the Bilderberg, the driver said, “Oh very nice! Five star hotel for the prince and princess!” and proceeded to take us in circles until we had ratcheted up the bill to 3o Euros. On a bad traffic day that should have been a 15 Euro ride. We gave the a**%ole his blood money and crashed. By that time we had been on the go for over 12 hours (which didn’t help our deep bitterness over getting fleeced by that taxi driver). ANYway …
 While we have seen or done most of the tings on my list we did something today that wasn’t on the list but turned out to be quite spectacular: we took a tour bus out to Keukenhof’s flowerfields. Our timing was great as Keukenhof opened on March 22 (when things started blooming, I guess) and it closes on May 20. It’s still a bit early in the season, so some of the flower beds hadn’t bloomed but what we saw was pretty amazing. i haven’t seen flowers like that since Chuck and I went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve several years ago on a day when all of the poppies were open. We took a tour bus out there this morning then spent three hours roaming around taking pictures. We couldn’t go out into the fields themselves but the park is filled with them as well so there’s no shortage of photo opps. It’s quite the family friendly place – with loads of play areas for kids, a petting zoo, a calliope – heck, there’s even a castle!
After yesterday’s mammoth adventure, we have taken a lower key approach today, and after Keukenhof, walked around the downtown area a bit, had some Dutch frites (Chuck had his dosed in curry sauce, mine were smothered in remoulade sauce), then figured out the tram system and headed back to the hotel and our local, much more laid back, neighborhood.
Pics are here. Tomorrow we’re off to Delft!
Katie headed back to Michigan yesterday (that would be Tuesday). We took her to Charles de Gaulle via metro and saw her through the security line, then headed off to Roissy-en-France to secure a hotel for our return to Paris next Sunday. Roissy, you may remember, is where we stayed the week we were stuck in Paris due to a volcanic eruption. We took the wrong shuttle and went by hotels that we had never seen and because I do this sort of thing, I immediately assumed that all of the hotels had been torn down and rebuilt in the last two years, so let’s just stay at ONE OF THESE HOTELS. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? (that last bit aimed at Chuck, who was by God going to find the place we stayed at last time. As the shuttle circled back to the airport I thought my head was going explode right there. I looked at him and said in my quiet menacing voice, “We seem to be headed back to the airport.” He wisely kept his mouth shut. On the second circle of the shuttle, we got off and started walking and quickly found that we were about two blocks away from where we had stayed – we had taken the wrong shuttle. The steam having vented from my head, we went into the Millennium Hotel where we had stayed before and once they learned that we had stayed there for a week last time, they suggested we join their customer loyalty club. As it was two years ago, their prices are very reasonable (109 Euros/night), have free wifi and they are on the free shuttle route to the airport.
 shakespeare and company Having worked that all out with no blood being shed, we headed back to Paris to go to the Musee d’Orsay (my first time!). Uh-oh. We got there about 4pm which would give us two hours in the museum (it closed at 6pm). Oh my God, the crowds! It made the Louvre look like nothing! There was a snaking line that wrapped itself all through the square outside the entrance – and that was the ticket line! And they stop selling tickets at 5pm. To anybody planning a trip to Paris, buy your tickets for the Musee d’Orsay in advance or through a concierge service, otherwise it will be a really awful experience. And make sure you get in the right line as there are several and with that many people it can get really confusing. We bailed as there was no way were going to get tickets that day in time, and the day we have free before we go home is – of course! – Monday, the day the museum is closed. Oh well, one of these trips I’ll get to see it. Since the Musee d”Orsay was out, we opted to walk along the Seine and soak up the sights and sounds (along the way we encountered a phenom completely new to me: the love padlock!). Since Chuck had never been to Shakespeare and Company, I aimed our walk in that direction.
The first time I went to Europe, in my early 20′s, I was backpacking and on a very tight budget (the length of the trip was based on my ability to stretch my savings – once that was gone, I had to go home), so my favorite things to do were either free or close to it (I used to take extra rolls from the breakfast at hostels and save them for lunch) and one of my fondest memories of that first trip was Shakespeare and Company where the quality of a person was based soley on the books they had read. And in that area, I could hold my own.
Fast forward 30 years, and the place hasn’t changed much, beyond maybe becoming even more charming. Chuck and I wandered its crazy narrow rows for some time, encountered along the way an impromptu piano recital, some neat study cubicles with typewriters (and notes from the writers or typists who came before you), and a wildly eclectic selection of books.
After that we wended our way back to our apartment and ended the say watching “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” on Chuck’s iPad using a headphone splitter (can you say “romance?”).
We left Paris this morning (What day is it? Oh yeah, Wednesday!) after Paris Visit came and inspected the apartment and returned our 700 Euro security deposit. This was not a hugely onerous process: we had to make sure that any plates, cups, silverware etc had been washed in the dishwasher (or handed washed), dried and out away and we had to empty the trash and make sure all windows were closed and locked. We did not have to vacuum up seven days of baguette crumbs, clean the bathrooms or strip the beds. I have stayed in WAY more uptight places in the U.S. 700 Euros in hand, we made our way to Gare du Nord for our train to Amsterdam (arranged by our BFF personal concierge Stephane – and as an aside, though I’ve never thought of myself as the sort of person who who want/need a personal assistant, experiencing Stephane has made me question my resolve. Maybe I DO need a personal assistant!). We had lunch at the train station then boarded our TGV train. The trip took us 3 1/2 hours, and we even stopped at a few stations along the way! America, what’s up!?! If you have ever driven up or down Highway 5 in California, you’ll know just how awesome it would be to sit back and read, watch a movie, take a nap and three hours later be at your destination. Okay, I get that this would require a massive investment in infrastructure but still, wow – just imagine!
Anyway, we arrived in Amsterdam to the fist flat out gloomy skies of our trip. It’s COLD here – in the mid 40′s – but folks are out on their bikes riding like it’s a sunny day. We copped out and took a taxi from the train station to our hotel, because it was cold and we, well, we just flat copped out. Now here we are in this awesome hotel that Stephane picked out for us (and where our first choice involved wine, champagne or chocolate). And for the next four days our hardest decision is going to be what to see next!
On my to-do list:
We’ll see how many of these goals we can accomplish in four days!
Pics are here.
Monday was Katie’s last day in Paris so Chuck opted to end things on a high note. More on that later.
 katie trying on a beret We started the day getting breakfast across the street from the apartment where the waitress is working on Chuck’s pronunciation. Yesterday’s lesson was “jus d’orange.” It’s pretty cute watching him struggle with the alien pronunciation. We then headed to Notre Dame, which is within walking distance of our apartment. Along the way we passed a massive line for Sainte Chapelle, which none of us had heard of. The long line was a bit intimidating so we continued on to Notre Dame, which also had a huge line but was moving briskly along. Sadly for Katie, the crypt is closed on Mondays, so she had to settle on seeing just the cathedral.
They are making huge preparations to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the cathedral. The festivities start in December 2012 and run through December 2013. Among the plans: restoration of the great organ, improved lighting and the construction of a village outside the cathedral that will have a pilgrim’s walk (okay, I think I’m getting that last part right) and lots and lots of concerts. It should be quite the affair! Katie was suitably impressed, and I got to light still more candles (I have been on something of a candle-lighting tear in Paris, having lit candles pretty much in every church we’ve been in).
 katie posing at the eiffel tower After Notre Dame, we went souvenir shopping then headed back to the apartment to get ready for the really big part of the day: a dinner cruise on the Seine. Stephane booked the Paris Illuminations tour for us through Bateaux Parisiennes. The cruise started at 8:30pm and was 2 1/2 hours long. The menu was prix fixe, but there were multiple choices for all courses (there were a total of four courses and two wines served). It was, in a word, magical. There’s a very good reason the call Paris the city of lights: it takes on a whole new personality after dark. There was a professional photographer on board taking pictures of everyone and at the end you could look them over and buy them. I have almost never liked any picture taken of me – this guy managed to make even me cooperate for the camera! We ended up buying a couple – they were just too good to pass up. And now I have an official bio photo at last!
Post-dinner cruise we took some photos of the Eiffel Tower all lit up then took the metro back to the apartment and got to experience the metro at night, when the drunks and musicians come out to entertain and annoy – sometimes at the same time! I don’t think it could have been humanly possible to end Katie’s first trip to Europe on a higher note. And best of all, we had fun too! In all the times I’ve come to Paris I have never done a river cruise, much less a dinner river cruise. Now that I have, I can’t recommend it highly enough (and for those wondering, no, it wasn’t cheap. Seats start at 99 Euros per person).
Pics are here.
 giverny! Today we ventured outside of Paris to Katie’s number one request: Giverny (and is this not the cutest, quaintest website ever or what?!?). This was extra neat as neither Chuck nor I had ever been there. Our new BFF Stephane, our personal concierge (who we get to meet face to face tomorrow), arranged the whole thing. A van picked us up outside the apartment at 8am and we were driven out to Giverny and spent three hours exploring Monet’s house, the gardens, and the Musee des Impressionnismeses which is a couple of blocks from Monet’s house. Monet’s house and gardens were beyond amazing – exactly as I imagined and the paintings portray. Monet, to be trite, basically painted what was right in front of him. I say that as a person who is skilled, in no small measure, at the drawing of happy faces.
We were driven back to Paris and after being dropped off at our hotel, headed off to Musee Marmottan to see Monet’s paintings of the gardens. It’s changed since the last time I was there (uh, 30 years ago) and they’ve moved the hug canvases of the pond and the lily pads to make way for special collections. The current special collection was showing of Berthe Morrisot’s works.I have see more of Mary Cassat’s works, so it was neat to learn more about the “other” great woman impressionist
 chuck & me & the eiffel tower After the Marmottan we metro’d over to the Eiffel Tower. There we encountered the first true crowds of our trip. It turns out the Eiffel Tower is suffering technical difficulties and has only one working lift which has created massive waits and no advance ticket sales. You just go and wait a few hours. Even Stephane warned us off. Katie wasn’t that excited (she’s fighting a cold) about standing in that long, snaking line so we just walked around it and took pictures. Down along the Seine a band was playing 60′s music so we listened to that a bit, checked out where we catch the boat for our dinner cruise on the Seine tonight (Monday night – it’s hard to keep days straight!) then headed back to the apartment for a semi-early night.
It’s funny about the Effel Tower. I’ve been to Paris four or five times and I have yet to go up the Eiffel Tower. The first time I was doing the backpacking trip route and was just too cheap to go up. Ever since it hasn’t worked out for one reason or another. I’m beginning to think it’s my fate to never go up. *sigh.
Anyway, today is Notre Dame and a river cruise on the Seine. Then, believe it or not, Katie goes home. Where does the time go?!?
Pics are here.
 no chapeaux, and we mean YOU! As the title implies today we went places that were full of mostly dead stuff, other than the tourists. And the weather took a turn for the colder with highs in the mid 50′s. Brr!
We started the day at Pere Lachaise Cemetery (and yes, there’s an app for it – in fact there are two. I got the free one). We saw the graves of Heloise and Abelard, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, the guy who invented rigid airship (he beat Zeppelin by a year but failed to get published) and we met a bad ass cat that warmed up to Katie and tried to take a piece off my hand.
 katie and chuck at les invalides Next up we metro’d off to Les Invalides to visit Napoleon’s tomb and tour the Musée de l’Armée. For extra death credit we went down into the crypt and saw yet more dead historical French guys. Actually, it was all quite impressive (I’d never been before) and makes me realize once again how lacking in excessive celebration of pomp and ego, at lead in so far as ginormous structures go, we Americans are. I mean the Jefferson Memorial is cool and all but put it up against Napoleon’s Tomb and what do you have? Yep, epic fail.
After that we stopped at a neighborhood cafe for quick refueling and enjoyed more amazingly tasty food. Then it was back on the metro to the Arc de Triomphe where we once again gave praise for our Paris Museum passes (yes, they cover the Arc de Triomphe, thus allowing you to avoid that long line at the ticket counter). We made it to the top in pretty sprightly fashion due to all of the practice we’ve had at our apartment and after being wowed by the view Katie had a new adventure: using the boy’s bathroom as the women’s bathroom line was crazy long and there was one toilet in there and there was NO LINE for the men’s room. So there, men! Yes, we women can in fact go potty in your bathrooms just as well as in our own! It was, needless to say, a very empowering moment for Katie.
After relieving our bladders, we headed off to see Notre Dame but took a wrong metro turn and ended up at some OTHER Notre Dame at which point we officially called it a day and headed back to our home away from home. this evening we are snacking on cheese, wine and baguettes and doing laundry. Ah, the simple pleasures. And the simple exhaustion.
Tomorrow we are off to Giverny and hopefully we will take a second whack at the (correct) Notre Dame. Pics of the trip are here.
Oh, but here’s our big news of the day: we have finally decided what we are going to do with our bonus days. We are going to Amsterdam, courtesy of our new BFF Stephane, our personal concierge (he came with the apartment – not literally, we were put in touch with him after we rented the apartment). I’m pretty jazzed as i’ve never been and there’s lots to see AND we are staying in fancy schmancy hotel in the center of Amsterdam. It’s fun staying in an apartment but I do like to be pampered.
Here it is, day three of Katie’s Semi-Grand Tour. Today we took on the Louvre (ooh, ahh!) and the Galeries Lafayette and Montmarte, Sacre Coeur and the red light district (should one capitalize “red light district?” one thinks not). It was a lot of ground to cover, but by gum we did it! And we arrived back at the apartment tonight to find – ta da! drum roll please, a repaired elevator!
We got off to what seemed to us a late-ish start of around 11:30am but turned out to be fine. The good news is we all slept well and were feeling pretty acclimated. First stop was the Louvre where we bought what has turned out to be the second smartest purchase of the trip. The first smartest purchase was the seven day Pass Navigo Découverte – this magical card has a chip in it that works like a dream in all of the metro stations and also covers all of the RER trains – it event covered the funicular railway up to Sacre Coeur!. Worth every penny – we bought ours at Roissypole (way less hassle than Charles de Gaulle, something we learned during our volcanic trip). And let me just say: what up America! Why no smart chips in credit cards? Do you know how much easier all of our lives would be if we stepped up and behaved like the big kids? But I digress.
 you go, little angel! The second smartest thing we bought were the Paris Museum Passes. these handy suckers cover everything from the Louvre to Versailles to Notre Dame and a whole bunch of stuff in between. We used it a lot today, bopping from the Louvre to the Galeries Lafayette to Montmarte and back and it all worked flawlessly.
The last time I was inside the Louvre there was no pyramid outside the Louvre. In other words, it had been a while. The insides are quite different and most of the art has been relocated (though the Mona Lisa is as small as I remember and still behind bulletproof glass). I’m still trying to figure out the point of the pyramid (though i think it looks cool and it all makes me really want to watch The Da Vinci Code again). We hit the highlights: the Venus De Milo, Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa and assorted Madonnas and children. And is it me, or do a lot of those stutues seem pretty strangely current? From the cloud surfing little angel that was freaking the beejesus out of some Renaissance so-and-so to the random Greek guy looking for 3G in a pre-mobile world to the Greek guys with their tiny twisted… well, anyway, there’s a lot of really awesome art in the Louvre!
After the Louvre we went to the Galeries Lafayette which was easily the largest mall I have ever seen full of more expensive clothing and shoes than I could ever afford to buy. Happily outside the Galeries the street vendors were another story and I bought a nice scarf to help hide my hopeless American-ishness.
 me and katie at sacre coeur From the Galeries we moved along to Montmartre and took the funicular railway up to the top to visit Sacre Coeur then walked down into the Moulin Rouge area. It was still daylight when we got there so it wasn’t as exciting as it is late at night but it was still pretty fun seeing it again. Of course, Katie was seeing it all for the first time which has made it a lot of fun for us old cynical travelers.
We wrapped up the day with dinner at what we now consider one of our neighborhood joints and enjoyed French pizzas and a nice Bordeaux and a really drunk French guy who didn’t give a crap that we didn’t speak any French. I gleaned enough to understand that he and his wife were on the outs. “nuff said there! But anyway — that repaired elevator! Life is really good!
Tomorrow is all about dead stuff.
|
|
