"Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids"
-Rebellion (Lies), The Arcade Fire (aka Le Feu d'Arcade)

This post should be about my last day in Paris, but I haven’t uploaded any photos of our last day yet, and I kinda need help remembering exactly what we did. So, call this the Untested Beta Version of this post, and I’ll add the pictures later when I am less busy (I really am today) and less lazy (by the time I get home I’m not motivated to do anything but change the channel on the TV).

So here’s the half-assed version, sans photos. Check back later and I really will add the pictures to it.

Day 6: Friday, December 2nd, 2005:

Our stay in Paris has come to an end, and I am already planning future trips elsewhere…well trips of the less exciting kind include a free stay in New Hampshire or West Virginia or some ungodly place in January. We all know how much I love winter! (I hate winter and the cold). And no, I didn’t win a free trip there. It’s sort of a free promotions thingy from Rusty’s parents. I decided that the next place I’ll go is Ireland (finally!) and actually get off the plane this time (I once had a brief stopover there) and go to Cork to visit the birthplace of my ancestors. But I digress, we’re in the present and the present is Paris.

Friday was a day I was excited for. Being a huge art freak and well skilled in the history of art through years of study in high school and university (not counting that horrible Visual Culture class that Natalie and I took to which we showed up to a total of 4 full classes all term, and we only stayed for those because there was a movie or exam), we went to the Louvre. I love the Louvre. I can’t get enough. I practically cry when I walk into the Renaissance art wing, as Renaissance art- Italian in particular- being my most-studied specialty. I know, I would have pegged me for a modern art freak a la Warhol and Miro and the Symbolists, but the love I have for them doesn’t compare to my love of Da Vinci, Anguisola, Cimabue, and Giotto. I also hate French Impressionism. Anyway, Fridya was Louvre day and we woke up early to beat the lines and the crowd around the Mona Lisa, although it being December, there probably wasn’t much need to rush when the museum opened. We just had to get ahead of the Japanese tourists who stand and take pictures of everything. They also move in packs and block everyone else from getting a view of whatever is important (it’s generalizing, but it’s true).

We bought our tickets, no problem, grabbed a map and I led the charge to the Denon wing where the Mona Lisa (or La Giaconda if we’re going to be correct) is. We rushed by centuries of fantastic art in order to get to the Mona Lisa first. We stood and looked at the Mona Lisa for a good long time. I noticed the difference at this visit compared to my last visit, was that now you couldn’t take pictures of any of the works of art. I have pictures of the Mona Lisa and some other works from last year (without flash) and I remember thinking that it was stupid to let people take flash pictures of the art. So this year, no pictures inside, except of statues. I even have video from last year’s trip in the Louvre. People always talk about how small La Giaconda actually is, that by the time you do see it, it’s much larger than what you expected it to be. And I’ll admit it- the Mona Lisa is probably my least favrouite Da Vinci’s and my least favourite painting. I much prefer Madonna on the Rocks, which is dark and kinda creepy, and if you’ve read The Da Vinci Code, you know all too well. An d it’s one of the paintings we saw as we back tracked through the rest of the wing that we had skipped to get to the Mona Lisa.

As the largest museum in the world, the Louvre has all the art that you’d expect to see- the Winged Victory of Samothrace, two of Michelangelo’s “Unfinished” Dying Slaves statues (but my favourite of the set is in the Accademia in Florence, Italy), and basically anything that’s important that’s not in the Musee D’Orsay (meh, one visit there was enough) or the Reijksmuseum (somewhere else I’ll need to go to see the Van Gogh’s). I also love the pyramid, and the inverse pyramid. The Louvre also has the underground foundations of the “Medieval Louvre” which is an archeological site. As well, the apartment of Napoleon are here in all their gilded glory.

Once we finished with the Louvre, we walked through the Tuleries gardens and went to the Arc de triomphe, planning to ascend to the top. But noooooo, the one day of the year that the Arc closes in the middle of the afternoon for 2 hours, is the day we show up to climb it. So we walked along the Champs Elysees again, had lunch and headed to St. Sulpice church instead to kill time until the Arc re-opened. St. Sulpice, also of The Da Vinci Code fame, is in a quiet area and didn’t have many visitors. There was a big fountain outside. There was also a huge pipe organ inside.

We walked through the Luxembourg gardens again, back to our hotel to wait for the Arc. By the time we got back to the Arc, the Christmas lights were coming on so we got to see the last bit of daylight from the top of the Arc and twilight set in as the monuments started lighting up. It was so cold and windy up there that it was hard to keep the camera still to take pictures.
We had our final Parisian dinner in the Latin Quarter at a French restaurant, where I had the most horrible French onion soup imaginable. It was all oil. So gross. In fact, I almost threw up later that evening, and if it hadn’t been for a healthy dose of Pepto Bismol, it would have been an entirely different evening.

The next day we got up super early to catch our 11am flight. Little did we, the people at Charles de Gualle airport, or Air Canada know, but the CDG shuttle drivers who drive passengers from the terminal out to the airplanes were on strike. We were supposed to board at 10:25am, which came and went. As did our 11:15am departure time. They moved us from one gate to another. No one knew anything, and we weren’t told anything. Finally, an Air Canada guy, who may have been the pilot, somehow got a driver to take one shuttle and transfer people back and forth to the plane. I imagine him bribing the driver with cheap wine and cigarettes, because as we all know, “My children need wine.”

We eventually did leave, over 2 hours later, and this time, thank God, the entertainment system was working. Okay, maybe not so lucky because they were playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp got nominated for a Golden Globe for THAT?!) and not Batman Begins featuring fantastic people like Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy (whom is also nominated for a Golden Globe, rightfully so, for Breakfast on Pluto, but alas, in the same category as Joaquin Phoenix). So now we’re back, I still haven’t sent out the majority of the postcards, nor have I even written them (I think I sent 4 out of 11, with one to Eve already written but I’ll just hand it to you in a few weeks (!!) and Heidi’s is written, but I still haven’t been to the post office to yell at anyone about your “undeliverable” mail).

In other news, I’m hungry and quite busy. And it is difficult to type with that blueberry yogurt I dropped into the keyboard yesterday. I’m also excited about the cat’s Christmas present- a cheese house that is spring loaded to launch a mouse on wheels out a little trap door. That’s right, less that 2 weeks ‘til Xmas and the only person I can cross off the list is the cat.

OVERRATED: Peanuts. The cartoon and the legume. (but not beer nuts or any form of candy coated peanut).
UNDERRATED: That cheese house. It’s so fun, even if you don’t have a cat.

"Now here's the sun, it's alright! (Lies!) Now here's the moon it's alright (Lies!)"