On top of the Palais de Chaillot
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, looking down the Champs Elysées
Like any good twenty-something, I spent a bit of time on Facebook on the 11th and was really interested to read the various posts and comments related to Veteran’s Day in America or Armistice Day in France. The one post that really stood out to me, however, was a comment on a post related to the events in France written by an American who wrote something like: “I’m glad to see that the French also pay tribute to their veterans today” and it really struck me. In the way they wrote their comment, it actually seemed as though they thought that November 11th was a purely American holiday - wrong- and that the French were being charitable for choosing that day as a day of remembrance people - how kind of them, for sure. Remember, people, World War I was a war that lasted 4 years in Europe, and America was only officially involved for two years. America lost one TENTH of one PERCENT of its total population, while France lost one out of every TWENTY people in its population. As a great friend likes to remind me from time to time: sometimes it’s really not all about you.
Normally there are a handful of steps before you reach the river.
At the base of this staircase, where the trees are, is a very nice, very wide, walkway with benches where people like sit and eat, canoodle, and drink. Now it's a churning grey pool.
As I was walking along the Seine I came across the entrance for the Museum of the Paris Sewers, which was on the infamous Museums to Visit list, and I decided today would be the day. So I paid my entrance fee and walked down the staircase. The Paris sewers were built in the 19th century and they are largely unchanged (and maintained the same way that they were 150 years ago). Although the museum took visitors through a number of tunnels and through the grate on the floor the water ran below, it wasn’t a poop sewer I was walking through - it was a storm water sewer, so it didn’t smell too bad. It was warm and muggy, however, which was a little unnerving, but not terrible. Even though I was in the sewer museum, I got a few ideas of things I want to do at the museum in Northeast Harbor this summer, but less about those and more about Paris.
This is the boat that they drop in the sewer tunnels to clean them out and do work. I don't know want to know what that stuff is hanging off the netting...
By the time I was out of the sewers it was edging on 3pm and I hadn’t eaten yet. And to add on to that, I was freezing. So it was time for lunch, and a sandwich was not going to cut it. Walking away from the Seine and into the labyrinth that is Paris I found a nice little brasserie where I sat outside, under the heat lamps, and enjoyed a very hot and cheesy bowl of French onion soup. Oh, and a coffee of course. Score for me!
On my way home I decided to stop by the Nespresso store on the Champs Elysées since we were running low on coffee at home. Every Parisian has a Nespresso machine at home, and I’m really enjoying it. Nothing picks me up quite as well as a demi-tasse cup with super strong, super yummy coffee and a sugar cube for good measure. What I didn’t realize, however, was all the different options of coffee flavors. I felt like I was trying to pick paint colors! Did I want charcoal or grey or slate or one of the other fifty shades of grey? No, but there were a lot of colors, and each color represented a flavor. I knew we used gold and red and dark red at home, but I wanted some thing different. I got a charcoal colored box of super high test coffee with lots of caffeine and I haven’t looked back since. Of course, I haven’t been able to sit still since then either…
Pick a color... any color...
On Tuesday I had a chance to meet up with a fellow Trinity student who is studying abroad. Liz is studying in Copenhagen but came to France with some of her friends and together we went to one of my favorite bars from 2011: the Bého. With a Happy Hour that goes until 11pm and drinks that cost less than 5 euros, how can you go wrong!? The only sad thing was that the bartender who worked there in 2011 wasn’t there that night, and I assumed he had left Bého… but we’ll talk about that later.
On Wednesday I decided to go to the Panthéon to see the exhibit on the building’s architect: Jaques-Germain Soufflot. The exhibit was good, beautifully installed, but basically what I learned was that Soufflot had only one really incredible building - the Panthéon - and the rest were painfully mediocre. I did however, have a nice walk around the building, which is going to be under reconstruction until 2022, so I got a chance to see some of the things that will probably be obscured the next time I’m in Paris.
They're in the process of wrapping the dome in scaffolding so they can do a huge amount of work up there.
Inside
Voltaire's tomb
I can remember one of my professors in 2011 saying that the best masonry work in Paris is in the basement of the Panthéon, and I think she was right. It is absolutely beautiful.
As I was leaving the Panthéon I noticed a funky looking church behind the Panthéon, the church of Saint-Étienne du Mont. Constructed between 1492 and 1626, it’s not your average French church, but the inside is really very beautiful and the stone screen separating the choir from the nave of the church is the only remaining screen in Paris. And it is BEAUTIFUL!
From the rear of the church
The screen
Looking up above the choir
The central courtyard, with modern art.
This was the warning label outside one room. (It is recommended to stay only briefly in the room because of strong electromagnetic rays that are emitted...) Uh oh...
Here was the room. A giant polar bear (with fur that was actually knitted) and hundreds of lightbulbs. This picture was obviously dimmed down, but I actually had to put on my sunglasses to see anything because it was so bright in there!
This is not a dead elk. It's actually a bagpipe. You inflate it from his mouth and the sound comes out his legs.
The official portrait by François Desportes for Louis XVI of two of his hunting dogs.
Dead animals and guns
One of my favorite details was seen on the bathroom doors. The man carried a spear, the woman a bow, and the handicapped person was definitely ready to attack!
That evening I met up with Ann Lawson to get ready for the museum exhibit that I’ve been most excited about. It is the special exhibit at the Museum of Architecture on the Art Deco Movement. Called “1925: The Year that Seduced the World,” the exhibit was exceptional. No photo could possibly do it justice and we spent about 2 hours walking through the galleries and looking at the impact of the Art Deco movement on architecture, art, cars, airplanes, boats, clothing, furniture, daily living, on everything. It was excellent and beautifully presented. Better yet, the person in charge of writing the text had a great sense of humor and wrote just enough to make visitors want to read about the objects. All in all: an amazing exhibit.
These are actually radiator covers
I loved how these were placed on a stand that was made in an Art Deco shape.
This is a model of the concrete trees that were built for the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris, the exposition that really launched the Art Deco in Paris.
Ivory inlay. Yesssssss....
Ann Lawson and I had agreed that we would go to the exhibit on Art Deco and then we would do dinner and it just so happens that last week I walked by a restaurant that was truly hopping called Frog XVI (haha, get it? Hopping? Frogs?). Just as it was the night I first noticed it, Frog XVI was packed on Thursday and, before long, we realized it was packed full of English speakers. What we didn’t realize was that it was part of a number of restaurants in Paris using the frog theme (Princess and the Frog is another) that serve burgers in an English setting. It was wonderful. The burger was to die for, the beers are brewed on site, and when a larger than life and very drunk woman came in and sat behind us, we really thought we’d hit a home run. Especially when she started dancing by herself.
Ann Lawson in her Art Deco-esque top, specially chosen for the evening.
Burgerrrrrrr.... nommmmm...
Interpretive dance à la drunk.
Ever the socialites, Ann Lawson and I also had social plans for Friday when we were going to meet up with a friend from 2011 named Emma at Bého, where we first met… back when we were young and beautiful. What was GREAT this time at Bého was that I walked in, looked at the bar, and the bartender looked up at me and, in French, exclaimed: “Oh hey, dude! Where have you been? Want a blue moon?” It was the same bartender from 2011 and he still remembered by drink of choice at Bého. We had a great time with Emma, and eventually some of her friends came and joined us and we went to another bar. I hadn’t been out until 3 am in a long time, but I really had a great time.
Bého blue moons.
Ann Lawson, Fred, and the cat that walked into the second bar.
This kid had a new helmet that would protect his brains in a collision up to 250 km/hr. He was walking around asking people to hit his head as hard as they could. Once you hit it he would remind you to be careful because the helmet was hard and could really injure you.
The other exciting thing event week was renewing my card at the INHA, the Institute National d’Histoire d’Art (et Architecture), the library for Art and Architectural historians, where I spent three wonderful hours on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately the majority of the documents I wanted to see, related to the American architects at the 1900 Universal Exposition, were unavailable because the area where they are stored is being worked on, but really, how can you complain about an absolutely silent library like this?!
Sometimes I just love my life.
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