Paris Je’taime.

Paris. Do not believe anything negative you hear about Paris. Only the good stuff. Flying there I was thinking on the plane how long it would take me to get cursed in a frenzy by a mad Frenchman.

Our hotel was two block down from the Champs Elysee, so we walked by it every day to wherever we were going. Our friend Michelle was staying with a family friend, who has been living in Paris for four years. Her name was Carolyn. She is a genius of a 20 something who is an analyst for a huge bank – basically, she is a smarty pants. And a very nice one at that. She took us all over this past weekend, and if not with us, she pointed us in the right direction.

So this is all the stuff I saw and then I will describe my favorite Paris moments of the weekend (it is sooo hard to cram all this stuff in one entry, b/c there is so much I saw in the course of 72 hrs.):

Musee D'orsay

Louvre – seeing the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Lovely dames. Also they had an Egyptian section where there was a little ornamental blue hippo from 2023 BC. Caught my eye.

Notre Dame – Well, after visiting The Notre Dame, we went over to a café to have – coffee. It was called “Le Quasimodo”. I liked that.

Arc di Triumph – at 9pm on Sunday night, our last night in Paris, we stood on the top of the Arc and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle with all its lights. (watch the video)

Montmartre

Moulin Rouge

Sacre Coeur

Montparnasse – good mushroom and cheese crepes.mmmmm.

Eiffel Tower – taking pictures under the Eiffel towers, along with all the buskers. This one group of college kids formed a huge brass band and played big band Parisian music in fun costumes, complete with aviators and tutus.

Bastille - smoking outside of a club with two French boys who asked me why Americans say “Fuck all the time” in movies and stuff. Also, they ran sooo many raunchy jokes by me in English to see if I laughed and got them, basically to see if they were saying them right. If I laughed they high fived each other. “You under – understond meee?” “Do yu understond meee?”

Latin Quarter – All of it. Wish I could box it up and declare it as duty free. But of course the BEST PART OF PARIS was the Shakespeare & Co. book store. A store full of nooks and crannies of books and then more labyrinths made of walls of books. And I saw George Whitman! The owner of the store. At check out I saw a brochure written by him and thought it’s be interesting to have. The cashier said an extremely enthusiastic “Oh!” and started yelling at this senile old 90 something year old man. “George. George. George!” He is deaf so he can’t really hear. “George, someone is buying your book!”

“Oh, really, give it to her, give it to her!” he said yelling with a hand flailing in the air. Then he walked out of the store to sit on a bench outside w/ his black lab.

As soon as she said George, I knew she was talking about George Whitman owner of Shakespeare & Co., that quirky legend of a man.

Saint Michel

CREPES

The crepes I had: mushroom & cheese, ham and cheese, nutella and banana and my friend got one I am still envious about, and probably will be till I come back. Grand Marnier, almond, sugar, butter…mmmmm. I’ll have to wait till next time.

Paris made me want to stick my nose in the air and walk with a pissed off face. It made me want to smoke in a beret in Montmartre and eat crepes for every meal. I think the French are mistaken for being rude, when they actually are not rude, they are just very confident – which when carried off in the correct way can be sexy and sophisticated. But obviously these two traits – pride and confidence always must wear a veil of pomposity. And alas, some people just don’t take the time to lift up the veil. Also, Paris is very romantic, similar to Venice, but you would never want to be alone in Paris. As much as it has this sort of glory for beauty and romance it carries with it some sort of deep loneliness or sadness or something.

I did not find Oscar Wilde or Jim Morrison’s grave!!!! Alas. Another thing to do next time.

Italy has better coffee than France – Fo Sho.

On the plane ride home, the man in front of me had some sort of chronic farting disease. He also tried to grab the croissant tray away from the steward because he wanted another one, even though the steward said he had to give everyone one before second came around (why you would want 2 croissant plane pastries I have no idea), and it ended up falling on the floor in the middle of the aisle and then he got scolded by the French steward. This same man also was standing up in his seat during landing and a stewardess told him he kinda had to buckle up since we were plunging through the air. Lol.