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Wanderlust
(Yes Chen, I borrowed this word from your Facebook status but it so aptly describes my week)
Caroline and Graham ventured out each day to soak up as many museums as possible, and since my pea-sized attention-span isn't suited to these types of journeys, I ended up spending the beginning of the week alone. I took advantage of the nice weather and wandered around Paris's arrondisements that I hadn't been to yet. I walked around for 3 to 4 hours each day, with the only real motivation to return home being a full bladder. Note that although there are free public toilets around town, they really only exists in the areas concentrated with tourists, so when I stumbled upon one (in working order) I was very excited.
Found this deserted secret garden called the Swiss Valley thanks to an article my cousin Serena sent me.
Secret entrance: out of order.
Outside the Swiss Valley. There was a plague here that had something to do with the mayor of Montreal.
Secretly though, exploring the city was mostly motivated by discovering more Space Invaders. Nat says I look like a chicken when I walk around now because I am always craning my neck around every corner, on top of every awning, I must not miss a thing. I think I just look like a really lost tourist most of the time, perhaps trying to the find the sometimes poorly-placed street signs. Regardless my mosaic radar has improved and I was able to find I think about 20 new pieces of graffiti this week.
In the 5th not far from our apartment. So happy.
One day Nat and I were walking home, quite exhausted, but I made her stop and indicated that I could sense the presence of a mosaic. I turned around, and sure enough, high up on a wall was a little guy smiling at me. She was amused but also impressed.
The force is strong with this one.
I spotted this ruin of a mosaic from 50 yards and changed our path to confirm. That's the Pantheon in the back.
Though I think the Space Invaders search has become entirely obsessive. Previously I likened it to a video game but now it feels more like a drug addiction, or what I imagine that would feel like. I might be wandering around and see a mosaic, and get a quick thrill (although it's a much greater feeling of satisfaction if I feel compelled to follow a certain path and emerge victorious). But then if that isn't followed up by another discovery, say in the next 15 minutes, I get upset and things start to drag. I get genuinely disappointed and when I finally do find another one, the high isn't as great. They don't excite me in the same way as they first did.
I'm exaggerating, but not by much.
I just knew I would find something on this street.
Then I turned around and spotted this beast hiding in a gated courtyard.
I spent 4 hours wandering around the 8th and even into the 17th. And my initial purpose was to find a secret garden, which I did, and I even discovered another lovely park and several very interesting buildings but not a single Invader. The day genuinely felt incomplete.
See all the Space Invaders here.
RTL TV station.
Antique shop. The detail on the awning was great.
Roman ruins in Monceau Park.
Banque de France building with the most interesting little gargoyles.
Snazzy.
Hotel where I stayed when I was in Paris in 2001.
Cool sculpture on the wall of the passageway into the courtyard by the giant Doom mosaic.
A day with Care and Graham
On the one day we were all available we decide to check out the Les Invalides. Originally a home built for aging war veterans it is now mostly used as a war museum although the church still boasts the most magnificent golden dome in Paris.
Just your average church door.
This is where King Louis-Philippe prayed.
Nat getting an audio-guided tour by Napoleon's tomb.
He's actually inside 5 layers of coffins.
12 such reliefs surround the tomb and detail Napoleon's achievements.
This photo looks very holy.
Graham was quite amused by my whole Invaders obsession. He also enjoyed that I spoke about them as if they were really aliens from another planet. For example I might say, "No I don't think they would land in this area at all." He would laugh. But he caught the bug in a big way too and was genuinely upset that he couldn't find any. On his last night in Paris, we went to the grocery store and grabbed some warm beers and drank them on the street ("déclassé" according to Nat, but the group of police we walked by didn't seem to mind). We headed through the Ile St. Louis and then to the Bastille to skirt along the eastern border of the 4th in hopes of glimpsing some new Invaders. Sure enough the mission was a success.
Graham's first unassisted find.
And what is a trip to Paris without a stop at the Eiffel Tower? If you're keeping track, this is visit number 5 for us but we still haven't ascended. Although we did for the first time actually check to see what that will cost.
Je t'aime.
We need more (and better) jumping photos.
Investigating the club-like vibe at the Grand Palais. Turns out to be an Air France 75th celebration.
Part of the '100 years of French aerospace' exhibit that we never went to back to see.
Random Encounter
Nat and I were riding on a bus one day, a bus that was barely going in the direction of our apartment, when the woman sitting next to us struck up a conversation (in English). She was explaining this movie guide she was carrying with her, only 35 cents. Magical that! Only when Nat started talking about going to school at ESSEC she pricked up. She told us that her daughter did an apartment swap with a girl from California who also is doing her MBA at ESSEC, and her name is Johanna. Well of course we know Johanna so we all got pretty excited about the super-randomness (maybe not really a word) of the whole thing.
Bus lady.
This is as close we've come to bumping into someone we know on our journey so far. I can't recall if it was mentioned in this blog yet but Nat and I have a contest each time we travel: first person to bump into someone they know - whom they aren't expecting to see - wins. So far, nothing. And although Iris isn't part of the game, she gets an honourable mention for discovery an old high school pal sitting in one of her classes in Paris.
Bordeaux in Bordeaux
So after a week of having Caroline and Graham around; with Hannah arriving the very next day to stay with us; and with Nat's parents also coming to Paris the day after that; we decided we needed a mini-break. Of course this decision was made a month ago when the SNCF rail company was having a seat-sale promotion and we wanted to capitalize on it. Bordeaux, here we come!
The day started off magically when Nat spotted a Space Invader hiding in Gare Montparnasse. Yes, a good omen, but this also rocked my world and turn it upside-down. If a mosaic could be indoors at a train station, how many other were there like this across the city? And how would I find them? And no this is not the final mention of mosaics in this post, although I'm sure you're sick of this by now.
Indoors, mais c'est impossible! Kudos to Nat.
The train was pretty sexy and quite fast, which was nice since the last time I rode the TGV we arrived an hour late (grande vitesse my ass). Once we got to Bordeaux I asked Nat where the hell we were, mostly because it was really warm outside. We essentially traveled 600km and I realized I had no clue where in France this city was. Don't worry, we figured it out eventually.
Snazzy seats and LED reading lamps.
I also imagined Bordeaux would be of similar size to Niagara on the Lake. I only assumed this because both are wine regions. And yes I realize this makes no sense. It turns out that Bordeaux is actually quite the sprawling city with over a million people, rich with historical buildings and monuments (duh, this is France after all) but also with a snazzy new tram system and modern art. We spent Friday wandering the city to find our hotel, eating, and then taking a train (read: tractor meets bus meets train) tour around the city.
We made it.
Tram was built in 1995, no wonder it looks better than the TTC.
Why not?
The Mirroir D'eau in fog mode.
Boring mode.
We didn't seem to have time to read these free brochures much less do anything in them. Still not sure why Nat scooped up so many.
Old monument fitted for breast cancer awareness month.
I love city tours.
The 'train': please hang on for dear life.
There's something wrong with this adventure-travel company. Nat spotted this one.
That's the city logo.
Bordeaux's unique dessert made from leftover eggs yolks from the wine-filtering process.
They were underwhelming and expensive. This photo is pre-consumption so Nat is still smiling.
A genuine dollar store, well, sort of.
The washroom in our hotel room. That's Corey showering.
Halfway through the train ride I spotted something on a wall but I was too slow with my camera (but you all know what it was). At seeing the mosaic in Bordeaux I felt great validation. Mostly because I did my chicken-neck-dance the whole time we were there. Hopefully Nat didn't notice. I made sure we walked back to that spot on Saturday morning so I could get a good photo.
Bordeaux invasion determined to be failure by evidence of graffiti (on what is technically already graffiti).
Saturday we went on a bus tour of a couple of wineries. I suppose if you've been on one winery tour, you've been on them all. But this was more interesting because we got to watch members of the obnoxious (but small) French contingent of our tour waltz right up the vines, snatch a handful of grapes, and gobble them up. This infuriated Nat in the same way she sees a tourist uses their camera's flash inside a museum.
Catching some rays at the end of the line.
There was supposed to be a farmers' market.
Lunch would have been great if we had more than 45 minutes to eat.
Waitress was confused when we asked for dessert and the bill when the meal arrived.
They actually gave us these grapes to eat.
Nat inspects the barrel's aroma.
Starting at 50E a bottle... we didn't bring any home.
Boo(ya).
Nat decided she didn't like Bordeaux and that it's too manly.
It really does taste like leather and tobacco, but what the hell do we know?
We had time to hit up the carnival. It's called Barbe a Papa in France.
Nat would love to have this 1 gallon vat of Nutella in our apartment.
Nat on School Supplies
I have no clue how the French actually get through school in an organized manner that would promote learning. From browsing the school supplies sections of quite a few stores, I've concluded that the French don't seem to require binders (or at least not ones bigger than 1/8"). From my observations, they seem to get by with these big plastic
portfolios that they just shove their notes into in a disheveled fashion. Also annoying is that the majority of paper here is either graph paper or this ridiculous lined paper that has big lines every centimeter or so and thinner lines every millimeter - kind of like the paper you used to learn how to write with in school, except worse. On top of all the horizontal lines, there are vertical lines about every inch too. Honestly, with all those lines, how can you read anything?? Argh!
Needless to say, when Hannah arrived on Saturday, in her suitcase were 2 reams of paper, a 3-hole punch, several duotangs, and some hand soap from Bath & Body Works (the last item isn't exactly relevant but my hands smell so lemony-fresh now).
Stay tuned for next week: Hannah, Nat's parents, Hannah's and Iris's parents, and of course more Space Invaders!
Week 7 photos on Flickr
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