Paris, avec the Mama: Part Deux

Location: Paris, France
Culture Status: Jacked

April 20

Up today at the much more accommodating hour of 9:45, followed by a leisurely wake-up process. At almost noon we actually left the hotel, feeling just delightful and ready to tackle the new day.

We've decided that today we shall try to visit the Louvre, knowing full well that the lines may be prohibitive at this time of day, meaning backed up so far out the door of that huge glass pyramid entrance that treading water over the mid-Atlantic ridge becomes a real issue for those of us in heavy shoes. Our attempt thus represents a certain foolish joie de vivre that is normally reserved for retarded gerbils, but we're pretty ok with it.

Miracle of miracles, the line at the entrance is paltry, as is the ticket queue, and we are able to breeze through the whole thing in maybe 5 minutes. We are thus confronted with one of the largest museums in human history and no idea where we want to go in it.

It is worth noting at this point that before showing up we had decided that we would avoid the Mona Lisa like the proverbial plague, do to numerous reports I have received from fellow travelers that it is A) tiny, silly, and unimpressive, and B) surrounded by more rapturous onlookers than the funeral for Princess Diana's oh-so-beloved pet ferret (woe for the end of the People's Ferret). In truth, the scene one finds at the Mona Lisa is not entirely unlike that of the Ewok village post-meeting C-3p0: there are tons of tiny, hairy people whose language is an indecipherable chittering, all of whom are cooing mystically and staring in awe at a dingy, nerdarific idol who keeps insisting "I'm just a freakin' painting, you idiots! You're surrounded by them! I'm not even that good!" Ok, so maybe the analogy breaks down at some point.

You may have gathered by now that, in the clear absence of truly Rolling Stones-esque crowds, we decided to try the Mona Lisa just for fun, and were presented with a deceptively easy journey. The sad thing is that, in a place brimming with the divine spittle of truly great works of art, it's not a very good painting. I understand that there are a plethora of reasons to circle jerk Leonardo da Vinci and all his intellectual/artistic bastard children, but the next time someone tries to genuinely tell me that this little cereal box cartoon of a painting is the greatest thing the artistic community has seen since ninjas invented pencils, I'm going to drag that person to France, Paris, and the Louvre, take him to the Mona Lisa, and try my damndest to ram his bulbous, empty skull through the bullet-proof glass covering the thing. So, yeah, I flipped it off. And it was good.

We find the Mona Lisa, of course, in the Renaissance Italian paintings, meaning that it is surrounded by literally dozens of paintings of Jesus being stabbed in the side with a spear. It's sad to me that in this, one of the greatest flourishing periods of art in the world, when great artists were successfully trained and adequately patronized, there is a veritable Dead Marsh of creative stagnation, forcing all these wonderful hands and minds to paint Stabbity Jesuses and Pissed Off Nursing Marys ad nauseum. Seriously, guys, from now on we have a policy of only one Jesus painting and only one Mary painting per person per year... Go paint some flowers or viking raids or bikini chicks or kids playing Vice City (if you like meta-art). Anything but halo-sporting virgins with their heads cocked uncomfortably to one side.

Next on the list is the Venus de Milo, the only thing I can think of that's world-famous for not having any arms. And no, kids with Gulf War Syndrome don't count (too soon?). It's neat, and made of stone, and clearly the work of people who practiced sculpting more than I do.

You need to understand that my appreciation of art, even works that I really like, comes mostly from making fun of them (allow me here to give Mom some props; she's great on the funny art banter, and really our whole trip to the Louvre was a laugh riot), so it's hard to really recreate my enjoyment of them in the telling. I admit there were a number of penis jokes, gay jokes, fart jokes, and baby eating jokes told, but I don't apologize for it to you and more than I did to the guards who tried to throw me out of the museum for putting my finger in Hercules's butt. That didn't actually happen, but in a way I wish it did.

Our tour was mainly comprised of the "Stabbity Jesus" Italian movement, Northern School naturalists (I insisted on that so I could the work of Peter Paul Reubens, who I do genuinely enjoy sans joking), and the collection of French sculpture, which was Mom's particular bit of interest. There was art, and it was pretty. Woot.

About halfway through, we began to get parched and our tiny unexercised legs were wearing from hauling our bloated American carcasses around, so we made our way to the Cafe Richelieu, which is actually inside the museum, for a brief intermission. We had juice and salad and coffee and a plate of fine cheeses out on the summer terrace, enjoying the perfect weather and gazing down on the entrance courtyard watching the people go by and enjoying the atmosphere. Really it was one of the nicest restaurant snacks I've ever had, and went very well with the subtle flavors of the museum itself. I'm feeling very worldly and cultured by this point, and the urge to speak with a snotty British accent is almost overriding my simply decency.

After about 6 hours in the Louvre we decide that that's about enough for right then, so we head out. There's enough daylight left for a trip through Notre Dame cathedral at sunset, so we trek along the Seine, enjoying multiple bridge crossings at the Ile-de-la-Cite, allowing ourselves a lovely first view of the cathedral, with the suns setting rays lighting up that famous facade in a golden-orange brilliance. It really is a beautiful place, much more stately than most other famous cathedrals, truly conducting itself like a noble lady, holding down the center of Paris with solid stonework rather than the prissy, immature golden domes and pink marble that one finds in so many other places.

Unfortunately, they decided to close the thing before dark, so we're going to have to come back tomorrow to see the inside, but chilling in the square in front of the church for sunset is lovely enough on its own. Before heading home we stop along the quai for a Chinese buffet (shut up, we love Chinese food and this was delicious), then catch the metro back to the hotel. It's pretty late by now and we're exhausted from all the walking, so it's about time for bed.

April 21

With the strength of a night's sleep behind me I'm a lot less respectful and philosophical than I was last night. Notre Dame thwarted us yesterday, but now that bitch is going down. Ok, so it's going down after Mom gets her Starbucks fix and we get sandwiches at a nearby Brioche Doree (my favorite French sandwich joint, excellent tuna and egg baguette sandwiches). Ok, now that bitch is going down.

The inside of Notre Dame matches the outside, beautiful but not insanely ornate. Most of the prettiness comes from the massive number of stained glass windows, particularly the three main rose windows. I do love the fact that this thing has been around for 800 years, yet somehow sports plasma screen TVs extended above every other pew. These architects were way ahead of their time. I try to take confession there, just for a goof, but I can't find a priest who speaks English. Guys, come on, my soul is burdened here!

Leaving Notre Dame we sit for a minute to watch local showboat rollerbladers doing their thing, marveling at the magnificence of their weavy-dodging abilities, and then head down the stairs to the river to the Porte de Montebello to catch a river tour boat. This was Mom's idea, and I have to say it was an excellent one. Essentially the bit here is that we sit on the top of a fifty-foot river boat, enjoying the sun and the breeze, and float past all the great monuments of Paris while a bored-looking gentlemen rattles off what the deal is with them in French, English, and Italian. Really this was just intensely pleasant more than anything else, and by the time the boat slid back into the dock an hour later, I'm ready to tackle the rest of the day.

The rest of the day happens to involve La Basilique de Sacre Coeur, a crazy-cool church situated right on top of Montmartre in the north part of the city. It's a long metro ride to get there, followed by a short, steep walk up Montmartre (involving a stop for ice cream and my reception of a new string bracelet from a nice Gambian scam artist... hey, I need a new one since the one I got in Venice just fell off a couple weeks ago), but the church itself is awesome. Where Notre Dame is gray, square, French, and stately, this thing is bone-white, round, dynamic, and exotic. The steeply sloping parks below the church seem to be a favorite chill-out spot for tons of Parisians, and given the view of the city that you get from the hill, I can't say I'm surprised. The inside of the church is absolutely cavernous, in an unusual way that affords a clear line of sight to almost every part of it from every other part. After a little walk around, we see that in only 20 minutes evening Vespers will start, so we decide to hang around and check it out (I don't know about you, but I've never seen Vespers given in a huge French basilica). As it turns out it consists basically of French Nuns doing sing-song chants. It's beautiful, both by virtue of their skill as singers and the acoustics of the church, which are not entirely unlike those of the Grand freakin' Canyon. Being without babelfish, though, we can't understand a word they're singing, so we get bored after about three songs and vacate. Stymied from climbing the dome for a good view by them closing it early (aren't there any rules against that?), we sit down on the steps leading up to the thing and listen to a pair of guitar-sporting street musicians who have a terrific repertoire of American 70's folk rock songs.

Though it is still short of 7:00 we decide to head home and recuperate in anticipation of going out tonight. That takes about an hour or so (not counting the great expanse of time devoted to buying our tickets to Bruges for Monday), during which I use my powers of dark divination to find what I believe to be promising music venues nearby. As for food, we decide to just find something on the way, and we're off. As it turns out, we are very carefully accosted about halfway there by the most flamingly gay French man I have ever seen (saying something). He is the manager of the Restaurant Selen, which we are just passing, and he gives us one of the world's greatest food service sales pitches, prompting a call of "hell yes," and we've got our spot for dinner. This place is nice. French food in the most classic sense, and we go all out on this one. Frog legs, goat cheese, leg of rabbit, good country wine... it's delicious. We're there for the better part of two hours, lock in candlelit ambiance, excellent food, and good conversation, punctuated by bits where Frank, the manager/waiter, comes to help us out and joke some more. We both had the time of our lives, and by the time we walk out of there at 12:40, we decide to forgo the music option and just hit the sack on a high note.

Game: Joneses.