Hanging about in Paris (and some Pomposity)

This is going to be an exciting blog post, there is much about which to blog, including this interesting character.  Friday night we headed to the church of Sacre Coeur, which is on a hill overlooking Paris and a general hang-out spot for locals and tourists alike for this view:

Looks like something you would build with wood blocks

Any crowd in Paris draws street performers like the young man in the first picture.  He had an impressive Harlem-Globetrotter soccer act going on.  He would stand on the column and juggle the ball with his feet and head, which was kinda cool, but then he started spinning the ball on his hand, basketball style.  Then he spun the ball on his nose, transferred the ball to a pen, put the pin on this foot and while the ball was still balancing and spinning, climbed the street lamp and transferred the pen and spinning ball to his mouth.  Then he had to figure out how to get down...one-handed.

Now what?

On saturday we wanted to avoid the crowds, so we headed to the Pantheon, a lesser-known sight in Paris, but one that is not lacking in size nor tombs of famous french people.

We read an interesting tidbit about this place: when the architect started it, circa 1850, his ambition was to build a church that rivaled St. Peters basilica in Rome.  Not sure, but I don't think he made it.  Don't get me wrong, it's big all right, but just not the same.  And it's buried in the middle of some Parisian neighborhood instead of the Vatican.  But good job thinking big, random frenchman.  The main attraction for me is a really cool Faucault Pendulum that tells time while the earth rotates around it. 

Faucaults Pendulum

Melanie being enlightened.  Look for a similar upcoming picture from Rome!

A Pantheon in the Pantheon?  Is this "Inception?"  How many layers are we in?

Lady Justice or something...we couldn't figure out what the centerpiece sculpture really was.

As he so frequently does, this is a picture of Brannan trying to figure out where we are because, as we learned in Iceland, that is a "Brannan" job

As the name "Pantheon" would suggest, this is where the great Frenchies are commemorated and buried including Voltaire, Dumas, Victor Hugo, Rousseau, and Braille (no points for guessing what he invented), and Marie and Pierre Curie.  I didn't know Braille was French or blind, but he was both!  Sadly though, the definition of "great" is sometimes used loosely, and there are some not-so-great french people buried there as well just because they had political connections.  We didn't take any pictures of the crypt, because that seems tacky - I mean who wants to see a tomb?  Not us! - but the famous people are there. 

The Opera

That night we got all dolled up and went to the Opera at the Palais Garnier, aka the inspiration for the Phantom of the Opera!  

Ooooohhhh,  Ahhhhhhhh!!!  So neat to actually be there!

It looked just like the one in Vegas, but more awe-inspiring

House filling up, approx 10 min before the show

Our awesome seats (that would soon lead to near-bloodshed)

 It is an amazing place just to be in, and the chandelier was even more amazing in person than in the Phantom lore.  We were the first people to arrive in our box, which was 12 chairs.  Each chair had a corresponding number (apparently), and heaven help the person who didn't understand the unwritten and incomprehensible system, because the ushers would rain holy justice (in French with snooty looks) if they came in and you were interloping on someone else's chair.  Yes this happened to us, FYI, even though we had been put in our seats by another usher.  There were also some Asians there who understood neither English or French, which led to some hilarious lunacy with the poor, over-stressed type-A ushers.

Trying to get into the "Opera" mindset.  We might not have been snooty enough in this picture...

 The problem was that one of our seats was at the end of the second row (a great seat), and the other one was at the other end of the next row.  No problem, we'll just do the ol' switcheroo with someone, right?  Apparently France hasn't heard of the ol' switcheroo, because there was total pandemonium in the box when we tried to suggest it.  But first, a cast of characters:

1) The old lady: thinking it completely ridiculous and furious that she couldn't have the best seat in the box, despite the fact it wasn't her assigned seat, sat loudly complaining about how "they" have changed everying,

2) The over-enthousiastic old lady: frenzied by being at the opera, she sat whipping her head around, leaning forward in her chair 10 minutes before the show was to begin, and mumbled to herself constantly,

3) The young "Parisienne:" she had bought her specific seat, months in advance, for a lot of money and wasn't going to have her "strategy" (literally her word) ruined at the last second.

4) The asian: not understanding anything, is upset about any perceived shenanigans but generally ignored because no one could communicate with her.

So, we just wanted to sit together, no matter where it was, but each of the other three weren't going to have their opera ruined by the likes of us, but if they could take our good spot, how much the better.  I politely indicated we would trade our good seat, and a crazy eruption of complaints, squawks, bargaining, haranguing, shuffling of chairs, and elbowing happened, none of which made any sense to me.  But when the dust settled, Melanie and I were somehow, miraculously next to each other, in the worst seats in the box partially behind a column.  Wow, just wow.

I felt like we'd gotten enough for our money by then, and the actual show hadn't even started!  We saw Strauss' "Cappricio" and it was kind of a strange opera for our first one.  Firstly, Strauss was German, so the opera was written and performed in German, translated into French on a marquee over the stage.  This wasn't so good for Melanie, but one doesn't go to the opera to listen to the words.  Second, "Cappricio" doesn't really have a plot, but I guess one doesn't go to the opera for the plot, either.  It's more of a philosophical piece, questioning whether word or song is more beautiful, and the question never gets answered, despite almost three hours of performance.  Unlike the Phantom we saw a few weeks ago, the set was really basic, most of the time it just showed the bare stage with people singing on it, as shown in the picture below.  But I guess one doesn't go to the opera for the set or special effects...

 

Curtain Call for the opera

So to review:
-You don't go to the opera for the words
-you don't go to the opera for the plot
-you don't go to the opera for cool effects or set

Hmmmmmmmm...I guess despite having attended, we feel more cultured but still don't understand why people go.  People also attend professional baseball games, sit through soccer games and like it, so to each his own.  As for this Beasley Bunch, we were glad to experience it, but have probably attended our first and last opera for a while.  Stay tuned, tomorrow we're off to Versailles!

Rodin Museum and the Arches

We continued our museum tour by going to the Rodin Museum next. I only knew that he sculpted the famous "Thinker" statue, but he had a lot of other interesting sculptures. The museum was at his residence and throughout his gardens, which was a nice change of pace from the Louvre, which was pretty sterile. We walked around the gardens and looked at all the figures. Turns out, I like sculpted art.

These were 3 variations of the same figure.

Another one of his apparently famous and radical creations, The Gates of Hell, was there in the gardens. It had a lot going on, and we stood there for quite a while looking at it.

Do not touch! Ne pas toucher!

 Inside the house were some smaller sculptures that he and some of his students/acquaintances did.

This one was called "Tenderness". Aww

There were some by his girlfriend that were cool. We didn't get a picture of my favorite one, called The Wave. It was carved out of onyx, so it was a dark green color and had bronze figurines inside the wave. Here are a couple others of hers

Carved in plaster, then into onyx

This was her "breakup" piece, when Rodin broke up with her to go back to his wife. It shows a young girl reaching for an older man, who is in the arms of an old hag. Ha ha

Enjoying the museum

Our next adventure was unintended...  We were going to go back to the Arc de Triomphe to go up to the top.  So we got on the Metro, and only half paying attention, got off at the stop that said "Grand Arch". We walked out of the Metro and saw this

Oh, THAT grand arch. Whoops! This is clear at the far end of Paris where they have brand new skyscrapers and shopping malls, etc. So we walked around the very American-feeling square and headed back to the Metro to go to our intended destination. 

Can't even see the top of the stairs from here

Brannan dying. The illustrations shows "you are here" at the top of the long column. They had a huge bench for people to stop and sit on to catch your breath after all those stairs before you continued up.

 We got to the top and saw our old friend, the other Grand Arch

See it down there, at the end of the long street?

View of the Eiffel Tower from the top

We stayed up at the top for probably an hour or more and did Brannan's favorite thing to do in Paris: watch the traffic below.  It's one big roundabout that goes around the arch, and there are no lanes. The only rule is you are supposed to yield to the traffic coming into the roundabout, but there were always a couple cars who would try to sneak through and get stuck cross-ways in the flow of traffic. We didn't see any accidents, but saw plenty of near misses. Fun times!

What a mess

We walked around Notre Dame and played our favorite people-watching game "American or Not?". Pretty entertaining to pick people out and decide if they are American or just plain dorky.

That area of town is great. The Latin Quarter is right there, which has a variety of cheap food. We have found some delicious gyros and crepes in that neighborhood. 
We also get to enjoy some good street performers in that area in the evening, and great sunsets over the Seine River.

From our apartment building

Paris part deux

 Yes, we finally, after a week of being in Paris, went to the Louvre,

See!  Here we are!

  aka the largest and most impressive art museum of the western world (their words, not mine).  Home to more paintings, sculptures, and tour groups than you can shake a stick at.  Turns out it's very easy to get "museumed out," no matter how inspiring the art.  And some of it is very inspiring.

I wanted to start another revolution myself, and I'm not even French!

  Most of our visit can be summed up in the following pictures:

Yep, there it is, but I'm too exhausted to be impressed

This is what you go through to see it.

I've been there several times before, and it turns out that it's usually not that much more impressive to stand in front of a great painting than it is to google "Mona Lisa," for example, and look at it for a while from the comfort of your own couch.  Just my opinion.  That's not to say that you can't have some fun while there and see some great things:

The Crown Jewels, for example

They wouldn't let me try it on, no matter how nicely I asked (in French, even!).

A child-sized crown.  Awwwww

At last!  Art!  I like the look of that fellow on the end...

Ah ahm soooooo French!

Ah finally, great art that I can relate to!  Weird looking kids have always existed, and even weirder parents have always dressed them up.

Not all art is great art, some is just pictures of fish.

I think we're thinking the same thing...

Cardinal Richlieu, a la Three Musketeers!  We were shocked to discover he actually looked like this.

The Code of Hammurabi

Of all the things in the Louvre, I think the Code of Hammurabi is the least appreciated.  It is one of the earliest known works of law, laying the groundwork for the idea of justice, government, constitutions..."An eye for an eye," anyone?  It is really cool to see something so influential in the development of mankind just hanging around.  Again, the Louvre is exhausting, and I felt like this by the end:

OK, you win, just don't hit me again, Louvre!

After the Louvre, we went to the Eiffel Tower, and this time, we were victorious in making it to the top. We've been trying almost every day to do it, but this time we succeeded!  The view from the top is awesome!

There's nothing else even close to being as tall at the tower, so the view is the best in all of Paris.  We were thankful that we didn't have to climb the steps, for sure!

I know it's in metric, but it's tall, trust me!

This was taken with my arm out over the edge.  Yikes!

The Eiffel Tower is 178 Brannan's tall.  And yes that is a standard unit of measurement.

Well, a great, touristy day overall, more to come, including the Rodin museum, and two arches (one by accident).  Stay tuned!