À Paris!

I realize that the Random Photo Of The Day is kind of a misnomer, because I'm not blogging every day (lately it's barely been every week!), but I'm going to continue calling it that anyway:

More birds! The first day Jessica arrived (yay!) we set off immediately to see some of London's great sights - Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the posh shopping area of Knightsbridge, finished off with a trip to Harrods. Somewhere in the middle of the day we took a break in St. James Park, which is a green, peaceful oasis in the middle of the madness of central London. And it has pelicans! Jessica felt a little guilty for falling asleep on a park bench, but it actually worked out really well because the pelican and the heron took that time to pose for this perfect picture. Jessica will hopefully be doing a guest blog post later this week (an option for all visitors!), so I'll let her share more stories of what we did while she was here. But I will talk about Paris!

I'd like to say that I was able to resist the temptation of all the cliched Paris activities - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, etc, but it would be a lie. I had only been to Paris once before, for a few day in high school, and I don't really remember much of it except going up the Eiffel tower, so I felt that I had to start over. Luckily, even though Jessica had been there 5 times (!!!) and Danny had been there 3 times, they didn't object. I apologize in advance if this post just reads like a list of things we did - I'll try to provide some exciting commentary as well.

First of all, many thanks to Maike for recommending the Hotel Saphir - a nice location on the rive gauche, at a very reasonable price! The most exciting thing for me about this place was the shops it shared a street with - at least 3 boulangeries, several fruit and vegetable grocers, a gelato stand, a lively café on the corner, and the most tempting cheese shop I've ever seen (Fromagerie Vacroux et Fils, slogan: "Sauvons Le Goût," which I think translates to "Savour the taste," or something like that.) I was charmed the minute we stepped off the metro and onto our little street.

Day one went something like this: dropped off stuff at hotel; bought croissants and a baguette; walked through cemetery Montparnasse (lots of Jewish headstones mixed in with Catholic and other religions, which I thought was very interesting); relaxed in the extremely french Luxembourg gardens and ate said baguette (Frenchness is derived from the perfect organization); visited the beautiful churches St. Sulpice, which has an impressive organ, and St. German de Pres, which was incredibly dark because, as Danny put it, "They hadn't figured out how to do windows yet."; got crepes and cider at a Breton restaurant; walked to Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame cathedral, walked to Île Saint-Louis for the famous Berthillon ice cream (I got pear and gingerbread...soo delicious) and on the way passed some WWII-era movie being filmed; headed back toward the Louvre via the Hôtel de Ville, which was hosting a music festival that at that time was featuring French hip hop...later on in the evening was going to be the "French rival to Lady Gaga", and the Centre Pompidou (crepe #1 for Jessica - with Nutella); took advantage of the Louvre's late night hours on Fridays, where even though we split up, Jessica and I both decided we like Dutch art from the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque, apparently), and I just happened to bump into Danny in the Caravaggio section; walked back towards the hotel for a late and yummy dinner at Restaurant Polidor; finally crashed at the hotel, exhausted after our 5:25 train that morning!

I can't believe that was just one day! The second day followed a similar pattern of walking and eating, with maybe a church or museum thrown in. Basic rundown: missed breakfast at the hotel because we needed our sleep, which forced us to get more pastries on our street; walked directly to the other side of the river then sprawled out on the grass in well-planned square that is the Place des Vosges; enjoyed the small Victor Hugo museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived from 1832-1848 and houses quite a collection of letters, portraits, and examples of his gaudy taste in furniture; wandered around the Marais district of the city, which is both the traditionally Jewish neighborhood and a trendy shopping area (we got falafel for lunch and weathered a rain storm in an expansive bookstore); fought the crowds to get hot chocolate at Angelina's; wandered through the Tuileries to Place de la Concorde and down the Champs Elysee with a destination of the Arc de Triomphe, but took a detour midway through to check out L'église de la Madeleine, a church in a neo-classical building that Danny remembered learning about way back in his Humanities class in high school; made the obligatory trip back across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, which you have to admit is a very impressive structure; got on the metro (Jessica and I split a crepe with strawberry jam on the way) to go to Montmartre to have dinner (a dinner which featured a cheese plate to die for); Jessica got her 3rd crepe of the trip - plain chocolate this time; took in the view of the city from the steps of the Sacré Coeur, where guys are walking around selling bottles of Heinekin - so weird; rode the metro back to our neighborhood, where Danny and I split a carafe of Côte du Rhône and Danny and Jessica got crepes (just sugar for Jessica this time) at the aforementioned café on the corner. What a great way to end a busy day!

The last day we just had the morning, as out train was leaving at 2:40pm. We decided we would either just wander the neighborhood and have a relaxed picnic lunch in the Parc Montsouris or see another museum, depending on the weather. We woke up and it was pouring - well then! We enjoyed baguettes with jam for breakfast, and we were joined by the tiny black cat that lived in the hotel. Jessica headed off to the Musée Cluny to look at old stuff, and Danny and I headed off to the Musée Marmottan to look at only moderately old stuff...impressionist painting, to be specific. Thanks to my mom for the tip on this museum! It was in a cute, quiet neighborhood, on the edge of a very nice park. A park that was home to a statue of Jean de la Fontaine, with his Corbeau et le Renard! This may not mean much to most of you, but in AP French we had to memorize a poem each semester, and the first semester we all had to stand at the front of the class, one by one, and dutifully recite "Le Corbeau et le Renard...par Jean de la Fontaine". I still remember most of the poem, so seeing this statue was really amazing! The Monets at the Marmottan were also quite good. It was also nice to see a collection of paintings by Berthe Morisot, since female painters don't really have much of a presence.

We successfully met up with Jessica at Gare du Nord for our Eurostar train home. What a trip! The only sad part of the weekend was that we found out that Danny's family dog Buddye's bladder cancer had spread and that he really wasn't doing very well, so he was going to be put down on Sunday, the last day of our trip. We were hoping that if we raced home from the train station Danny would be able to see him on skype one last time, but unfortunately the train left 15 minutes late.

We miss you, Buddye - we hope doggy heaven is full of tennis balls, swimming pools, and belly rubs, and that there are never any thunderstorms. We know that there are lots of nice dogs there for you to play with...