Paris Was Hot but Now it's Not

We woke up this morning to a rainstorm. Finally, it cooled off a little! There has been record heat in Paris and we enjoyed the lack of sweat as we packed our bags and made our way to the train station in order to make our way on the high speed rail at almost 200 miles per hour to the South of France on the Mediterranean coast (Marselille and Aux-en-Provence area). So as I write this, I am on the train, watching the French countryside outside of Paris literally zip by! It is very dramatic, picturesque, and crazy because we accidently booked first class seats and they did not kick us out! Probably because the conductor did not speak English and he also smelled of alcohol. There are lots and lots of yellow fields, a cloud filled sky, and farm chateaus. I feel like I have seen images like this in paintings over the last few days and indeed I have, so let me rewind and tell you about what has been going on since the last time I wrote. We woke up a few days ago 7/10 and made our way to Notre Dame Cathedral. There were so many tourists out front, but we finally made our way in to get a closer look at the grandeur of the place and the stain glass “rose windows” as my Mom called them. It was beautiful and gothic, but also cared for. It was amazing to me that place has been around since 1100BC and still looks the way it does (even with a few remodeling jobs). We paid tribute to Saint Joan of Arc (of course) because that was what Bill and Ted would have wanted us to do. After walking around the outskirts of Notre Dame and viewing the flying buttresses that keep it held up, we made our way over to the Rodin Museum. On the way we stopped at a huge green space in front of Hotel de Invalides, built by Louis the 14^th, the house the disabled war veterans, and had a picnic lunch. There we took in the trees and the groups of older men playing Boules games (kind of like Bocce ball with steel balls instead of plastic ones). At the Rodin museum, we began by walking around the beautiful gardens and seeing many famous sculptures cast in bronze, such as the “Thinker”. The gardens were cool, well planned, and felt like a giant maze. We went inside the house to see more of his sculptures (there were so many) and to view other pieces in the museum collection by Monet and Van Gogh. JJ took a break from us to go to the catacombs, but missed the last tour by 15 minutes and instead directed himself over to a cemetery, where he wandered and found some (JJ writing: The cemetery was really interesting, reminded me of the old cemetery I saw in New Orleans, but with much older crypts. The Jewish section was interesting and saw really neat stained glass in the crypts with stars of David and other Jewish symbols. After that I walked around a Paris swap meet where people were selling everything from antiques to modern art.) We all met up later and headed over the Champs Elysee, which is a beautiful tree lined boulevard/park with lots of shops. There were too many tourists there, so we got a cold drink and made our way to the Arc de Triumph at the end of the boulevard. The Arc of Triumph, which is an extremely large stone arc that one of the King Louis (we think the 14^th) built in order to honor all of the French War heroes and soldiers. We would have liked to have seen it lit up at night, but it was not getting dark until 10pm or so. The next day, we all went to the Sunday Morning (7/11) Famer’s Market in the Bastlille Neighborhood on Richard Lenoir Blvd. It was amazing! There was so much fresh produce, cheeses, seafood, clothes, etc.. My favorite think there was all the color and the light! We could not pass up a huge stand of cooked food and got some Paella and veggie dishes to heat up for dinner later. After the market, my mom and I went to the Museum D’Orsay, and JJ worked on his secondary applications and went running. It is an elaborate and very large art museum that takes up a former train station on the Seine. The inside was gorgeous, with many marble and bronze statues and excellent natural lighting. We saw so much, but the highlights were the impressionist paintings by Monet, Renoir, George Serat and Signac (pointillist painters). As much as I liked all of that, Van Gogh stole the show! There were about 20 of Vincent’s paintings on display (all very famous). He is my favorite painter so I just was in amazement of the colors and the actual detail of seeing the painting in person! After more walking around, we left to go to Montmontre, a neighborhood in Northern Paris on a hill top. The first thing we saw out of the subway was the original Moulin Rouge, which translates into Red Mill (and there was a red mill on top of the night club). We walked almost straight up the hill (which was actually very steep) and through this very quirky and cute neighborhood. For the first time in Paris I thought how romantic the city actually looked. At the top of the hill was a huge Church and a great view of Paris. We took it all in and headed back to JJ to have dinner and watch the final game of the World Cup, Spain vs. Holland. It seemed like everyone in Paris was cheering for Spain and when they won, JJ and I headed out to the streets for a crazy, crazy party! People were yelling and screaming, cars were honking, it was a great time! After waking up this morning and heading to the train station, here we are on the way to Aix in Provence (the South of France), to take in the landscape, try to escape heat, and to celebrate Bastille Day.