Paris: Museum Max

We’ve been enjoying the French language and food now for 3 days from a cozy little hotel in Montmartre. We have a little balcony with a table and chair, as well as a shower stall and a sink shoved awkwardly next to the bed. There’s one way up, and that’s a rickety, gaudily painted spiral staircase to match the one toilet on the floor. Dad and I get up in the morning to profit from the free breakfast of hot chocolate, a baguette with butter, a croissant, and some juice and say hello to the twin daughters of the hotel owner. I think Dad is warming up to the continental breakfast, slowly. Karen sleeps until we come back, and then we giggle at her grogginess. Ah, family. Our first afternoon we grabbed some lunch at a smoothie joint before we dove into the museums with one of my favorites, Musée D’Orsay. It was crowded, but because it’s in an old train station it was doable and not too claustrophobic. Karen gobbled up the Rodin and Monet and Courbet before we turned our noses towards gobbling something for our stomachs back in Montmartre. We found a place in our guidebook that offered something Karen could eat, a steak tartare. I had forgotten what exactly a tartare was, but it came rushing back when Karen’s plate arrived: a raw hamburger patty with an egg yolk on top. Karen’s face was priceless. She tried a bite or so, and then her valiant older sister offered her cooked burger and ate the tartare herself.

On Wednesday we slept in and rejuvenated our tired little selves before taking on the Louvre in the afternoon. We also stopped to fortify ourselves with some omelets. True to form, we got thoroughly lost and made at least one complete circle back to where we had started. It’s those darned stairs…the docents tell you to take a right like it’s the simplest thing, and then you go around the stairs for two flights and have to take a turn on your new left. In one of the galleries we were sitting down to rest when we heard singing. We found the source to be a middle school choir doing a sort of flash-concert in the echoing gallery. It was a high, calm, beautiful piece and they sang very well. Dad really liked it. Karen liked the Egyptian gallery as well as the Leonardo paintings and Michelangelo slaves and everything else in that castle. We emerged victorious and tired after 5 hours to go find supper on Montmartre. We climbed up to see Sacre Coeur Basilica (not too impressive after St. Peter’s, but it’s kinda mandatory) and then descended. We found this little abandoned restaurant with an eager waiter that served a selection of couscous dishes, so we gave it a shot. I ordered a cidre too, for Dad to try, but it was a stouter variety and he wasn’t a fan. Oh darn, I had to finish it…We left full and happy and managed to get down the rest of the stairs without rolling down them. Thursday we spent the morning at a little flea market Karen had looked up. She learned about the markets in French class, so it was cool to see them in the flesh. We pawed through old jewelry and scarves and found a few treasures before we turned our attention to lunch. Karen’s stomach was paying for having cheated on her allergies, so she had a pear and Dad and I munched on a wheel of camembert and some bananas (yes, I know that’s a weird combination, but they travel well). We happened to sit down just as a model shoot started on the tree-shaded avenue. The model had her hair all slicked back with golden slacks and a big poofy fur coat – she looked like a chic Macklemore. It was kinda fun to see her smile and be a real person from time to time, as well as the circling of all the cameras. Karen snuck a shot of her, and she saw Karen and stuck a little pose for her. We continued wandering through the business district towards one of Paris’ big names I’d never seen before: Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. I really like modern art because you don’t have to be reverent and it’s fun to talk to other people and see their reactions. And it’s just so weird. Poor Dad found about 3 things that he liked in the 3 floors of art we looked at, but Karen and I had fun looking at shlopped paint and jagged pieces of metal. We were also very happy to have escalators up the 6 stories too; plus the glass casing offers a great view of the city. They had a special exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein with good English explanations that we all liked, and I really liked the Miro and Matisse paintings. I have an ambition to imitate some of the simple pieces on my furniture someday (thriftstore+paint=funcolorsinmyhouse). It was a nice change of pace after all the madonnas and annunciations we’d been looking at, but even so we were ready to leave after 3 hours. We proceeded to Notre Dame to attend Vespers. I remember the first time I came into Notre Dame I felt so tiny and God felt so big…it still feels like that. The Gothic architecture was designed to point towards heaven and it still moves people that way. Karen liked it, but she didn’t see why it would be a bigger fuss than anything in Rome. The more we see of Europe, the more I see that Europe is basically copying or imitating Rome: the architecture, the religious iconography, even the straight roads. For dinner Karen had roast duck while Dad and I ate omelets. It’s so nice to be in a culture that likes eggs again. This morning we’re off to hit the Eiffel Tower and Champs Elysees. I don’t think we can take any more museums; we’ve finally maxed out. Tomorrow we’ll be in BELGIUM !