November 9, 2015 – Lost Adventures in Paris

Close your eyes. I’ll wait.

Okay. I assume you either opened your eyes again or ignored my first command. I realized I need to tell you what to imagine when you close your eyes for this to work.

I want you to go all the way back to 2015. What were you doing four years ago? Personally, I was living it up in Europe for the first time, sparking this crazy passion for seeing, exploring, and eating my way through foreign places.

But there was one trip I never blogged: Paris in early November. Jackson and I flew from Trondheim and Copenhagen, respectively, to meet up in this ancient city.

We honestly didn’t even arrive that late, but I remember it was super dark, and I still hadn’t figured out how to expertly navigate foreign public transportation, so we kind of just wandered around a bit and retired pretty early to our hostel.

In the morning, on our walk to the Louvre, we passed a little boulangerie, and rather than get a little pastry or croissant, like normal people with self control, we got an entire loaf of chocolate chip bread. It was soooo delightful.

We had some other activities on the itinerary, but that was all derailed when we spent close to nine hours in the Louvre…

I am a museum fiend, but this took the cake. We even left two wings untouched. It was honestly dangerous. I could have gotten lost in there.

My favorite hallway was the one lined with dozens of MASSIVE Delacroix paintings. He was already my favorite painter, but seeing his work in real life brought such a new dynamic to my appreciation of his art. When you study art in school, it’s really hard to put the works into context. You can’t tell that some of the paintings are twenty feet tall, and others, like the Mona Lisa, are 8″ x 10″!

Don’t be fooled by the people-less picture of our dear friend. We had to wait several minutes to get to the front of the corral surrounding this famous lady.

Note to anyone looking for a way into my heart: I love emeralds.

We finally got out of there just as the sun was setting. Ha! As we pondered dinner, a Jamaican man quickly approached me with a set of string and asked me to give him his finger. Sketchy sounding, I know. But I was young and naïve. I was well aware that I should stay away from people aggressively selling things to passersby, but somehow, in that split second, I thought the guy was going to show me a magic trick. I gave him my finger, and he immediately began weaving a friendship bracelet on the spot, with my finger as the anchor.

I realized my mistake quickly enough, but it was too late anyway, and I reasoned that it was kind of a cool souvenir. I figured I’d give the guy a couple euros. Out of nowhere, another guy showed up and grabbed Jackson’s finger without asking to create a second bracelet. Oops. The guys were pretty funny though, asking if we could get Bill Gates to send some money to Jamaica from Seattle. In the end, they asked for TEN EUROS EACH, which was out of the question. Jackson forked over about eight euros total in the form of 50 Norwegian crowns, and then we finally got some delicious baguettes for dinner.

We tried to sprint to the Eiffel Tower to catch some sunset action, but it wasn’t meant to be. Paris is large, yo. When we surfaced from the metro, it was already pitch black, so we gave up and continued in a less-hurried fashion. When we were almost there, we came across a line that wound around the block. I’m not sure why we decided to stick around, but we just got in line, too. Turned out it was for a travelling American Gospel choir, and the show was packed. Parisians like Gospel music, I guess? We were let in at the last second so that we could stand on the outside edges of the cathedral, and we were singing along the whole show!

A very interesting experience, indeed, and we topped it off with a visit to the Eiffel Tower in the dark.

Sunday was dedicated to a visit to Versailles.

The hallways, ceilings, and gold were dazzling, especially the Hall of Mirrors. (I was a bit confused about the mirror quality until I remembered these mirrors were over three hundred years old.)

But I think the gardens were my favorite part. I love a good French garden.

We were more responsible with our time that day, so we had plenty of sunlight left to return to Paris and enjoy the Seine.

We spent the afternoon visiting my favorite museum in the city: Musee d’Orsay.

Just the museum building itself is magnificent, tucked into an old trains station, but I love, love, loooooove all the Impressionism.

All of my favorite artists are showcased here.

We had a yummy, warm ham and cheese crepe for dinner, and then we headed back to the Eiffel Tower for some (less colorful) sunset shots.

DID YOU KNOW IT SPARKLES?!?!?

SUCH MAGIC.

We hung out for quite a while, and we were super tempted to buy a picnic for an hour. (There were ladies spread out across the lawn with fully-stocked picnic baskets and blankets for rent. How brilliant is that?)

On Monday morning, we headed straight for the Notre Dame Cathedral.

So magical and cavernous. I could sit inside any of these magnificent fortresses all day long staring up at the ceiling. The cathedral was struck by a horrific fire this past April, and the main ceiling came crashing down. Restorations are underway and completion is estimated for 2024, but we will see.