Speaking of priceless artifacts, next I visited the Musee de Louvre. Holy crap. That is all I have to say, really, I am having trouble articulating what I experienced. Once I got inside, I knew it was going to be hard to keep it together, so I decided to leave my camera with my bag at the coat check and just soak in everything I could. It turns out that was a very good decision. I was only able to see about one and one quarter wings of the 4(?) wing museum, but it took pretty much all day just to do that. Naturally, as I was at the Louvre, I started with the Italian Renaissance section, in order to, if nothing else, say I had seen the most iconic image of all time: the Mona Lisa. Much as I had heard, the painting was small and unassuming, but the crowd around it was vast and impenetrable. After spending at least a few hours casually wondering that wing, I went to the other (I forget the name) main wing, which housed a lot of Dutch and French baroque era art. I know I might be biased, as I am part Dutch now (sort of), but the Dutch really know how to paint. It is amazing that so much great art came out of a very small town in Northern Europe, a town that I now call home.
After the Louvre, I went to the Sacre-Coure at the suggestion of my friend-host. I had never heard of it, and was skeptical of finding anything really spectacular, especially after just leaving the most renowned art museum in the world. However, after climbing what must have been a thousand steps, I arrived at not only a very unique basilica, but also what has to be the best view of Paris in the whole city. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't see the Eiffel Tower, but that didn't stop me from losing my ability to stand. I took a seat on the steps of the church and looked out on the most famous in modern times, and I...fell asleep. Yup, I took a little cat nap on the steps of the Sacre-Coure. Not many people could say they had done that, I do believe.
After my brief nap, I went to the train station to reserve my seat for my train back to Amsterdam. Much to my surprise, the trains to Amsterdam were all 100% booked for the whole weekend. Um, yea, my thoughts exactly. A high speed train leaves Paris Noord every hour all day for Amsterdam, and they were all booked? Anyway, I had to settle for a train to Lilly Flanders, in Northern France, where I would transfer to Antwerp, and then on the Amsterdam. But, the details of said journey will be saved for tomorrows post.
For dinner, I had the most local of French foods, a Donner Kebap. I am still not really sure what is in these things, all I know is they are pretty super. Anyway, after dinner, I went back to the hostel to re-check in (I had to check out because I had originally only booked two nights, which I soon realized would never be enough to see all I wanted to in Paris), and take another little nap before going out for a mutual friend's birthday.
With aspirations of getting into a very popular club called Duplex, we started the night at a local pub while waiting for the club to open. So it was me, two or three French guys, and what must have been at least 20 female American students. Needless to say, I was alright with those numbers. Despite all of this, we were unable to get into the club, as we were too big of a group of the wrong origin (apparently it is a big problem in Paris that all clubs are basically 100% American students, and they would rather have at least a more even mix). So after splitting our group up, the people I was with found a little cafe at which we had some awesome hot chocolate. Apparently it is pretty famous in France, although I have never heard anything of this. But it was very good. So good. Mmm, I can still taste it.
No comments:
Post a Comment