Ah, Paris!

The first thing I did in Paris was smoke a bowl.

Because it's SO fucking easy to take pot from Amsterdam to Paris on the train.

Security check points?

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Non.

Anyway, after that, and a shower, I walked from my hotel to the Modern Art Museum called the Centre Pompidou. I didn't go in ... just walked around because, HELLO, I'm in Paris and I just want to walk around and soak up PARIS.

Because it's PARIS!

The weather so far is kind of blah. It reminds me of San Francisco, but colder. Inclimate weather. Suddenly, it starts to pour. Then you look up, and can see that one neighborhood over, it's sunny.

Anyway, I just wandered. And took some pictures. And went back to my hotel for a nap. Then headed out for dinner. Intimidated, I chose the least intimidating place, which turned out, I would learn, to be the Parisien equivalent of Marie Callendar's, called Bistro Romain.

When my server spoke to me in French, I must have seemed like Gump. Or at least like a deer caught in the headlights.


Uh ....

The next morning, a brassierie near my hotel. Similar experience with the waitress, but I tried to be as polite as possible, so she was a little nicer to me. I know un petit peu du francais. But when the French speak to me, they might as well be speaking Swahili. And I don't want to mangle their beautiful language, so I feel self conscious. I know the stereotypical parisien hatred of "les americans", and I don't want to seem like some stupid midwestern tourist who thinks speaking english LOUDER means my server will understand me.

From there, which is basically La Republique, I walked to La Bastille. I attempted to buy the Carte Musee for entrance to all of the museums at the FNAC (french version of Virgin music stores) ticket counter, but when I asked the ticket agent if she spoke english (in my mangled french), she just replied, "Pas de tout!"

Which roughly translated means "Fuck you, stupid, lazy american tourist! I speak english, but this is france, so parlez francais, mentenon!"

Crap! that meant I had to mangle it even more.

"Je voudrais achete un carte musees"

"Non!!"

Her companion told me to try the Metro. The Metro yielded the same results.

Fuck you! Time Out - Paris.

Ok, so, then I decided to try one of the Museums.

So I walked to Notre Dame, but the line there was huge. Then I realized the line is only for the people wanting to go to the towers .... the main chappel is free, so I went in. It was built near the same time as Westminster Abbey, but didn't affect me nearly as much. Weird, given Westminster is anglican and I was raised Catholic. Anyway, the most moving part for me was the chapel of St. Jeanne d'Arc.

On the way out, I donated 2 euros to the nun, for my grandmother, who is devoutly catholic and who will appreciate my gesture.

Then on to the Musee d'Orsay, still determined to buy Le Carte. 45 euros buys you 4 days access to all the museums you can manage. Quite a deal. The BEST part is, it means you don't have to wait in the lines to get in. But you DO have to wait in line to buy it, and the line for Orsay was HUGE.

I almost gave up, but instead walked to Les Jardins Rodin, where you can walk amongst a garden of roses and view Rodin's sculptures.

JACKPOT!

I bought the carte, and went into the museum, spending hours wandering around and snapping pictures to share. The Thinker is humbling. One of those well-known pieces of art that, when you see it, takes your breath away. Niblet liked it, too.