Paris - 17 hours of ubereuroprydzzz. then bed.

Joyeux Patrimoine!

Not entirely sure what the means either. But it’s patriotic and it means lots of things are freee.
Today Louisa and I walked all over Dijon finding said things and in the process learned more about our great city in the form of finding the Musee de Bourgogne. After that museum, we went to another museum (that usually costs) and looked at lots of impressive paintings in a special exhibit of Charles Meynier.
I have to admit, when I go to museums, I am very easily distracted. This museum happens to be surrounded by apartments (the highest floors of almost every old building) and so it was probably a fifty fifty ratio of looking at priceless art and looking at the windows of the flats next door wondering what it would be like to be able to wake up every morning and look into an art museum. Priceless, indeed.
Although Dijon fascinates me to no end,
Paris just sort of trumps life.
Went yesterday with Kassie, Liz, and Louisa. We left at 6 in the morning because there is a day trip pass for 15 euro. Can’t beat it. The train leaves Paris at 7 for the 3 hour ride back.
I slept at Kassies in centre ville because the buses didn’t run early enough to get me there. Luckily we are both morning people and heavily solar powered so we were not bad about getting up at 5 for a predictable BEAUTIFUL day in Paris (although the sun didn’t rise for another 12 HOURS! So we really took a gamble on that one.) We met Liz on the corner to walk to the train but Louisa walked from her house through some Sketchtasmeville so we were very glad to see her bright shiny unscathed face.
We got to Paris and the sun was up and the haze even had the good humor to lift. We eeny-meeny-miney-moed a metro stop and decided on the Louvre. We got there and it was still intensely cold in our bodies but a little sun majestically shining through an internationally recognized glass pyramid can really warm a soul.
We didn’t go in because, frankly, it was way too overwhelming. But we figured we could find a little something else to keep us occupied for the next 12 hours.
Our rule became “if you can see it, why the hell not.”

This led to the following sites whose order of attendance through superubertourism is marked by numbers –
From the Louvre (1)
one can see the Champs de l’Eysee (2).
That leads to the grand Obelisque (3 -Egypt who? Looks better in Paris anyway).
At the end of this comes the Arc de Triomphe (4) with some real big, real Europride flags.
We decided since we just happened to be able to see the Eiffel Tower, we’d probably head but first we got a little lost so stopped at a large impressive market (5) which barely dead animals for sale for consumption. Time to move on. Next stop: the Tokyo palace (6) to pose seductively next to indecent statues. From there we could finally see that big river (7) the runs through town so we crossed it. And, hey how about that, there was that big tower that they forget to take down after the World’s Fair roughly 100 years ago (maybe we can email the mayor?). Bored. Over it. Kept walking towards the big impressive building but really found the “French Federation of Adapted Sports” (8) a little more fun. The creation of an American chapter would decrease American obesity by 36% within 5 years. I’ll call Barack. We hung a left and walked to Les Invalides (9) which is an enormous gold gilded building commissioned by Napoleon when he came back from Russia, got jealous, and said “I want one.” Next stop was Notre Dame, which was not close at all so we just happened to take a gander through la Musee D’Orsay (10). By this time, we had put in some serious miles so we referenced our two guide books. (Annie, I lovelove your book but have to noticed the scale on the maps is in meters? L’Ile de la Cite was either 9 or .9km. We seriously debated that last decimal point. Determined the latter. Thank. Goodness.) Notre Dame was on the island about ½ a mile away so we kept trekking by foot. All sites between there and Notre Dame were generally unrecognizable to me. They shall not be repeated lest I make any past French teaches cringe and promptly retire.
Yeah, made it to Notre Dame (11). Not positively sure why but it’s probably the amazing bells, or the stunning windows, or the statue of my girl Jeanne d’Arc in the corner.
The three appeased me and then we moved on (move=shuffle barely. And found a metro) to some epic shopping area (12 number of people only equaled by number of sex shops). No one bought anything and it was a maddening mass of humanity so we called it quits after a while and headed back to the metro to find our way back.
Upon safe reentry to Gare to Lyon, we reflected in our guide books on the course of the day.
HOLY INEFFICIENCY, BATMAN!! Anyway reading this who knows Paris, is probably just finishing convulsing in laughter at our day. If our course resembled a letter, it would probably be a Chinese character. Probably one of the more intricate, archaic ones.

The trip back was shrouded in exhaustion and helpless peals of laughter until we started dying around ETA Dijon 20 minutes. Being Sunday night, there was no ambiguity on the faces of those who passed as to the fact they believed us to be completely trashed out of our minds.

“Grime and grit and pretty city lights”
Liza Minnelli sure had it right.

then
Bed. Bed. Bed. Bed. Bed.