a day at montmartre

Skye plays Wednesday night open mikes at a Scottish bar called the Highlander. Old photo:



Friday afternoon I went to Montmartre, in the 18th arrondissement, where one will find both Sacre Coeur and an infestation of tourists. Before I left, my host famiy was thrilled to be able to inform me that Mme de Lassagne's great-grandfather was one of the architects that designed it. I'd been wondering why they had a dishtowel with a drawing of Sacre Coeur prominently displayed on the kitchen wall. (I remain incapable of fixing this sideways-turning. Somebody help!)



From the top of the hill, in front of Sacre Coeur, you can see almost all of Paris.







There is this square, whose name I forget, where artists congregate and do portraits of tourists as well as selling their own stuff, generally in the category of "Paris buildings and bridges." Walking through here you get accosted non-stop by people trying to get you to buy things. I had five euros on me, exactly, and told them so. No one believed me. I said it was true, really, vraiment, and I had to eat.







In Place des Abbesses, down the hill a little, there is this fabulous metro entrance.



And this is the Vespa I have been pining after for a long time. Eventually I will get it. Mine will hopefully a) not look like it ran into a pole, and b) have a seat.



There is also this section of three or four blocks of stores that sell fabrics almost exclusively, but there are also these indescribably bizarre stores like this one. If I ever need a bellydancing skirt in Paris, I know where to go.



At the bottom of the hill in front of Sacre Coeur is a carousel. Skye enjoyed it greatly.



After my third sighting of a Scotsman clad in full regalia, I was stumped. (Let's be honest, after the first I was pretty confused.) Turns out it was "L'Ecosse a Montmartre" weekend (week? I forget), meaning Scotland at Montmartre. I never did find out why.

They had this fabulous band, though: five drummers and a bagpiper, and they were rockin. The dude at the back with the long hair was my favorite person I saw all day.



Before we left, Skye and I got bracelets made by two of the guys who hang around Sacre Coeur harassing tourists, trying to sell these friendship-bracelet-type things. I forget what the guy who made Skye's was named, but the one who did mine was named Alpha. They were from Guinea and we chatted in French for a while. I had trouble understanding his accent and did a lot of nodding and smiling. My bracelet is in Jamaican colors; Skye's is French. Also I bought that ring in a little shop run by an African woman in a turban; I bargained, nervously.



Anticlimactic ending! Ta.

in which i hit the Big Three of paris tourism.

I am on vacation, but vacation so far has mostly consisted of coughing and sniffling in my room. Sucks. Plus, one of my four classes isn't on vacation, so I had Translation yesterday. (Okay, it's kind of a poor excuse for a class, but still.) I have that class with Skye, who's in London, and Bin, who is here. So after it was over, Bin and I walked to Notre Dame.

Bin lept in front of my mounted-policemen picture. Lept, literally. He jumped off the curb into the middle of the street. Say hi to Bin.

Notre Dame from the back.
And the front.
I want to go to the Crypte Archeologique at Notre Dame, but we didn't have time before it closed, so I'll have to go back. Instead we went to Trocadero, which is a plaza flanked by the Musee de l'Homme on one side and the Musee de la Marine on the other. From the plaza, though, you have a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower and Paris across the river. I ate a sugar crepe. It was delicious.
And today I went to the Louvre. Because I have that silly student ID card that says I'm studying art history, I get a Louvre pass for free; but the woman there sure didn't want to give it to me. She told me the stamp was insufficient. I found this amusing because everyone else in my program has the same stamp, and got their cards with no trouble. I told her this. Actually, I said, "Well, that's strange, because my friends--" and she said "Oh no. It is not strange. No."

Well. I just sat there and stared at her until she gave in and made me a card. In revenge, my picture looks intensely odd.

Anyway, this is the Louvre. I take that back. This is something outside the Louvre that looks like the Arc de Triomphe. Only small. I have no idea what it is, but every Japanese tourist within five miles had come to take pictures of it. I found this vaguely amusing, because inside the Louvre, it was entirely populated with Italians.

That is not the Louvre. It is across the river. I do not know what it is either.

This is the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I love this thing. I spent all my time in the Louvre on ancient Greece and about half of Egypt before I got exhausted. I don't know if you know this, but the Louvre is really freaking big.

I was putting my Greek Art and Archaeology class from last semester to good use. Unsurprisingly, lots of the pieces we studied in that class were in the Louvre. I set myself to finding them. I actually did find quite a few. The class was incredibly easy while I was in it, but turns out it was worthwhile, because things made a lot more sense after we studied them. And by things I mean "Greek art."

So I took lots of pictures of random Greek things because I was so excited that I knew something about them. Look! Black-figure vases!

White-ground lekythoi!

A sphinx! Oh wait.
Bye!

touristing it up

Yesterday was freakishly gorgeous. I even took my coat off. Skye and I walked from our house across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower (we didn't go up, it was incredibly crowded) and from there to Les Invalides, where Napoleon's tomb is.

From the bridge looking at the Eiffel Tower:

From the Eiffel Tower side of the Seine, looking back at the bridge; where the bridge goes in between those two buildings is our metro stop, and our house is a few blocks back.

This installation, whatever it was, said "peace" in about six bajillion different languages, including Chinese that looked like it was written by a chicken.
Les Invalides:

Hilarious. It's a little model of Napoleon's coronation, but here I think he's crowning Josephine. For some reason, Les Invalides was really big on dolls.

Above the entrance to the lower level, where his tomb is, is this: "Je desire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine, au milieu de ce peuple francais qui j'ai tant aime." (I want my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, in the middle of this French people whom I have so loved.) (There are a couple of accents in there, but I'm lazy.) Awww, sweet. I don't, um, exactly know my French history, but I do know that there is a continuing Cult of Napoleon in modern Paris.

Napoleon liked his jewelry.There's his tomb! An awfully big tomb for a little man. You could fit about ten of me in there.

It was so pretty out, I just can't get over it. Of course this is our last gasp until winter returns, oh, tomorrow, for a nice long stay. Whatevs. The space under the Eiffel Tower was like Little America. Yankees caps everywhere.

rouen.

Saturday was spent in Rouen (largely) and on a bus (not as incidentally as one might have hoped) with a big chunk of the students on my program. Rouen is the capital of Normandy, north of Paris on the Seine; it's France's sixth major port. Joan of Arc was burned there, and Richard the Lion-Hearted's heart was given to the Rouen cathedral after his death. The heart is buried in his tomb there, and his body is in England. The Rouen cathedral is the one Monet painted six hundred million bajillion pictures of, in changing light. I'm sure you will remember this, if you try real hard.

The day pretty much couldn't have been any colder -- next time I decide it would be a great idea to go to Normandy in the winter, please slap me in the face -- but at least it was sunny.

I have no idea what this first church is, but it's lovely. [Ed. note: I looked it up. It's the church of St. Maclou, Gothic, 15th century. Thanks.] I couldn't go inside, because it was locked; there was a sign on the door saying that, after the church was firebombed last October, they decided to close it except for services because they couldn't afford to pay a guard there all the time. Fair enough. (It's also worth noting that Rouen is the first place in France that I've seen swastika graffiti.) There was a man out front playing the accordion, but I couldn't get a good picture of him. Actually, there were a lot of people playing the accordion in Rouen. Who knows why.

Rouen is also famous for its surviving half-timbered houses, like this:

I really like them.

I also went to the Church of St.-Ouen (12th-15th century), which has the most beautiful stained glass rose window.

I thought I had a better close-up of it, but turns out it's blurry.

Inside the church of St.-Ouen, they had these hanging posters (maybe ten like this, and then there were long skinny ones running along each side of the church). They were, as far as I could gather, reproductions of an original map of Rouen. What I liked best about the map was that the buildings on one side of the Seine were drawn right-side up, but the other side were upside down.

More half-timbered buildings:

This is the Cathedral de Notre Dame, the Rouen cathedral.
You may recognize it from this:Monet. We also went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts, where I took a picture of the only Monet-doing-the-Rouen-cathedral painting they had. Which is kind of shame, I feel like they should have all of them, in the same room. That would be great.
Musee des Beaux-Arts:
Inside the cathedral, they had a ton of these statues; I'm thinking they were taken down from outside the church to preserve them, given how worn down they all looked.

Sorry again about how dark this is. This is the tomb of Richard the Lion-Hearted's heart. Just think, it's in there, all desiccated and shrively-looking. Yum.

Bride, on cell phone; with Percheron.
That woman must have been so cold.