The Anticlimax

Well, as with most stories, it was all downhill after the climax of the trip, Paris. We spent some time relaxing, resting, and letting our knees and feet recover from all the museum-going. We went to see Transformers the Movie, which was awesome. German theaters are quite odd; there was assigned seating, an intermission halfway through the movie, and no AC. Great seats, though!

And now, at last, we are back home in the US. We had another horrible airport experience on our way home, with *gasp* what do you know, Lufthansa and Manchester Airport! The Lufthansa flight was late... again... and the pilot landed the plane as if he'd expected the ground to be about 50 feet further away than it was... *BOOM*. The lateness of our flight meant that we had to, literally, sprint to our next flight, to the alarming voice over the loudspeaker saying, "Last call for passengers Kafalas on AA Flight 95! Your plane is leaving!" We barely managed to make it, and our luggage, unfortunately, did not. It was shipped to us a couple days later. Yeah. Next time... non-stop flights, no question. Ugh.

But all in all, we had an amazing adventure. I have decided that I'd like to move to Europe for a while at some point, possibly to Italy, or Spain, and actually be exposed to that world for a long enough period of time to really take it in. Of course, I'm sure you could live there your whole life, and not ever take it all in, but what better way to try, than to just up and move there?

I'm thankful to John, for letting us have this opportunity, and thankful for my family for helping Amber and I get a real taste of some European culture.

Thank you all for tuning in, I hope you enjoyed my blog! See you next adventure!

Paris, PART III

There were many more places we wanted to see, but we also wanted to get some shopping done; Amber was adamant about finding a jacket, so she could say, "Oh, this old thing? I got this in Paris. Oui!" Well, maybe not, but she still really wanted to go shopping. And I still had one or two things I wanted to pick up myself.

Our first stop was the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur, which amber had heard is definitely worth checking out. We took the subway over, and discovered that it's in a fairly seedy area of town, full of chintzy shops catering to the masses of tourists that flock to Paris. We looked around for a while before giving up, knowing that these shops weren't going to satisfy us. The Basilica was beautiful, and the view was quite nice. Though truthfully, any views after the Eiffel Tower all sort of pale in comparison. Maybe we should have saved that for last...?

The Basilica of the Sacré Cœur

On the steps of the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur.

Quite a nice view from up at the Basilica!

From Sacré Cœur, we made our way over the The Arc de Triomphe, which really fascinated me. The thing is HUGE, far grander than I had imagined (surprise, surprise). The first challenge upon getting there is actually crossing the street to see it, being that it's surrounded by an eight lane rotary. No no, you didn't quite get that. EIGHT LANE ROTARY. John told us about some friends of his family who once got stuck in that rotary for over three hours once, because it was rush hour, and they somehow wound up in the innermost lane, with no way of getting out. Talk about a driving nightmare. Fortunately for pedestrians, there's a tunnel underneath that automotive hell. We took a million pictures of the Arc, and again marvelled at the sculptures and craftsmanship of it. I wouldn't have thought this monument would be terribly amazing, but now it's one of my favorites in all of Europe.

The Arc de Triomphe

The Rotary from HELL.

The pictures I'd seen of The Arc de Triomphe made me say, "Yeah, pretty cool." Actually seeing it made me say, "WHOA!"

The intricacy of the sculptures lining the Arc was exquisite.

Each one seemed to tell an epic story.

I could have spent a fair amount of time just staring at these sculptures, trying to imagine the stories and imagination behind them.

From The Arc, we made our way directly down Champs-Élysées, which is basically the most posh shopping district in Paris, or so we were told. Most of the stores on this road were so ritzy my wallet almost leapt out of my pocket as soon as I got within arm's reach of the front doors. But it was definitely an experience. I did a lot of sitting (Waiting for Amber), and had a wonderful time just watching the people on this street. I really like visiting Newbury Street in Boston, if only to watch people as they try so hard to impress one another, and this was like that, only a hundred fold.

John eventually got frustrated with waiting, and wandered off to try and find some 'Heelys' shoes (We'd been seeing kids flying around on Heelys all around Paris, and John finally said, "Damnit, I want to do that too!"). And so, Amber and I got some shopping done before eventually working our way back to the subway.

We were going to try and see another church near Notre Dame, but it was closed for renovations, so we headed back to Roissy-en-France for dinner.

We ate at "The Place," a fancy futuristic restaurant. The service was mind-numbingly slow, Amber's "lasagna" didn't have noodles, or cheese, or tomato sauce, and John found a shard of glass in his dessert. Yeah, didn't leave much of a tip.

But all shards of glass and lasagna aside, Paris has been an amazing experience! You definitely need a lot more time to really get into the city though; I'd like to maybe move here for a few months sometime, and really take in the culture. But, I have an excuse to pay a visit back soon; to bring Kat along and show her the city!

Yep, definitely on Champs-Élysées. *cough sputter*

There was an awesome Toyota concept car showroom on Champs-Élysées. Here we see a Toyota SmartCar wannabe.

Given the opportunity, I would have bought this car on the spot. Not only was it straight out of some fanboy nerd fantasy, but it looks like a Storm Trooper, and it's a highly efficient hybrid as well. I believe I can summarize with: *DROOL*

A crazy two-wheeled motorcycle we saw... it only has one wheel in the back, though. Bizarre!

On the train ride back out to Roissy-en-France, we noticed that almost every available surface was covered with graffiti. Some of it, quite amazing!

Graffiti covers every inch of reachable wall space out here.

Amber looks back towards Paris longingly.

Jason looks towards Transformers the Movie longingly.

A local resident of Roissy-en-France. These guys are EVERYHWERE. No wonder someone at one point just said, "You know, let's just eat them, already."

Paris, PART II

Amber and I made our way to the Louvre as early as we could, but still managed to only get there by 10:00am, what with the extra-long ride on the RER train. John elected not to go as early, as he really doesn't have a huge appreciation for art, and definitely has an appreciation for sleeping in.

We first made our way towards the Italian Paintings, to see the Mona Lisa and some other famous portraits before the crowds got too hectic. Even early in the morning, the entire wing was swamped. The L-S grads we'd met at Neuschwanstein said, "You wait in line for like two hours, finally get to the front, and the Mona Lisa is actually this tiny little picture." Definitely an American view. If it's not huge and flashy, it doesn't live up to its hype.

Personally, I wasn't waiting to see the Mona Lisa to be impressed, I was waiting just to have seen it with my own eyes. When John asked why we were so set on seeing it and why it was so popular, Amber explained how revolutionary the painting was in a number of ways, and I explained that the mystery of the painting is what intrigues me; not only the fairly obscure and seemingly unimportant identity of the subject herself, but the alluring, mysterious smile that she is portrayed with. The fact that analysts have discovered three seperate layers of the painting itself also fascinates me; why was it redone? Why is the background so surreal and imaginary? Why doesn't the horizon match up on her left and right sides? Why doesn't she have facial hair? It's not that the painting is the best painting of all time, but it is definitely a captivating piece, which showcases some of da Vinci's true talent, and it revolutionized many artistic techniques. For these reasons, I respect it, and really wanted to see it in person.

Amber was fascinated by many of the paintings, but I discovered that my real interest lies in the Louvre's sculpure collections. Amber was most impressed by The Winged Victory of Samothrace and Venus de Milo. Being that I know nothing about sculpture, and only just discovered an interest in it, I was fascinated to hear her explain to me why each was so important and revolutionary.

Approaching the Louvre

Amber finally gets to the Louvre! Woohoo!

I forget what this painting's called, but it was okay.

Madonna of the Rocks, if memory serves me correctly.

Jason goofs around with the camera by one of the pyramids.

More goofing around!

John better hurry up before Jason starts doing martial a-- Oh. Too late.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Venus de Milo

I loved how stylized this sculpture was. So angular, yet soft at the same time.

"Spider sense is tingling!"

There were several of these huge inner courtyards, packed full of amazing sculptures. I wish I could spend a few days just loafing around in here, sketching.

This was one of my favorite sculptures.

I can imagine how exciting sculptures like this must have been ages ago. Akin to going to the movies today, I suppose.

Myes. I ahm l'touriste.

Eventually John joined us, and we explored as much of the Louvre as we could before we were 'le tired' as Amber put it, and decided to break for some lunch. We still had a few hours left in the day, though, so we decided to continue our Museum stint and return to the Centre Pompidou, which, being that it was no longer Tuesday, should now be open for business.

Now, let me just say, I really appreciated the Louvre. The amount of history in that place is unfathomable, and it's almost hard to believe that the works you're seeing are actually the craftsmanship of the most famous artists of all time. My brain just has a hard time coping with that. The Centre Pompidou, however, was a complete brain gear-shift. Suddenly, the works of art you're looking at are not on display for their fame, or their history, or by virtue of the fact that their creator was reknowned or revolutionary, but simply due to the fact that they are fascinating works of artistic genius, and that's something I can better relate to. I guess I really feel that most of the works in the Louvre are out of my league; that I need to do research, and learn about the history not only of the piece, but the artist, and the times that the artist was living in, before I can truly appreciate the power behind the works. Modern art, however, is far simpler: Behold the beauty and mystery of the piece, and interpret it as you will. Sure, you can read about the pieces, and see what the artist was actually thinking, but sometimes, it's more fun not to!

Skinny car! How awesome is that.

"The Yellow Room," we called it. Not much in it, but it's awesome as you approach it. There are beds in it, and the yellow light is supposed to alter your melatonin levels and make you tired, I think John read.

Some hilarious and awesome stools.

I have a lot of respect for furniture design. SO crazy, and ingenious.

Emergency Air-Drop Piano.

I was bewildered by this piece of furniture before I realized that, no matter what side it rests on the ground upon, there is a different seating area on it that becomes avaliable. Neat!

Almost like digital smoke, but I think it was actually a building design. Each slice is a floor.

Rhino-Ceros?

Amber and I both really liked this one.

These metal flowers were mind-bogglingly intricate.

John! Wake up! There are other exhibits!

Cheese Chair!

We walked around the Centre until my knees were about to explode, and John's feet were about to unhinge themselves. But Amber was far from done, so we sat down while she pored over the library of books for sale in the museum's store.

One thing that is interesting about Germany and France, is that the days are MUCH longer. The sun stays up until well after 10pm each night, so when I'm suddenly thinking, "Ahhh, looks to be about dinner time!", it's actually more like bedtime. That being said, we got some dinner around 11pm, and quickly hurried back to catch the last train out of Paris. John had Doner Kebab, which Amber thought was disgusting. It looked pretty good to me, but didn't have anything over Schnitzel. Mmmmm. Schnitzel.

Oh, but how could I forget the sweets? If there's one thing we REALLY took advantage of, it's the fact that every ten feet is a store or a stand selling pastries, candy, chocolate, or some sort of sugar-coma-inducing delicacy. We filled up on as much as we could. There was one little place right in the central subway station, Chatelet, that sold a variety of amazing chocolates; Amber payed $3 for a single chocolate, and I tried one the next day; It was good enough that I would have payed a lot more. Yeah... Definitely a good thing we don't have places like that so abundantly around here. My diet would be shot to HELL.

I make a point of finding signs that make me giggle in every city we visit. Hehehe.

Paris, PART I

Ahhh, Paris! What an amazing place!

It took us less time to drive to Paris than I imagined, only about 4 hours. The train was out of the question, as it cost upwards of $400 per person, for some reason. But perhaps we were just looking at the wrong trains. We also intelligently waited to the last minute to make our hotel reservations, and almost didn't get a room! We had our eye on a couple hotels right in the inner city, that were nice and cheap, but when we actually went to book them, we found out that they were full up all week. Gulp.

Using some French hotel reservation website, we managed to track down one triple room in a small podunk hotel about 25Km outside of the city, and we desperately made the reservation.

The drive out went smoothly enough, but when we reached the outskirts of Paris, we were met with one of the ugliest thunderstorms I've ever seen. Just our luck! It was so bad I was literally on the watch for Tornados. Thankfully, it passed over us fairly quickly, and we were on our way again. We ended up going to the wrong hotel, because apparently there are two of the same name in Paris, and people get them mixed up all the time. Ours, naturally, was the smaller, crappier, further-away of the two. It was located in a small village outside of Paris called Roissy-en-France, which was actually a wonderfully quaint little place, full of nice walks and cute little restaurants. The hotel room was TINY, but our only criteria were: Beds and Shower. So, good enough!

The Storrrrrrm!

Yeah, those wipers can't go fast enough to help.

Roissy-en-France

After the Storm

This room was ~TINY~

But for some reason, the bathroom was almost as big as the rest of the room...

On our first day in Paris, we decided to drive into the city and park near the Subway and get around via that. Yeah. WRONG. John almost had numerous heart attacks, and swears that never again will he drive in Paris, EVER. And here I thought Boston was full of bad drivers. I don't care how proud Bostonians are of their horrible driving, they don't hold a candle to Paris. Just imagine every single person cutting off everyone they ever have the opportunity to, no matter what the circumstances, while flying down roads exorbitantly fast, all the while with motorcycles and scooters ROCKETING down the aisle between lanes and dodging in and out of traffic like there's no tomorrow.

WARNING: Your car will explode if you drive in Paris. If your patience doesn't first.

Needless to say, we gave up after not having found a parking space for an hour, and John was losing what little hair he has left. So, we retreated to the Hotel, and consulted a Tourist Information center for what the best way would be for us to get into the city from way out in the boonies. As it turns out, there was a shuttle that could take us to the airport, and from there we could take the Paris equivalent of the Commuter Rail into the city. Score!

We knew that the Louvre would demand a solid chunk of time from us, so we decided a good afternoon-trip might be the Centre Pompidou instead, one of Paris' premier modern art museums. So we made our way over, and upon arriving, discovered that it's... closed... on Tuesdays. At this, John insisted on calling it the Center for Pompous Doodoo for the rest of the trip.

Fortunately, we were close to Notre Dame, another stop we were planning on, so we moseyed on over there. Now, I knew that Notre Dame was supposed to be an amazing cathedral. But as usual with such things, my expectations were blown out of the water at the magnitude of the beauty I beheld. I can't even imagine the great lengths people must have gone to to achieve such a monumental undertaking of art and architecture. And I discovered that it is impossible to take a bad photo of the cathedral, which I know as a fact, because if anyone can take a bad photo, it's me. We wandered around the inside and outside of Notre Dame in stunned awe for about an hour, before breaking into a philosophical argument based on John calling it "just a building," and Amber and I vehemently defending it. In quite a miff, we decided to continue on our way, and put the debate out of our minds.

A road in Paris. This city is filled to the brim with amazing people and things to see.

A view overlooking the Seine.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Naturally, Jason must be photographed as The Hunchback.

Unfortunately, the inside of the Cathedral is dark enough that photography without a tripod is a challenge.

Wandering around the side of Notre Dame.

Behind the Cathedral.

Proof that we were actually there!

Aww, no bearhug this time?

By this time, it was late afternoon, and we decided that it might be nice to try and go up the Eiffel Tower. Here again, I had preconceptions about the tower, about how high it was, and how complex. And again, totally blown out of the water. Maybe it's just the awe of finally seeing these things face-to-face, but it was the second time I was utterly humbled in as many hours. John and I were dead-set on taking the stairs up, but we remembered that Amber is not to excert herself, what with recovering from Mono and all, so we got in line for one of the elevators. A couple hours later, we were finally on our way up the South leg of the tower, with our sights set on the very top.

At the top, I was completely humbled, for the third time, when I finally saw how staggeringly large a city Paris really is. I was totally unprepared for the scope of this amazing place. I suppose in some way, I compare all cities to Boston in one way or another, being my only real frame of reference. And... yeah. Sorry Boston! Paris is huge, and also a fairly high city as well, with most buildings across the entire city being like 5-6 storeys at least. I guess this is how a city looks when it's had thousands of years to develop and mature. Absolutely breathtaking.

We were hooked. We stayed at the top of the tower for about four hours, just gaping in awe. We were fortunate enough to be there for sunset, which just added to the splendor. We met a nice British guy while up there, whom I must quote in saying, "You must be Americans, you're too loud to be Canadians."

Even the quiet backstreets and alleys of Paris had me gaping in awe at the beauty and maturity of the architecture. I felt like a character in some fantasy story half the time, as cheesy as that may sound.

The Eiffel Tower!

The Elevators work their way up each of the legs... slowly...

The Ultimate Tourist Trap

Jason lounges in line on the "Second floor."

A Breathtaking view from the top! The Esplanade du Trocadéro is prominent in this view.

The breadth of this city boggles the mind.

A dizzying view down the tower.

Just let 'em try to kick us out! We're up here for good!

"Hehe look, I'm 'stuck!' ...Wait a minute... SHIT!"

Sunset over Paris. Ahhhhhh.

Looking down an exhaust port in the Death Star. Er, I mean, descending the leg in the evening.

Do we have to go?

So, despite the fact that the Centre Pompidou was closed, and driving in the morning was a nightmare, our day was still one of the most memorable of the entire trip. Our eyes were sparkling and we were still somewhat stunned by what we'd seen when we finally got back to the hotel room.

What a city!