How should I begin? I think I'm going to start by recounting the story of Charles Lindbergh; or rather, Nicholas and Charles Lindbergh. I'm sure you all remember it to some extent, but I'll give you a refresher.
Three-year-old Nicholas had one of the most amazing preschool teachers ever. His name was Mr. Sanath, and he was pretty above average, teaching three and four-year-olds about anything, from how volcanoes work to who invented the first plane. Yeah, I'm sure you know that, but did you know it when you were three? Nicholas would come home from school with all kinds of random bits of knowledge, and sometimes he would surprise us all by jumping into a conversation and saying, "Mr. Sanath says..." and go on to exaplain one of his random nuggets of knowledge which I, a 6-year-old, had never heard of in my life.
Charles Lindbergh was one of those moments. I had never heard of the man before, but Nicholas came home talking about him endlessly. In case you don't know, Charles Lindbergh was the first person to ever perform a non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic, going from New York to Paris. Nicholas was completely obsessed with the story, recounting it numerous times. Charles Lindbergh was one of his first heroes.
You also must remember that he was three at the time, and three-year-olds are extremely attached to their parents. So every morning when we tried to drop him off at preschool he would throw a huge fit. The only way we could get him to arrive peacefully was by strapping him into his little aviator's cap and leather jacket, getting into my mom's Rav4 (which was a new and improved Spirit of St. Louis) and to the soundtrack of La Vie en Rose, flying from "New York" to "Paris" where we dropped off our little Charles Lindbergh without a fuss. And ever since then, Nicholas has wanted to go to Paris.
Charles Lindbergh
Lindbergh with his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, which he flew in his trans-Atlantic flight.
Nick's ten now, as I'm sure the majority of you know. It's crazy to think of how much my little Nick has grown up. Of course, he's still got a lot of growing to do, but seven years have passed and now we are going to Paris. (Yes, seven years may not seem like a lot, but remember that it's a little over half my lifetime.) So as I recounted in my last post, as we drove through the beautiful cobblestone streets of Paris in our rented Renault Captur, my dad put on La Vie en Rose. We really were finally there.
We arived without much excitement. I should probably add that the place we were originally going to stay at had a malfunctioning shower faucet, and so instead of staying there the owner of the apartment was letting us stay at his place instead, while he went to the other place. And this place is AMAZING. It's a lot bigger than the one that we originally had, and it's in one of the best neighborhoods in Paris, within close walking distance of the Louvre, the George Pompideu, the Notre Dame, and a ton of other major sites. It's absolutely perfect.
As soon as we settled in my parents had to head out and drop off our rental car--the faithful (and filthy) little Renault Captur which served us for so long. My brother and I ended up staying at home for a few hours, doing work, etc. When my parents finally got home we were all starving, but guess what? THEY GOT US CHINESE TAKEOUT. My brother and I were indescribably happy. We were kind of getting tired of all the French food. I love European food, let's get that straight, but in Simone World there are probably about three types of comfort food: Mexican food, southern food, and Asian food of all kinds. And we were pretty starved of all three of those at the moment. So when we smelled those Imperial Rolls and chow mein and orange chicken, we were ecstatic. We ended up totally pigging out. And since that day, our first day in Paris, we have only had French food once.
The Renault Captur, which we used for over half of our trip.
Our first day in Paris (or at least the first day where we actually did something) was spent at the Musée Carnavalet. It was a lot of fun, a combination of artifacts and art, and my favorite part by far was the jewelry shop designed by Alphonse Mucha. If you remember from Prague, Mucha was the art neauvou guy who made lots of posters and graphic art for numerous companies and individuals. He is now one of my favorite artists. Anyway, in 1901 the jeweler Georges Fouquet asked Mucha to design a new shop for him. And design it he did! It's beautiful, with elegantly curving display cases, colorful stained glass, and intricate patterns on everything. It looked like Mucha's beautiful two dimensional art brought to life. I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone visiting Paris (*cough cough* Greg and Teresa *cough cough*). It was by far the highlight of our visit to the Musee Carnavalet, although the entire museum was very interesting.
The gorgeous façade of the jewelry store
IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!
Remember this?
All right, on to our next day in Paris! Next stop was the Musée d'Orsay. (In case you didn't already know/notice, "musée" means museum.) I must say, it's quite a spectacular building. Originally it was a train station, and quite a beautiful one at that. It's not at all difficult to believe when you look at the six-story glass ceilings and giant clocks 10-foot clocks. I honestly wish train stations were made like that today! Although I suppose they were a bigger deal then, as the best mode of land travel. Comparable to a modern airport in a major city, which explains why it was so intricately designed. We do, after all, often make a big deal about large airports. Anyway, it was beautifully repurposed. Probably the most exciting part was the museum's extensive collection of Impressionist arts. I love Impressionist paintings, personally, because I find it fascinating how the artist can capture the lighting and mood of a scene in such simple brushstrokes and colors. Impressionism really took art away from the subject and more towards the mood of the painting, using lighting and color to accomplish that. I also find it interesting how colors can actually be used to give a different sense of the light. When you look at an Impressionist painting close up, it just feels like a random collection of brushstrokes. But stand back, and you've got a masterful painting. We definitely enjoyed the exhibit. There was also a sizable collection of art nouveau works, which I enjoyed. Overall it was quite a fun experience.
Incredibly beautiful for a train station... or for anything, really.
The next day we headed for the Notre Dame. After a length of time in which my brother made a few corny jokes, ("It got its name because a woman named Notre kept on bugging the designer and saying, 'What's it called? What's it called?' over and over and then he said, 'Notre, damn!' and she said 'ok' and wrote it down so now it's called Notre Dame, get it?") and my parents marveled over how it changed in the twenty years since they last saw it, ("It was so much dirtier back then!") and we all agreed that we were grateful that there was no scaffolding, ("Thank goodness, I'm sick of that stuff.")we finally made it inside and got an English language tour of the place. I must say, the Notre Dame (which I'm sure you'll recall means "Our Lady") was beautiful. Started in the Middle Ages (12th century, I believe), it is centered on the small island between the two forks of the Siene, right in the middle of the city. Like many churches and cathedrals in Europe, it was actually built on the remains of a Roman temple. I suppose it doesn't really matter though, because the Romans became Christian, right? Overall, the tour was very interesting, and very enjoyable. Afterwards we went out for some dessert (can't go wrong with a powdered sugar coated waffles with two ice cream scoops on top) and thus ended our third day in Paris.
All right, I've obviously still got a lot of stories to relate, but my mother said I should end this post here and then continue for another day. So for now, good bye!
Such a beautiful cathedral!
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