So where did we leave off? The sewer and the Eiffel Tower. The day after that we headed to the George Pompidou, which was literally a block and a half from our place, two at most. The Pompidou is a modern art museum, and it looks like it's under constant construction. The exterior is a mess of pipes, tubes, and braces, all in blue, white, red, and green. But interestingly enough, that's actually how it's supposed to look. A sort of modern art piece in itself. And even stranger, it's designed by the guy who did THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Yes, our California Academy of Sciences. They look entirely different, it's incredible. For my readers on the east coast, the Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum back home in San Francisco, in Golden Gate Park. Even without the roof it's quite different from the Pompidou; instead of a tall building of giant beams, braces, and pipes, it's a short, wide building of stone and glass, very modern. But even crazier, it has a living roof. The roof is covered in grasses and flowers, and it has three large hills on top. While the Pompidou is all metal and tubes, the Academy is all glass and plants. Very urban versus very natural. I could hardly believe it.
George Pompidou
Academy of Sciences
The difference is incredible.
Anyway, I was quite excited about visiting the Pompidou. I really enjoy modern art, more than even Impressionist art, so I figured it was going to be a lot of fun. And I was not disappointed. We saw many an interesting piece, including one which was a giant room with walls made of chalkboards which people could write on, and a guy who did interesting collages, many of them three-dimensional. In some ways it actually reminded me of the old Exploratorium back home, because when you walked in you just saw a gigantic open space with lots of people moving everywhere and lots of color. It actually isn't just a museum, it's also a community center. You can walk in for free and hang out in the café or play ping pong downstairs. It's pretty cool. Another interesting thing about it is that all those multicolored tubes and pipes outside actually mean something; initially green was plumbing, red was safety control, blue was climate control, and yellow was electricity (although my understanding is that they strayed from that path a bit). We also really enjoyed the outdoor escelator, which brought us to the very top of the six-story building and gave us a view of the entire city. The museum was a lot of fun, and like I said, the art left us far from disappointed.
The escelator
The view of Paris from the top of the Pompidou
Interesting, isn't it?
The chalkboard room
The day after the Pompidou we went to... drumroll please... the Catacombs! Remember how in my last post I mentioned that Paris had a huge problem with cemeteries in the city and people were living really close to their dead? Not to mention the fact that the cemeteries were quickly overflowing. Well, in the late 18th century one of the cemeteries reached its breaking point, and a whole pile of corpses pushed through the wall of a neighboring building, destroying it, and poured into its basement. Almost simultaneously, it was discovered that the medieval limestone quarries which wormed beneath the city for miles were beginning to fall apart, and entire sections of city blocks caved in and fell through the ground. The government needed to do something about both issues, and so they decided to kill two birds with one stone by mapping out the miles of quarries and moving the inhabitants of the overflowing cemeteries there, far underneath the city. It was an ingenious plan. Today the bones of an estimated 6 million people are sitting there, stacked in neat piles underground. And I mean far underground—about six stories down. After a torturous three-and-a-half-hour wait we found ourselves walking through dimly lit tunnels with walls made of femurs and skulls on either side of us. To complete the macabre scene, at regular intervals there were death-related quotes carved into stone and built into the walls. One of my favorites was, "In the morning assume that you will not live to see the evening, and in the evening assume that you will not live to see the morning." And of course the one which decorated the entrance to the catacombs: "Stop! Here lies the empire of the dead." Actually, it really felt like the humanity of it all was lost. I mean, those bones which were so neatly stacked to form walls belonged to people; those were real human beings. Instead the whole thing was turned into something out of a horror story, which doesn't quite respect the dead who were laid to rest there. Still, that also made it a lot more freaky, to be honest. Again, it was like something out of a horror story. A real horror story. I mean, how often do you see a real human bone, much less millions of them? The lighting, the quotes... they all helped to form the feeling of death in the air. Whoever designed that place was either a writer or a maniac.
Lovely!
That took probably about an hour and a half. I can't quite say that it was enjoyable, but it was definitely incredible. I would go again any day, although the line was killer. What can one really say about an experience like that? It was memorable. Actually, on a side note, my dad told me that these extensive catacombs (which we saw a mere fraction of) can be accessed from many buildings throughout the city, and that some people sneak into its restricted areas frequently, to throw parties or do art. If you're in the know you can just get into this random building, enter that unmarked door, and BAM! you're in the catacombs and free to do whatever you want. Feels like something out of a movie, doesn't it? I suppose if you really knew what you were doing you could just traverse the city underground, disappearing in one place and reappearing somewhere across town, completely discreetly. It's like the secret passageways in Harry Potter.
The Catacombs, with both the line and the actual exploring of the tunnels, took up about five hours, so that was it for the day. The next day was Museum Night. Basically in Europe they have this cool new tradition where once a year a bunch of museums in the city open up for a free visit in the evening and some stay open as late as midnight. We spent the morning doing work, etc. at home and then that evening headed out to the Louvre. We were all very excited because obviously, the Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world, and we were going to get in for free—hopefully. After all, maybe a ton of other people were going to try to get into the Louvre, too, and we wouldn't be able to get in because of the line. But we had our fingers crossed. When we arrived, thankfully, there were hardly any people there and we got in really quickly.
Gosh, what can I say? The Louvre is GIGANTIC. It has three massive wings which would each be considered an average-sized museum on their own. We barely even scratced the surface of it, and unfortunately we never came back for a second visit so I guess if I ever go to Paris again I'll have to head there first thing. Of course the Mona Lisa was one of the first things we saw. I must say, it is absolutely AMAZING in real life. The detail is incredibly precise, and even though it was about ten feet away and I wasn't wearing my glasses I could tell how fine its shading and lines were. My brother thought it was overrated; I thought it was beautiful and couldn't possibly be captured in photograph. I was rather upset that I didn't have my glasses with me, because it was annoyingly far away, but oh well, I saw it well enough and hopefully if I come back someday I'll remember my glasses. Anyway, we also saw some Greek and Roman statues (including the Venis di Milo and the Winged Victory) and a bunch of paintings, many of them well-known (although I can't think of their names off the top of my head). It's pretty amazing, because in the Louvre you can just be walking along, looking at some exceedingly good but relatively un-famous art and then BAM! run into one of the famous, iconic art pieces of all time. That's how it was for me with the Venus di Milo. Yeah, it was in the middle of the room, but when I walked in I wasn't expecting it, and I turn around and there it was! (On a side note, that's also how I felt when I saw Van Gogh's Starry Night at the MOMA in New York. The room was entirely empty and I just turned around the corner and saw it there, hanging on a boring, simple wall. Totally caught me off-guard.) Anyway, our visit to the Louvre was very fun, although as I said we barely scratched the surface and saw a mere fraction of the extensive museum, skipping many rooms and not even entering the third wing. I really hope I'll someday have the opportunity to go back, because there's honestly so much more to see.
OH MY GOODNESS.
An Internet image, because I wasn't close enough to get a clear photo. Sorry. ;)
The Louvre's architecture is just so beautiful!
After we left the museum we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset, which we snapped some photos of, and then we headed home. We were hoping to find a place where I could get a dessert and my parents could get an aperitif, but we ended up not finding anything within our budget so we headed home and went to sleep.
The next day we headed out again and went to an exhibit called "The Art of Brick." It was basically the art of a guy named Nathan Sawaya who made everything out of LEGOs. It's interesting because we expected to see stuff that was more like LEGO Land, where it's a bunch of dinosaurs and pirates and stuff made of LEGOs, but this was very different. The whole point of the art was not that it was made of LEGOs; it was simply art, and the medium of expression was LEGOs. I know that may not sound like it makes any sense, but let me explain. A good piece of art (and I mean visual art, like paintings and sculptures) is not only beautiful because it is visually appealing but because it is meaningful. Why did the artist choose to depict this? What do they mean to express? This guy's art wasn't cool just because it was made of LEGO (which was pretty cool on its own). If it had been made of, say, wood, it still would have been some pretty spectacular art. At first it was some pretty straightforward, even boring stuff, like a giant pencil and a computer and an apple, but they got increasingly more interesting. I started getting really pulled in when we got to the section that was all reproductions of famous art pieces (the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Scream, Starry Night, Klimt's The Kiss, etc.) which was fascinating because with each one, the artist kind of added his own touch. The section after that, however, really got me. It was all human figures, pretty much, and each one felt very deep and emotional. It's kind of hard to explain, but it felt like each one had some sort of deeper meaning despite being made of LEGO. I really enjoyed it, and that section took up a large portion of the exhibit.
I forgot to take pictures of the titles of the above two....
Yellow
Mask
Incomplete
Disintegration
Cracked
My Boy
Self
Ascension
Hanging on the Edge
Hands
Grasp
Mona Lisa
Scream
Starry Night
Michelangelo's David
The Wave
Jimi Hendrix!!!!!
If you want to see more of this guy's stuff, look him up on the Internet. His name is Nathan Sawaya and I think he's based in LA.
So, that was it for the day. The LEGO exhibit was definitely a highlight of our visit to Paris. The day after that was a stay-at-home day, and I went out with my mom to go shopping and get a haircut. I can't wait for it to warm up so that I can wear my cute new shorts! Anyway, the next day we went to a museum which was all about the history of inventions and technologies, ranging from the 18th century to the 21st. That was pretty interesting because we got to better understand the beginning of electricity and early engines as well as nuclear power and modern day machines.
An early (failed) plane
The day after that we went to another interesting science museum which was actually a lot like the Exploratorium. (Yeah I know I already compared the Pompidou to the Exploratorium, but that one just looked similar; this place actually was similar.) They had all these cool presentations about different things. We went to one about electricity and we watched as a woman and a girl (both with long hair) stood on a metal thing and the static electricity in the air caused their hair to stick out in all directions as if someone were pulling at it. They also stood inside a cage as electricity ran through it, all around them. They even put their hands up against the inside of the bars and were not even harmed. There was plenty of artificial lightning and glowing electricity in the dark and it was overall very cool. There was also an exhibit about the CERN linear accelerator, which is this giant underground machine that slams stuff together at the speed of light while scientists watch and study the results. It feels kind of childish, to be honest, although I'm sure people discover lots of cool stuff with it. But still, billions of dollars were spent on this machine just to see what would happen when you slam random stuff together? I don't even know if it was designed with a specific purpose in mind, although it probably was. Not to degrade the machine and the scientists working on it; I'm sure it's very important, but to an outsider it feels rather strange.
The two volunteers with their hair sticking out because of the static electricity
In the cage
I know this one's blurry but basically it was this electricity being sent down that center thing and it was reaching out towards the metal around it because metal is a good conductor of electricity. It's blurry because the streaks of "lightning" were moving so fast.
Overall, it was quite a fun museum. Unfortunately everything was in French, but we still enjoyed it. Although to be honest, language aside I prefer my old Exploratorium back home. ;)
After the museum we headed out to a dinner of Korean barbecue and then got a beautiful sunset view at the Place de la Concorde, the plaza where both Louis VI and Marie Antoinette were executed by guillotine. It has a beautiful ancient Egyptian obelisk, which was a gift from the Egyptian king Muhammed Ali (yeah no joke) and it's absolutely beautiful. It took them years to get it standing in its final position in the Place de la Concorde because the process of taking it down from its original spot in Egypt, moving it to a port and getting it on a ship, getting it across oceans, and then moving it from the River Siene to the Place de la Concorde was extremely difficult and lengthy. The platform alone which ran from the river to the plaza took three years to build. Three years!!!! That's a lot of work. But the obelisk looks beautiful today, and I think it was all worth it. Anyway, after taking some pictures and enjoying the plaza we headed home, and that was it for the day.
So! I guess this is the end of anther post. I'll be sure to keep you guys up to date, or at least try to! I'm so totally behind..... ): But it's ok, I'll be all caught up. Eventually. Stay tuned!
My dad was trying to take pictures of me and my brother jumping off of the fountain but Nicholas kept on jumping down instead of jumping up so even though my dad took about three or four sets of jumping photos in every single one I'm up in the air and Nick's halfway down already.
The obelisk
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