April 6th - Da Vinci Code and Macaroons

Thursday, April 6^th

We are relaxing into Paris living.  We are now quite adept at using the subway and navigating our neighborhood.  We know where to get food, snacks and bread and have been trying a wide variety of French sweets.  Today we had the most amazing cookies – macaroons, but not the American coconut macaroons. These looked like miniature whoopee pies, about the size of a quarter. They come in at least a dozen different bright colors, in flavors such as apricot, pistachio and raspberry.  We saw a gentleman walking through the left bank region today with a plastic sleeve full of them and were instantly intrigued. “What were those?” Katie gasped.  To our delight two shops down we found out.  There was a huge display case full of them and a woman dispensing them into the plastic tubes with small tongs.  We ordered apricot, raspberry and of course chocolate.  The first bite was an explosion of flavor in my mouth. How could something be both crispy and chewy?  The crispy skin gave way to a chewy layer and a small crème center.  OH MY GOSH!  My taste buds were screaming in delight.  These alone were worth the trip. 

What else have we been doing?  Well it all pales in comparison to the macaroons, but we did go the Louvre yesterday. 

We had started the day by wandering through the gardens of the Rodin museum.  It’s a steal at 1 euro to access the sculpture gardens outside the museum.  The statues were fun to see, but Katie was surprised to see the Thinker.  “Isn’t that in Washington D.C.?” she asked warily, quite familiar with the Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian movie. Upon learning that there are 33 copies of the Thinker because Rodin cast the statues using molds, she promptly called him a cheater and lost interest in his artistic merit.  So we moved on to a stop of her choice:  the Paris Sewer museum.  We paid our 7 euro and descended into the actual sewer line near the Seine.  How they figured out people would pay for the privilege of going into the sewer is a mystery to me. We saw some displays on water treatment and storm water management, and many large signs warning us to touch NOTHING, and to wash our hands thoroughly at the end of the tour. NICE!  Most of the time it was OK, but at times as we wandered beneath the streets the smell got pretty strong and the water flowing in the pits got pretty solid looking.  At one point some water (I hope it was water) dripped on my head and I freaked out.  Overall it was interesting and yet simultaneously nasty. The stuffed animal rats for sale in the “gift shop” (which was really not much more than a table set up in the sewer) was a nice touch.  We washed thoroughly in the WC and headed to the Tuileries gardens.

We have taken to carrying our Kindles with us, and relaxed in the gardens for an hour or so reading.  We enjoyed Nutella crepes, a baguette sandwich (Amy) and a croque monsieur (Katie). Around five pm we headed into the Louvre through the glass pyramid. The pyramid is kind of interesting, but in the end not really that impressive.  We had a tour on the kindle that we followed through the museum, hitting all the highlights.  The evening time was a great time to go because although there were people around, it wasn’t packed.  We were able to get pretty close to all the “big name” works of art, including front row at the Mona Lisa  It’s really intriguing to me as to why the “big three” are the big three.  What makes Mona Lisa, Venus de Mila and Winged Victory that much better than the others?  Katie was particularly unimpressed with the Venus de Milo. “Why her and not  one of the other Greek or Roman statues?” she asked looking around a huge room filled with Greek statues.  In fact Venus has a huge seam across her hips that doesn’t match from slab to slab well at all so I can see her point.  Who decrees these works are the best?  On the other hand Katie was thrilled with Winged Victory, which honestly I don’t really get. I was more interested in the French guard screaming “NO FLASH” at the tops of her lungs every 30 seconds to absolutely no avail.  At what point will she give up?  Does she dread having a shift at Winged Victory rather than in some nice quiet room, or does she look forward to confrontation with thousands of tourists in dozens of languages? How many languages can she scream “NO FLASH” in?  Is “NO FLASH” the same in French and English or did she think that Americans (or Brits or Canadians) are the worst offenders?

Katie and I both just read the Da Vinci Code so I tried to get her to lie on the floor in the Grand Gallery like Jacques Sauniere and the Vitruvian man but she wasn’t buying that. She also didn’t want me to do it. We finished the highlight tour in about 90 minutes and without crowds it was pretty relaxing.  Interestingly the guard at the Mona Lisa didn’t scream “NO FLASH” at all, and everyone was using flash.  I think he had checked out mentally.  We finished by the ticket offices inside the glass pyramid and wandered down a connector hallway which had a Starbucks and a post office.  Katie sent a post card to her class from the Louvre, and I took a picture of a Tibetan monk in orange robes buying a coffee at Starbucks.  The pyramid inversee was also there to check out. 

We caught the subway home and let me tell you – taking the subway at 7pm from the busiest region in Paris is decidedly unpleasant. Wall to wall people – it was so hot in the car I could hardly breathe and it’s only April. It must be one of the circles of hell in August.

Today we wandered over Luxembourg gardens and ate lunch at a little café where the waiter did not speak English to me.  However, we got through the meal just fine.  It was a real highlight for me because Katie got to order an Omlette au Fromage. Sadly for those of us who grew up listening to Steve Martin comedy albums it was not an “Omlette du Fromage” which is bad French.  Those of you who’ve heard the albums know the bit I am referencing!!!   It was a thrill though and I am still tempted to order an Omlette du Fromage just because.

The gardens were full of Parisians in the middle of the day on a Thursday just lying in the sun.  When do these people work?  The number of people who come outside to picnic at lunch and lay on the grass in any street meridian is amazing. I love it here.  Katie and I found lounge chairs, took out the kindles and relaxed in the sun.  After a couple of hours we walked around the park a bit to check out the marionette theater, the chess area, the ping pong tables and of course, the ice cream stand.

We then used the kindle to take a walking tour of the left bank area, including St. Sulpice, also from the Da Vinci code.  We saw the “Rose Line” and the obelisk where the albino monk cracked the floor. It seems the church is less than thrilled about all the Da Vinci code tourists coming through and they have a sign at the obelisk denoucing all the claims made in a “recent best seller”. The other highlights of the left bank included the delicious macaroons and many other amazing patisseries. It was hard to not buy something at them all.  But we did make a note of where they are for another day…..