Boy did we fit in a lot of fun today! In fact this morning was one of the funnest days I have ever had. And yes, I know that funnest isn’t a word, but shouldn’t it be? Katie and I agree that it is a lot more fun to say “funnest” than “the most fun”, so we’ll go with the funnest way to express the fun that we had. We spent four hours this morning taking a Segway tour around Paris!! Our intrepid leader was Matt, an Australian in Paris attending college and studying physical comedy, you know mime! Seriously! He’s a miming student! We had group of nine tourists, including us three Americans, two British couples in their 50s and a 30-something Norwegian couple.
Despite the range in our ages and athletic abilities, Matt has up zipping around on the Segways in no time at all. It was amazing how each of us went from tentative novice to expert in a matter of 20 minutes. We started with a training session in a plaza near the tour office. As we followed Matt out of the office with our helmets securely on, but away from the long row of Segways, I turned to Paul and whispered “Does he realize he didn’t give us a Segway yet??”
But Matt first wanted us each to try one at a time on his machine. We started with a British lady who had done it before, and then Matt picked Katie to try next. Katie was pretty nervous with all the adults watching her, but she stepped on and was soon underway. A Segway responds to shifts in your weight and the hardest part is staying still, which requires equal weight on each foot. It’s pretty easy to drift forward and back as your weigh shifts slightly. Once Katie mastered balancing and could remain still, she learned to turn to the left, turn to the right and go forward and backward. Just like that she was zipping around. We each got a turn to try out the Segway under Matt’s leadership. During my turn I was concentrating so hard that Matt was slightly mocking my serious face, but I was soon able to relax. On Paul’s turn it became apparent that Matt’s Segway was too short and Paul had a bit of trouble with the handlebars. One of the older British gents turned to me and remarked, “He’s quite a tall lad isn’t he?” Once we were all set, we got our own Segways (Paul’s in extra tall) and off we went. Within minutes we were all comfortable and zipping along the Paris sidewalks and bike lanes. The closest experience I have to riding the Segway is skiing. You shift your weight in the same manner and the air whips past your face at about the same speed. Of course with the Segway there is less chance of falling and you stay much warmer!
Matt led us past all the big sights in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower where a small dog barked his head off at us, Napoleon’s tomb, the Seine river, Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens. It was absolutely so much fun to zip down the byways, stopping every so often for photos and some tour info from Matt. Whenever we had to wait for a stop light, it was fun just to spin in place, first right and then left. We stopped at a café in the Tuileries garden for a light snack and to recharge the Segways. I relaxed and enjoyed an expresso while we all chatted. Matt told us that the recharge is just a precaution and he’s never had anyone run out of batteries. The bigger and more unstable you are, the more the sensors work adjusting the Segway balance and the more the battery is drained. He said that once he took a group of Asian college students out on a tour, and with the combination of their small size, light weight and good balance it was as through the machines hadn’t even been used.
We were joking around at each other’s countries, the Brits laughing about loving to stand in queues, and us getting teased about not following world cup “football”. We were then talking about all the historical sights and I mentioned something about how we’re lucky to only have 250 years of history to study not thousands, and Matt remarked how very American it was to believe you only have to study your own history. How funny, and yet so absolutely true! I don’t know if it is a commentary on the schools that I went to in particular or American schools in general, but I agree that we way overemphasize American history while shortchanging world history. In fact, I only took three years of history in high school, a very basic “world cultures” course, an American history course that only covered through reconstruction, and a geography course. Then I didn’t take any history at all in college, so I’ve actually never had world history. I’ve learned a lot on my own, but if you aren’t driven to do so, you can really leave our educational system without even the basics of world history.
But back to our Segway tour. We finished up at the café (of course Katie had a nutella crepe) and we hit the road. On the way back we just had fun riding the Segways with no real tour information. The big sturdy Norweigan guy loved the Segway and was continually drifting to the back of the pack and then speeding like Evel Knieval past everyone at full throttle to the front again. Every time this big Scandinavian speed past me standing straight up with perfect posture, but moving like the wind, I was laughing like crazy. We were very reluctant to give them back at the end of the tour and both Paul and Katie informed me that they want Segways for their birthdays.
After the tour we walked, which now felt like slow trudging after the quickness of the Segways, to the Musee D’Orsay. It’s a great museum in a beautiful converted train station, and one of Paul’s favorite places. Unfortunately the upper level was under renovation and their extraordinary collection of Impressionist works was all relocated into subpar temporary spaces. We still liked it, but it wasn’t optimal. Interestingly we did see a lot of paintings of locations in the Montmarte regions that we had seen the day before, and that was really neat.
We then headed to the Orangerie, which is a small museum in the Tuileries gardens designed specially to display eight large water lily paintings by Claude Monet in two oval shaped rooms that he designed. Natural light comes in a skylight and diffuses over the paintings, making them more magical the longer you look at them. I want to go back sometime and spend a long time just sitting there observing the paintings. But it was a long day and we were tired. We collapsed on the grass outside the museum and pulled out some books as we relaxed in the sun. A perfect ending to a perfect day.
Always wanted to ride a Segway, but my balance is horrible! Orangerie is my favorite Paris museum.
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