Paris with the fam

Barbara and Bill joined us for a magical weekend in the biggest French theme park (known as Paris) last week, and we had a really good, busy, and fun time!

I’ll start with the hotel, which had a smell oddly similar to what I would imagine the inside of George Burns’s mouth smelled like – old, smoky, dry, 1957, bourbon. In general, it was good. It put us in a lively, young, and very livable neighborhood in the northwest corner of Paris’s 11th Arrondissement where we could walk to all the major sites. And it even had hot water. No complaints.

After checking in, we headed out for our first sojourn into the "the City of Lights" (dubbed so because the city was an early adopter of street-lighting), walking to the Place de la Bastille, at which some substantially consequential historic event occurred a long time ago. After staring pensively at the monolith for a while and pretending to wax historical about the place (citing the words “Bastille Day” and “French Revolution”), we deducted that it looked a lot like a loaf of French bread and went on our way, satisfied with our conclusion.

Afterward, we walked to the impressive and gothic Notre Dame Cathedral, made famous by the popular and schmaltzy Walt Disney version of Victor Hugo's novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

It was huge, and ornate, and full of people doing religious stuff. So, after whispers and pictures, we walked to a nearby cutesy theme-park-like area and had an emblematic Parisian dinner of gyros and orangina. Viva le France!

After the satisfying meal, we taxied to the Eiffel Tower, gawked like everyone else, and took many vertical shots of the structure while waiting in line to ride to the top. Eventually, we got to the top and all agreed that la Ville Lumière was certainly full of lumière. It offered some pretty spectacular night-time views and was certainly a highlight of the tour.

BUT – and this is a big but – it was a bit nerve-racking. I had done some reading about the city before we went (as was made obvious by the intelligent comments about the Bastille) and found out that the Tour Eiffel was built as a TEMPORARY display of architectural engineering prowess to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. Yes, temporary.

This got me thinking, you know how big buildings are said to sway back and forth in the wind by a couple feet in each direction because this supposedly helps keep the building stable? Well, the Eiffel Tower wasn’t built to do that. In fact, it has never swayed more than an inch in any direction, despite the fact that it’s huge and was the tallest building in the world until 1930.

So, as you can tell in this picture, it was a bit windy at the top of the Eiffel Tower that night, and, if there would have been any creaking to accompany the wind, my pants would have ended up moister than the coffee we had the next morning.

In addition to the coffee that next morning, we each had a croissant, a baguette and jelly. Pretty simple – and filling enough to kickstart our jaunt to the first stop: Montmartre – the area of Paris made famous by the movie “Amelie” – where we saw the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur and the miserable failure of Kate to get us into the secret underground passage that only graduates of the school of the Sacred Heart (of which Kate is one) can access.

After that disappointment, we all had to pee and so we found a bathroom located in a charming coffee house in the area, settled in, and ordered some Parisian coffee. The coffees, which turned out to be espressos, were decent and offered a pleasurable boost to our morning. Something that also added a pleasurable boost was a seemingly innocent magazine call Psychologie that was sitting on a nearby magazine rack. While leafing through, I found several luscious pairs of what I’ll call “Grand Tetons.” Page after page, these tetons just kept coming. I took it as a sign of great empathy on the editors of the magazine, who know the only people who would read Psychologie are patients in waiting rooms and French coffee bars. And I’ll tell you, it certainly made Bill and I smile. Thank you, editors!

After the espressos, we walked around the historic area – called the Butte – which is known for its vastly prominent influence on culture, art, fashion, food, and design, and made our way to the pinnacle of this cultural development: the Moulin Rouge.

It was still early morning at this point – even earlier than we thought because we’d all forgotten it was Daylight Savings day – so the sultry cabaret didn’t really have as much tempting allure as we’d hoped. Especially after Psychologie’s boobies.

So we moved on, and saw a scary metro stop, shown here. It was creepy in a Tim Burton “Nightmare before Christmas” kind of way and made us think – what were those Frogs thinking when they were designing this? “Let’s shoot for a Beetlejuice motif…”? But, that thought passed when we realized we had more sites to see.

So we entered the metro and got off at the Champs-Élysées, a seventeenth century garden-promenade turned avenue terminating in the Arc de Triomphe. (I have a funny but not-so-funny anecdote about this…ask me sometime).

After strolling, we got hungry and stopped at this place that served a great lunch, consisting of a sandwich and two desserts, and headed for our next stop: the Louvre. However, we were sidetracked by the siren’s call of the Musée D’Orsay, a museum much smaller and easier to conquer than the Louvre that consisted of French art. Yes, snuff films. [Editor’s note: It’s actually Impressionism. The espresso must have rotted Justin’s brain temporarily. Sorry for the inconvenience].

After going through the museum, I realized that there actually weren’t any snuff films to be found [Editor’s note: See?], but I did see a lot of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. At first, I thought it looked great. But upon closer inspection, it turned out that a lot of the art work was blurry. Maybe the great impressionists (Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cézanne, Van Gogh) all had cataracts. Or maybe just poor vision and an absinthe hangover? Hmmm….

Actually, I have to say I really enjoyed the art. Much more than I thought I would. And, after having gone to the Louvre once before and seeing some of the bigger sites, I’m glad we decided to do this diversion. It added another, uniquely French, aspect to the trip.

A lot of people think of Paris as a romantic city. Granted, those people probably omit from their thoughts the ubiquitous mimes and body odor. But I’d say they’re pretty spot on. Paris is pretty darn romantic - even when you’re with your mom. Just nice sites, decent weather, and grand tetons.