The Wacky World of a Lazy Pig (AKA Simon)

Eurotrip Day 7 - Robotic Cats and the Arc de Triomphe with a high chance of precipitation

Were we ever going to stop walking? Seems like everyday required atleast 4-5 Km of walking. I haven't weighed myself recently but I bet that I have lost atleast 5 pounds. It's only the 7th day of our trip and we are already tired of walking and I have almost used 1.5 GBs of memory for picture taking. Unfortunately, if we don't move, this trip would never be worth it and I would have regretted it.

It is Saturday now and today is different. We are doing the Historic Walk of Paris. I wouldn't say it is really that historic since everything is quite far away, but we do get to see many different things around the main part of the city. First stop, Notre Dame.

Before coming learning more about Paris, I always though Notre Dame was on a large hill that was situated very far away from the city, kind of like Sacre Couer. This of course is not true. The cathedral is easily accessible by the metro and took us less than 10 minutes to get to. It is very large, larger than the one in Montreal. The art inside, however, is defintely not as nice as the one in Montreal. Then again, it seemed more soothing to be in this one. There were tons and tons of tourists all waiting in line to get in. The church itself didn't have really large pews but had a lot of chairs lined up in order. The ceiling was very very high (higher than the one in Montreal) and had a small painting at the center of the ceiling showing Mary and Jesus. The stained glass is really big but didn't have a lot of nice pictures on it. The major highlight is from the Altar and back. I didn't see much gold on statues (not that it needs any). There were some really special seats close tothe alter I guess for seating a lot of priests during large ceremonies. At the end of the altar area was a large statue of Mary holding Jesus (I think). I wanted to get upclose to take a picture of it but it was closed off.

Many tourists were walking around the altar area seeing the different little areas for wroship and praying. Even though they had said no flash photography in the cathedral, people still did it. I stopped at several of the areas to pray. There were also a lot of lit candles throughout the Cathedral giving the church a more traditional look and feel. After praying, I went to pick up a souvenir medallion from a machine for 2 Euros. They look really nice, I wonder if there are others that look as good as these.

Notre Dame also had a tower for visitors to climb for a fee of course. I definitely wanted to go but Roger didn't. Roger also didn't really want to wait for us because of the long and slow line-up. I am usually a patient person, but even I thought that the line was too slow and I didn't want to make situations worse for Roger. We ended up leaving the line and continued the historic walk. I promise myself that I will return there to clinb the tower.

The next stop on the historic walk was a deportation memorial for 200,000 french victims of the Nazi contreation camps. It was a nice little park with a small wall and memorial area with names of those french victims. Though there was nothing visually appealing, it reminded me of the movie Schindler's List.

On our way to our next destination (Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore) we passed by several street vendors selling a variety of old books as well as some souvenirs that you don't normally see in other shops around the city. I have never heard of or knew anything about the Shakespeare bookstore before today. When I saw it, I was simply amazed. Not because it was a gorgeous bookstore (because we have Chapters in Canada), but becasue I had seen the bookstore in the Movie Before Sunset. The bookstore irself is very very very very small and very cramped. This store had a huge collection of new and old books all sorted on tall bookshelves. There were many visitors and customers checking the place out. I didn't get many pictures but I can say that this bookstore was really beautiful inside.

While I was exporing the bookstore, Roger and Steve waited outside. Roger saw a cat sitting in the window and told Steve that it was a Robot Cat. Steve I guess believed him and went to check it out. Even after seeing the cat upclose, Steve thought that the cat was a robot. It of course was a real cat. I can't believe Steve came back a few times and still thought it was a robot. Sigh.....

Our journey brought us to a really old church called St. Severin. Now this church was much different from every other historical church I have ever been in. The #1 difference is emptiness. This church is really old and very empty. When you walk in, you think you have walked into a church that has recently been robbed or something like that. There was a lack of statues, paintings, decorations and people. There was no way that this could have been a church, is whatI thought to myself. Despite the lack of objects, the church was quiet and soothing. It seemed more like a church devoted to praying. I bought a candle, lit it and said my prayers and left.

From the St. Severin church, we made our way to Place St. Michel. There is no church here. Instead, there is a huge wall statue and fountain of St. Michael, one of the archangels. There was a huge crowd around and it was difficult to get pictures without accidently including other people in it. Place St. Michel is the traditional core of the artsy, liveral, hippie district of poets, philosphers, winos and tourists. Here, in 1871, the citizens took the streets from the government troops and established the Paris Commune. This was also the location where many locals rose up against Nazi opressors. I guess they really wanted to protect the statue of St. Michel.

Our last stop on the historic walk was the St. Chapelle Gothic Church. I think it is a Catholic Churhc, but not 100% sure. There was a long line-up to go see it and our book guide had gave this attraction a high rating. When we arrived, there was a huge lineup waiting for us. I think we waiting for around 30 minutes or so to get in. Once again, we got cheapers tickets because we were young. w00t! The church itself, if you just run throught it, doesn't seem worth the money at all. Though from the outside one would expect a large cathedral like interior, but in fact the actual church itself less than 20 meters wide. The real good part is the external and internal architecture and art which takes a long time to appreciate. The structure of the pillars as well as the decorations on them were nice. There is a total of 12 pillars to symbolize the 12 apostles as well as the 12 pillars of the Catholic Church. Each pillar has a statue of an apostle. The pillars strecthed very very far into the air, so to compensate for the thin church. I would say the ceiling was around 30 meters or more from the ground. Between each pair of pillars was a mosaic of stained glass. Each small frame contained a specific reference to the bible. The idea behind the setup was to have people look at all the different pictures and slowly move their heads upwards as though they were looking at heaven. Most of this information was given by a free tour guide, which was nice given that we paid a lot for a small church. hehe.

This church is also the Royal Church and was used by kings and queens of France. Relics were kept in the church but out of site. The King had spent 3 times the cost to build the church in order to obtain the relics. They apparently have the original crown of thorns, but I think it is highly unlikely because it would have been used for scientific research if anything. The interior paintings on the walls have deteriorated but haven't lost their original image.

As we left St. Chapelle, the sky seemed to have been filled with more rain clouds. We picked up our pace and headed to the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc is really large and if viewed from far away or birds eye view, the entire area is dazzling. The Arc is in the center of a large 8-way intersection (I think 8). The traffic around the Arc was horrendous. Normally one would expect that there are some lanes for turning, for going straight and just lanes in general so cars don't hit each other. The french seem to have a different approach here, they have one thin blue line close to the ouside of the intersection, which I think is the reference point for cars to use when navigating around the Arc intersection. The Intersection is a giant circle that is around 5-6 cars wide. Cars just fly in from each intersection into any lane they want to get into. There were sooooo many times when I thought that there was going to be an accident. I would feel bad if a smart car was in an accident here.

The time was around 5:00pm. The weather seemed to get worse and worse. We decided that we would only take photos of the Arc and then wait for another day to go on top. Roger took off and went home shortly after to rest his feet while Steve and I stayed hoping to see how the Arc would look like during the night time. The sun would obviously not set within the next 2 hours, so we walked around the main street leading to the Arc. There were a lot of big stores that sold clothing. We only went to the Car stores such as Mercedes-Benz, Renault and Toyota. Cars here were super expensive, then again, I think the cars here in Europe are much better than the ones in US. Renault had some really really nice cars. While Steve was browsing around the Renault store, he was approached by a salesman (I think). The salesman asked Steve if he was interested in joing the Renault team to do some modelling, apparently because Steve had a good physique. HAHAHHAHAH! No Seriously, that did happen. I would say that it was a great compliment to Steve and he really liked it. But even Steve admitted afterwards that he wouldn't have joined knowing that they would have uncovered his belly on the first day, hehe.

To fight hunger during our wait, we bought some Crepes. Crepes here are awesome and would definitely go for some more. The people that make it here in front of you are professionals and the crepes are given to you freshly made. On the way back to the Arc de Triomphe at around 7:30pm, it started pouring, but we still wanted to wait. We ran for shelter under the Arc and waited slowly. As we continued to wait, the rain came down harder and harder and Steve kept getting colder and colder (he wasn't wearing any long sleeved shirt or jacket). It got to the point when Steve couldn't take it anymore so we just went home before the sun fully set. It didn't matter though, it was still pouring really hard.

Long story short, we went home and I lost my Iron Ring. CRAP!!!!!! I was swinging my umbrella and somehow the ring came off without me knowing it. I had swinged my umbrella on numerous occasions before and it never happened, so it definitely sucks. Sigh.

Before going to be that night, we tried to go out to a Spanish pub called Que Pasa, I think Steve's friend called Louis mixed up the names. We walked around looking for a pub that didn't exist and ended up drinking really expensive beer later on by ourselves. Beer really helps you sleep.

Labels: eurotrip

posted by lazypig @ 9:54 AM