To be honest, I’ve never really been attracted to Paris the way most people are. I mean, sure the boys there are cute and the style is impeccable, but the main reason I wanted to go to Paris was to go to the Musée d’Orsay. That’s right, I flew a few thousand miles to go to an art museum (well I didn’t really, but it sounds a lot more dramatic if I say it like that).
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| The Orsay Museum |
For an impressionist art lover, Paris is like heaven. Aside from the Musée d’Orsay, I also went to the Orangerie and Rodin museums. Montmartre was an amazing neighbourhood to visit as it was the area that the Impressionists worked and lived. Unfortunately I never got a chance to visit the Marmottan Monet Museum or Monet’s house and garden at Giverny, but well, I’ll have plenty of time for that next year.
Aside from my self-guided tour of Impressionist Paris, I spent most of my time feeling confused since I forgot all my middle school French, while looking enough like a local that I would get stopped at every interaction by people who needed directions.
While Paris is called the city of love, I really wanted to see the city solo. Aside from the fact that I doubt anyone would agree to come to Paris with me only to stand in front of a Monet painting for 5 hours, I actually really enjoyed reading up on Parisian history while making commentaries in my head in the style of Bill Bryson, as I wondered the same streets that Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Cassatt and so many more have walked before me.
Here’s some things about Paris I found interesting:
- All the guys wear suits. Even if they’re dressed casually, they still at least wear a blazer jacket (I love it).
- Everyone on the metro has a set of headphones on.
- There’s also way too many “iPad” ads on the metro.
- Bums can be bilingual.
- Free wi-fi at McDonalds can be a total lifesaver.
- All hostels in Paris are overpriced and dirty.
- The French really are bad drivers. I feared for my life every time I crossed the street.
- It is possible to mime out the sentence “I would like to buy some pads because I just got my period” to the non-English speaking lady at the pharmacy (Although I totally think she did speak English and just wanted to be entertained by a non-French speaking tourist).
- Everyone is skinny. As proved by this photo below:
Unfortunately, my visions of meeting and becoming best friends with Carla Bruni never happened, but there’s my few of my favourite photos from the city of lights.
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| The Louvre at sunset. Looks pretty surreal, doesn’t it? |
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| The bridge to the Louvre where locals hang out and play music and drink wine. |
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| There’s locks left by couples on the bridge with their initials on it. |
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| Under the Eiffel Tower |
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Zola’s grave.
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| Degas’s grave. |
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| Outside the Orangerie. |
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| A detail of a room sized water lily painting by Monet. |
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| The Burghers of Calais at the Rodin Musuem. |
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| The Kiss. |
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| The Thinker. |
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| Arc de Triomphe. |
I've never had much desire to go to Paris either, but this post kind of made me want to. Especially the locks, how cool is that?
Oh my goodness – I, on the other hand, have been DYING to go to Paris! Especially now that that I've heard about all of these details!
It looks and sounds like you had lots of fun in Paris, I really want to go there now! I love your Paris facts, haha.
Such pretty photos – I'm dying to spend a good 6 months in Paris in the next few years, although who knows if it will be possible! So glad you enjoyed the city!
xoxo
Jenna
Paris is lovely apart from one very important issue, it is full of French people.
I know ,I know totally unexpected – they should let people know in advance
Such a strange nation, if you don’t speak French to them they have no English but if you try and speak French to them, in order to try and practice, suddenly they won’t speak French only English with a strong accent….At least you North American try and speak English and with the exception of a few words and phrases do a pretty good job….
Haha! I thought if I could say 'What's for dessert?' and 'Where's the toilet?' in French I'd be able to get by …
Sounds like you sure packed in a lot into 2 days!
I love Paris exacly for that reason, the artists!! It must be full of history and to imagine the lives of all the impressionists that were there!! I must visit it. I´m also a big fan of impressionists as you can see and would visit just for the sake of all the wonderful museums…
I also think French can be a bit like the Spanish: They can never understand, or don´t want to, when you try to speak with them in English even if it is a language very similar to theirs, as it happens with portuguese and spanish. I think they´re quite pround!! lol
cool!
i like paris alot and wish to go back sometime soon!!!
cool blog post:)
Yes everyone is skinny in Paris. My friends and I went last year and we had contest to find the first fat French person. It never happened. We did find a fat couple, but then they stopped us and asked for directions. Turned out, they were Americans, haha.
I think the French train themselves to be thin. The two litre bottle of coke that we have in America is fat, their's is tall and slim. I found this very fascinating.
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