Mercredi Mashup

We take lots of photos. Beaucoup, as they say. At last count, our Flickr photostream contained over 6,000 items. Many of these photos appear on this blog. Some go the way of the dinosaur. Still others get set aside, hoping for recognition, holding their breath every time we browse for a blog-worthy photo. This post is dedicated to all the misfit photos out there . . . get ready for a whirlwind tour of photos that have nothing to do with one another, other than the fact that they are random, and we took them.

This Scooby Doo character and van was parked outside the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). Many, many otherwise sane looking adults were waiting to have their picture taken with Scooby. I really don't get this. What's the attraction? Maybe it's a generational thing...

We had a coffee and used the toilet in this bar/restaurant with Katie and Darryl. A rugby game (England? Italy? who? what?) was playing on the telly. The Gaudì-inspired decor was super cool and super trashed. Too bad.

This dog was hanging out around the Jardin de Luxembourg. Thank goodness for that convenient opening.

Street art in Belleville. Awesome.

The latest performance art installation at the Louvre.

Maggie and Louis attempt to create art. Fail.

 

We saw this dog on the street, at night, and had to do a double-take. Doesn't he/she look just like Panda??

Guest Post: Matt

Matt and I bet on Panda's poop schedule, and Matt lost. As punishment, he had to write a guest post.

Mugshot's Eiffel Tower Tips (re: Eiffel Tower Tips)

After reading Louis's cynical post about the Eiffel Tower experience, and as their last houseguest for a while (I hear they're not hosting anyone for some time — maybe even a week), I just had to offer a rebuttal based on first-hand experience. Get ready to take out your Paris scorecard and put about 50 checks in the "resident" box.

1. Steal a map from the apartment. If you stay with Louis and Maggie, note that they have several beautiful maps of Paris. Make sure it's rainy outside. Find the key to the living room cabinets, which is hidden in a Grand Theft Auto computer game box under their bed. Open the cabinet and take the most expensive-looking map you can find there. Down the half-bottle of Bordeaux they were saving for a special occasion. In your excitement, forget to lock their apartment door, and start your adventure toward the Eiffel Tower. (You will also need a bullhorn and around 10 Euros.)

2. Walk four hours in the rain in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. I love walking, and there's nothing I like better than walking when my socks are extremely wet because of rain and puddles. If you pass all the sites marked on the map below, you will clearly be following the best route to the Eiffel Tower, which is important during bad weather. If you get lost, that's OK. Since it's very cloudy, you won't be able to see the Eiffel Tower and just go toward it. But you can consult your stolen map and watch as it disintegrates in the pouring rain, and then you can try to stumble toward the next waypoint on the map below.

3. Tell as many tourists as you can that the Eiffel Tower is closed. There won't be many out there since it's raining. But as Louis pointed out, people at tourists sites are to be avoided if you want a good experience. Therefore, in your best English, yell at anyone you encounter on your walk that they can't go up the Eiffel Tower during inclement weather, so they should really leave the area. (This includes people who you think might not be tourists — you never know.)

4. Spend some of your Euros on a ticket to go up the Eiffel Tower. This is a crucial step, as Louis also pointed out, because without a ticket to something like the Eiffel Tower, it is difficult if not impossible to go up it. The best way to get a ticket is to say to the ticket person, "Je aller Eiffel Tower," and then point up. This is an example of very good French, so he or she will know what you mean. You should definitely walk up, because nothing feels better than ascending 600 steps to the second floor after you've already walked 20 miles. When you get to the first floor, make a beeline for the gift shop and spend the rest of your Euros on a jambon crudité — you will need it in a minute.

5. Create a diversion. Most of the members of the Eiffel Tower staff are focusing on the elevators. I don't know why this is. But anyway, when you get to the second floor, you'll see that there are lots of barriers blocking access to the third-floor sairwell, as well as signs saying things like "accés interdit" (I don't know what this means!). But if you create a diversion by throwing that jambon crudité down the elevator shaft, you can easily go up the remaining steps to the third floor. When you reach the third floor, take out the bullhorn and declare to all of Paris that you fooled the city and that you can go up the Eiffel Tower in inclement weather. Then, enjoy the crystal clear view of the stunning iron latticework and of your hands. And oh, yeah, sure, that is definitely the Sacre-Coeur whose outline you're seeing in the distance.

In conclusion, I hope you enjoyed reading these Eiffel Tower Tips. I am confident that if you follow these simple steps, you will certainly make a trip to the Eiffel Tower. And probably to the Eiffel Tower Jail.

Eiffel Tower Tips

There are many things I love about Paris, but the Eiffel Tower (ET) is not one of them. Don't get me wrong - it's great to look at from far away and from up close, during the day and at night. I'm a big fan of the symbolism of it, its history, its architectural characteristics. But I don't like big crowds, I don't like waiting in line, and I don't like tourist traps. (ET: check, check, and check.) So even though we've been to the ET four times since September, until last week I hadn't actually been up the tower since 1999.

Last week, of course, was a special occasion: the first time my mom has ever visited me in Europe (she waited until my fifth stay of 2+ months to take the plunge). Once I had committed to "going up," I did everything in my power to eliminate the obstacles that normally keep me earth-bound. And I succeeded. If you, too, are interest in avoiding crowds, shortening your wait, and generally enjoying your experience of the ET, I have the following advice to offer:

1. Go on a weekday, preferably early in the week. Three of the four times we've been to the ET this year, it was Saturday and the place was mobbed. My mom, Cathy, and I went on a Tuesday and were shocked at how few people were around.
2. Arrive early. The tower opens at 9 and most people - especially jet-lagged people - aren't capable of getting there that early. We got there at 10:30 and walked right in (in part thanks to #3 below). By the time we left at 11, the line had already tripled in size. Cousins Ethan, Sandi, and Jacob arrived at the ET around 11 on a Saturday in October and waited around 45 minutes to take the stairs. 
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3. Buy tickets in advance. Most tourists don't know you can buy and print tickets online. Everyone waits in line for an hour or more just to buy tickets, then another lengthy period of time to enter the tower. Who wants to spend a trip to Paris waiting in line? Not this guy. Look, there's even a special entrance, just for you! 
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4. Take the stairs. The southwest pillar is the only one that allows you to climb to the first and second floors. The line there is usually shorter. Climbing is not only good exercise but gives you more time to appreciate your surroundings without the crowding you'll surely experience at each landing. And if you like counting things, you'll love counting the 600+ steps you'll take. Notice how the sign for the stairs includes an unfortunately-designed stick-figure (photo and Nazi-stick-figure-identification courtesy of JP): 
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5. Go up only as far as the second floor. I know this sounds lame, but due to construction (continuing Jan. 4 through Feb. 5) we were forced to stop at the second floor, and it couldn't have mattered less. The view from the second floor is ridiculous - you can see all of Paris quite clearly, as well as many of the suburbs. The higher you go, the better the chance you'll be in the clouds (literally) or that the ground will be too hazy to make out much of anything. Moreover, after you get up to the second floor, you have to wait in a new line to take the single elevator up to the summit. So now you're waiting in line for another significant chunk of time, which (again) is not my idea of funtimes. Consider that the first floor is 187 ft. (57 m) above ground level, the second floor is 377 ft. (115 m) high, while nearly every other building in Paris (with the exception of the Tour Montparnasse) rises no higher than 121 ft. (37 m). This is all to say, there's nothing you can see from the summit that you can't see from the second floor.

This advice serves mainly to ensure a speedy, efficient, and relatively un-crowded visit. It does not ensure ideal visibility, which depends heavily on the weather and season (going earlier in the summer is better than going earlier in the winter, since the sun is higher, which diminishes glare from too much light or haze from too much pollution). Here are two examples of the view from the second floor.

Tour Montparnasse, as barely seen through the early-morning glare and haze during our visit last week.

The difference is clear in a photo from Maggie and Alyssa's visit on December 26.

Lest you think me a rabid, unrepentant anti-towerist, I offer a slideshow of gratuitous beauty presenting views of and from the Eiffel Tower over the course of our stay thus far. Enjoy!

Visitors Out The Wazoo!

Michelle and Alyssa - friends from Somerville - decided to fly through Paris on their way to visit another former Somervillian (Talya) in Israel so they could visit me and Louis. They only had 36 hours, so we tried to make the most of it.

Michelle, Alyssa, and I brave the cold for a great view of the Eiffel Tower from the Palais Chaillot

They lucked out - we had great weather all weekend. This made the view from the Eiffel Tower especially worthwhile for me and Alyssa after having waited in line to climb up, while Michelle and Louis walked around the Champ de Mars.

Can you pick out Michelle and Louis?

Despite their jet-lag, Alyssa and Michelle were real troopers, begging to be dragged around the city so they could pack in as many sights as possible during their short time in Paris. They took advantage of Métro and bus rides to catch a little shut-eye.

For lunch, Louis, Alyssa, Michelle and I met up with Jake and Joy around St.-Germain-des-Près and enjoyed a sumptuous feast of traditional French foods (notably croque monsieur [grilled ham and cheese sandwich, with the cheese on the top], croque madame [grilled ham, cheese, and fried egg sandwich, with cheese and fried egg on top], and croque chicken [no idea]).

Jake and Joy shared moules frites (mussels and French fries)

The brasserie, called Horsehead Tavern, was trying really hard to give the restaurant an anglophone flavor, but didn't succeed completely...

After lunch, Jake and Joy went for a long walk while everyone else retired to the apartment for some rest in preparation for the adventures yet to come that evening!