Day 2: Wednesday, April 23, Paris

The plan was to head out to Versailles, but a forecast of clouds and rain kept us in town. First up was Sacre Coeur. As I was walking up I was interested but not impressed. The outside is white (I believe it has a coating of gypsum) that has been darkened by water and mildew. The architecture makes it look more like the Hagia Sophia than the typical Catholic cathedral. (Warning: I use the term “cathedral” loosely – I believe that term is reserved for the home church of a bishop, and if so then I don’t think this qualifies.) The front has a great view onto the city, since it is built on the tallest point in the city. I saw an ornate church but realized it wasn’t Notre Dame. As I searched for Notre Dame I realized that there is a ridiculous concentration of old, fancy churches in town. I remember thinking the same thing in Italy, but I had forgotten it until then.

Sacre Coeur in the morning light.

The inside of the church was an appetizer for the many churches we will soon see. It was pretty inside, but the best part was that it was almost complete deserted at the early hour and there was a choir of nuns singing, filling the cathedral with the reverberating sound of not-quite-Gregorian songs.

After seeing the church we walked around the surrounding area. In the process we passed apartments that had belonged to Van Gogh, Renoir, and Picasso. It really does bring home the fact that Paris was the home of the Salon. We also saw a statue of St. Denis with his head in his hands. Legend has it that the Romans were going to kill him on a hill for his faith, but the guards with him got tired and just beheaded him at a random place. The body picked up the head and together they walked a few miles to a town.

Afterwards we headed to Notre Dame. The courtyard was packed with the usual groups of tourists looking at maps and taking pictures. Mixed in were some beggars and hawkers. I was approached by a girl, probably late 20’s, who asked if I spoke English. It was a short phrase, but I couldn’t detect any accent, which surprised me. She just held up a card in English that said something to the effect of “I’m from Bosnia, I [insert typical beggar story here], please give me money.” There were about ten of them roaming around the square; all were girls (no associated men) in the same age range and all were dressed like stereotypical gypsies. I wasn’t sure if that was because they really were gypsies or if it played to their Bosnian-refugee story. (They could have been Bosnian, but I don’t know.) I was also interested that they came up to me and the first words out of their mouth were, “Do you speak English?” That tells me that I’m obviously American, which wasn’t shocking. (Brits mostly dress like the rest of the Europeans.) It also made me wonder if a) Americans are the most generous and therefore beggars seek them out, b) Americans aren’t used to/comfortable with getting accosted that way and therefore are willing to give them money to make an awkward situation go away, or c) They had the message in multiple languages and just hit up everyone. I don’t think c) is the case, though, because I watched them for a while and they were definitely scouting the crowd and hitting up certain people, and also because another girl did the same thing with her message on the back of a postcard – you can’t very well flip a postcard around to say the same thing in Japanese. There are trinket sellers all around that always give you an English “Hello.”

Since Notre Dame had a free English tour a few hours later, we wandered over to the Musee do Cluny. It had some impressive and up-close stained glass windows from c. 1150 AD as well as the heads of all the kings from Notre Dame. On ND’s main edifice is a row of 24 kings. They are supposed to be the 24 kings of the Jews. During the Revolution, however, they were mistaken for the images of French kings and thus “beheaded.” Someone hid/buried the heads and they were found about 1970. ND had replaced the statues, so now the original heads reside in the museum. It also had some Roman ruins. They included part of a pillar that had an inscription labeling Tiberius Caesar as the current Caesar. I had that weird feeling you get when standing three feet from something that Parisians c. 30 AD walked by every day. I’m sure it won’t be the last time on this trip.

We went back and got an A+ tour of ND. Our tour guide was an older (but very energetic) lady who obviously loved her volunteer job. We got to go right up against the front wall (which is blocked off) and inside the choir/altar area. Along the way she explained just about everything, including all of the pictures/stories. The whole thing took 1.5 hrs, and I would have stayed twice that long if she would have kept talking. Her English vocabulary was excellent, but sometimes I was tripped up by her pronunciations. She said that work was begun, then halted for the Crusades, and during this time some locals came and hauled away stone for their own foundations. When work resumed, people saw that the structure was still standing despite holes in it from the rock-robbers (who apparently liked Jenga), and the result was the idea for flying buttresses to allow what had been a solid wall to now have windows. I’m not sure I understood her exactly, but if that really is what she meant than I don’t think it was quite that coincidental. I’m sure that architecture had advanced somewhat over the 100+ years between first/second construction phases.

Sacre Cour in the evening and the accompanying crowds.

That evening my brother and I hung out some back at Sacre Coeur and a nearby café-lined square, both of which had been deserted that morning. We arrived about 30 minutes before sunset and the steps of Sacre Coeur (that I mentioned before as having a great city view) were packed. Someone had a guitar and a little speaker and was entertaining the crowd with hits – he was pretty good, and he is one of the few street musicians I’ve seen who had a large and engaged crowd clapping and singing along. He drowned out the lonely accordion/violin pair that was further up the steps. The crowd included a fair share of teenagers and college-aged couples, but also had a strong showing of couples in their 40’s/50’s, groups of friends, and a few families with kids. I heard a good number of conversations in English going on around me from time to time. It was just enjoyable to be there. After sunset the Eiffel Tower lit up like an orange-hued Christmas tree. Business was hopping in the square. All of the outside tables were taken with couples or small groups of friends sharing wine and possibly a dessert. A row of street artists were set up to do quick sketch portraits of customers. Judging from the example (advertising) pictures, they are typically employed to turn girls and ladies into stunning beauties. Since most sitters may have started with a few glasses of wine, they might even see a resemblance.

Random notes: They drive on the right, I have only seen one roundabout here. (I actually came to like roundabouts quite a bit while in NZ. They are particularly efficient for medium-traffic intersections where there would otherwise be a stop sign or minor light.) Restaurants here charge more for the same food if you sit down at the restaurant than if you take it to go – same for other parts of Europe. At a produce store, I narrowly avoided a faux pas (no pun intended) and realized that you tell one of the attendants what you want and they pick it for you. You don’t touch the fruit. I have read a lot about French problems with Muslim immigrants, but so far I haven’t seen very many visibly Muslim people anywhere.

Even French graffiti is artistic.

Fashion: I’ll hand it to the French: they really are fashionable. No old ladies in moo-moos here, and no one in t-shirt/jeans unless it’s Diesel jeans and an Armani Exchange shirt. I’m not sure if they are actually “fashion conscious” as in consciously thinking about/following trends, if they just set fashion and therefore have it easy, or if they just dress “normally” and by default end up fashionable since that is what everyone else is wearing. I do know that even in the airport during arrival I realized I should have packed everything black in my wardrobe. The flowers here are just starting to bloom, but there is no sign of colors sprouting in peoples’ wardrobes. Girls’ jeans are typically tight all the way to the ankles, sometimes the same for guys. Black tights or black hose seems to be a must around here. Guys’ dress shoes are more pointy than elf shoes. Blonde highlights aren’t restricted to girls under 30. I’ve only seen one pair of Crocs, and those weren’t neon-colored and were hidden well under trendy pants. Non-immigrant Black fashion doesn’t seem different from standard French fashion. What I haven’t figured out is how the French continue to think that long, flat bangs are pretty – or maybe their trendy-factor trumps the unpretty factor. Most French have aquiline features, and I haven’t seen any obese French. A favorite for women is a tiny skirt or a short dress over black tights, or sometimes over jeans. (Skirts over jeans look odd at first.) I saw a “Goth guy” in all black and black hair shaped up like a bad 80’s hairdo. The kicker, however, was the red mask (think Hannibal Lecter Halloween mask) with metal studs. His accompanying girl was a cross between Goth and anime cartoon girl.