In the Charles de Gaulle airport, Erika and I saw one of those cheesy MasterCard advertisements:
Dinner: 50 euro
Trip to the top of the
The day started off innocently enough – we enjoyed a quick breakfast on our balcony, then walked from our room in Montmarte to the Hotel les Invalides for some sexy sight-seeing touristy action.
Crossing the Seine, I was accosted by an armed, naked guy
riding a fish...and made of metal.
However, about 30 minutes into our museum visit, I suddenly realized that I was literally dying of starvation (I was still in the very early stages, but still...) All feeling left my extremities, and I broke into a cold, unrelenting sweat. Lesson 56: don't go to a museum on an empty stomach – the glory of history quickly, and easily gives way to the burning, overarching desire for rest and food.
Thus began an epic "I'm-Hungry-Grumpy" mood…which Erika was more than happy to endure, because it's awesome to be with someone who's in a terrible mood. To fix my "tummy grumbles," we hopped over to a street which (apparently) has a very nice open-air market on it (though I don't recall seeing said market while we were there) called "Rue Cler." I got a ham and cheese sandwich, and Erika got a Croque Monsieur (which is French for "ham and cheese sandwich").
Erika's samich. It was better than mine.
Refueled, re-energized, and re-ady to see some historical junk, we returned to the museums…stopping at Napoleon's Tomb to pay our respects to the inventor of the Napoleonic Wars.
This is how I want to be buried -- in a massive, red-marble coffin.
Family: make it happen!
The next stop was the French Wars from 1871 to 1945. Apparently, during that time in France's history, there was a large amount of lot of retreating, surrendering, and bloody corpses (according to their paintings and photographs, that is).
Now, don't get me wrong, I had a blast at the museum. Like all nerds, I'm a big fan of military history…and it was fascinating seeing actual uniforms, weaponry, newspapers, photographs, and archival footage of these monumental times in history. There was the Maxim machine gun – the gun that heralded the wonder of trench warfare. I got to see the a breech loaded Krupp artillery cannon that ended the insanity of "men armed with muskets, standing in formation, shooting at each other" of the Civil War et al. Then there was a WWI trench coat still caked in mud, a vast assortment of grenades and explosives…I could go on…
Erika enjoyed it too…but after a while she told me it felt like "a series of rooms filled with guns, clothes, and maps." I can see her point – as happens with museums, it all starts to blend together after a while.
If you enjoy dressing fancy, I'd recommend the
German military. I mean...how cool does that outfit
look?!
And, as also happens in a museum, time flies. We'd spent most of the day working our way through the 1871 to 1945 wing, and we soon realized we had less than 2 hours to see the immense "Arms and Armor" wing.
So we buzzed through that section. It seems that the museum has collected every piece of plate armor made in the continent of
Also, something I didn't realize until seeing them up close – these suits of armor were built for some very small people. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I've read that people have gotten progressively taller over time – six feet tall was considered gigantic back in the day (for instance, hundreds of years later, Napoleon was considered "average height" for his day, at 5'7). And it seems that the average height in the 15th and 16th century was between 5'3 to 5'5).
So checking out all of that armor up close, you see that the men fighting in them were short, skinny little dudes. God forbid, if we ever got the chance to watch an actual medieval battle up close (through the magic of "time travel," or "a good imagination"), it'd probably be akin to two armies of shiny metallic jockeys whacking each other with metal sticks.
Now, luckily for me, the part of the museum that I was most interested in seeing (the Napoleonic Era section) was closed for renovations. Maybe the French needed a better angle on that whole "Napoleon trying to take over the world" business. But, in consolation, I did get to see a gypsy scam a lady…which was pretty cool.
Actually…I did want to talk about that for a second. A couple of weeks ago Erika read a posting on some online bulletin board somewhere about a new scam being perpetrated on tourists in
Of course the ring is a total fake, and will turn your finger green if it's worn for any length of time. The gypsy tried it on us first – I saw the woman bend down and pick something up (I think she'd palmed it, though Erika swears it was on the ground as we passed), and…of course, it was a super-shiny golden ring. Immediately we both mumbled "Non" as we passed her…but we stood on the bridge and watched her pull the scam textbook style on a woman across the street (with the "walking away," the "pleading," everything short of the "making a scene"). It was very cool – akin to seeing a celebrity in
The gypsy is in the white jacket...pretending to have found a (totally fake) gold ring, which she gives to the unsuspecting "mark." This is the "begging for money" part of the scam.
Where was I? Ah…yes. Our feet and brains aching from so much history, we decided to take in an early dinner in the
The problem is every restaurant looks touristy when you don't know the customs or the language. In fact, I figure that if a restaurant features French cuisine, it's almost (by definition) touristy.You think Parisians want go out to a nice dinner and have crepes and baguettes? No, they want Thai food like any good red-blooded American.
So we wandered…and wandered…and couldn't find anything that looked "just right. So we decided to go back to Montmarte…where we wandered some more…and got lost…and ended up walking for two and a half hours straight. Actually, we had our first encounter with a helpful Parisian, who asked us (in English) if we needed directions. So wary of scams were we, that we thanked him profusely and told him we were fine (a gross misrepresentation, but as we were in no immediate hurry, a harmless one). Eventually we returned to the Hotel Bonsejour Montmarte, and…gel insoles or not, 10 hours of standing and walking had made an absolute mess of the soft, tissue-y areas of the lower half of my body.
Which meant I'd need a nap, because lord knows Erika didn't want me to get "grumpy" again. Man, I'm such a pain in the ass. Anyhow, after the nap, we made good on our promise to find a good, non-touristy local place...and found a restaurant offering the best food, service, and prices thus far on our trip (slim pickings…but still remarkable…because I just remarked on it). Don't remember the name of the restaurant (sorry!), but it was a nummy, homey, cozy kind of place tucked away in the back alleys of Montmarte. With a stomach full of French-flavored foodstuffs, we decided to bounce over to catch a show at the Lapin Agile.
I didn't quite know what to expect from that place. It's a famous bar, famous for being a quiet, dumpy shit-hole where a bunch of famous alcoholic smart people drank at one point. I was told there would be a "show," but the only Parisian shows I knew of involved sequins and boobs (or face paint and invisible boxes).
Turns out the "show" consisted of a group of about 10 Parisian folks sitting around a table, singing old Parisian folk songs (in French) while an old Parisian dude tickled the ivory (wow…does that sound like a naughty euphemism or what?). They encouraged the crowd, scattered around the dimly lit bar, to join in. So, I tried to sing along, but the only song we actually knew was "Alouette," which is, apparently, a charming little childrens' song about torturing and maiming a skylark.
It was a little kitschy (okay…it was very kitschy), but it was an experience. I'm sure Picasso would shudder were he to find out the fate of his favorite local dive…but…what can you do.
After about two hours of watching this, with no obvious breaks to make our departure, we decided to just skedaddle as the waiter was ushering new people to their tables. As we were walking back, I realized (to my horror) that I had left my hat (chapeau) behind. Merde. So I returned, made with the "merci" and the "s'il vous plait," and got my chapeau bleu back in one piece...with a good deal of what I believe was "annoyance" from one of the performers.
Now we're about to turn in, for what will be our last night in beau Montmarte. Once again, I must strongly recommend this part of
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