Blogging Saddles: Paris, March 30-31, 2010

On the plane on the way over I sat next to kid traveling by himself. Totally great kid, we thoroughly reviewed our movie choices together and snarked about the crappy food, it was fun. At some point in the night he put his feet up on the empty seat between us and completely blew me away with a cloud of epic foot odor! What is it with 12-ish year old boys and stinky feet? I got to Paris and took the train to my hotel across from the Luxembourg gardens in the Latin Quarter:

I had enough energy to walk around a bit and eat a salad, then I went to bed. Wednesday morning I had breakfast then started walking. Nice clouds above the Ile St. Louis (I apologize for being too lazy to figure out how to do accents on this thing.):

I walked to the Marais area north of the Seine toward the Jewish quarter. I purposely didn't look up exactly where the Jewish quarter is because finding the Jewish quarter in a city like Paris, where the Jewish population is a shadow of its former self, is a fun treasure hunt. I fairly quickly found this building, a nondescript synagogue, by two typical indicators, 1. a sign on the door saying "no visitors" and . . .

. . . 2. a cop standing out front. Sigh. Note to anti-semites out there, besides your many, many other flaws, you are really uncreative.

Another thing I found during my treasure hunt, a small memorial above the door of a building to several people who were deported and killed at death camps during World War II.

Here is the building with the memorial:

So creepy to see this in a neighborhood in Paris just north of the Seine. How could people have been deported from this place?

Neat graffiti:

I went to the Carnavalet Museum on the history of Paris as soon as it opened at 10. My French is so crappy that it would have taken me a year to get through just the stuff before the revolution, but luckily Rick Steves had a great museum tour in his book, so I followed that. The Carnavalet:

After the Carnavalet I headed to the Pompidou museum of modern art, but the line was stupid long so I skipped it. The Pompidou and the line:

I walked down past the Louvre, cut through the Tuilleries, crossed the Seine, passed les Invalides and stopped for lunch at Au Petit Tonneau. It rained a bit, then hailed on me briefly in the Tuilleries, so I was pretty soaked by the time I got there. I ordered veal. Noam hasn't had veal since the first time he saw one of those little white plastic caves where veal calves live and was completely horrified. I stopped eating veal soon after, but I figured I am in the European Union, they must have some anti-cruelty laws that protect veal calves. The meat was fabulous though not super tender, which I am thinking supports my theory. Au Petit Tonneau, yummy:

Self portrait with the Eiffel tower after lunch:

Self portrait with Notre Dame later in the afternoon:

The Memorial of the Martyrs of the Deportation on Ile de la Cite right behind Notre Dame, a memorial to people who were deported during the second world war:

Perhaps I am reading too much in to this, but the French are known for their pride in their language. All day long people humored me and waited patiently while I barfed out my lame and no doubt hideously incorrect French, then answered me in French and only switched to English after I gave up and switched myself. Except the woman at the deportation memorial, who immediately addressed me in English. Hmm. I guess only Anglophones bother to go to that memorial.

My feet were killing me at this point but I stopped at the Cluny museum of the middle ages. During the French Revolution, many churches including Notre Dame were pillaged. Some revolutionaries mistook the kings of Judah in Notre Dame for the kings of France and destroyed several statues. The heads were saved and buried. They were unearthed in 1977 by someone digging for something other than heads from statues at Notre Dame, and are now displayed at the Cluny. The heads of the kings of Judah: