Last day in Paris-- Panthéon, Hôtel des Invalides, Fête de la Musique

Album of pics during the day:

Paris 2

1. The Panthéon:
   Having learned my lesson, I planned to leave a bit later in the day and start with the Panthéon, which is a short walk from where I was staying. I packed my three smallish water bottles and took my backpack. Unlike the day before, I was not stopped and asked (in French) for directions or what time it was, so I suppose I looked significantly more touristy.
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   The Panthéon has an interesting history. King Louis the 15th (in 1744) was quite sick and vowed to build a big cathedral to the patron saint of Paris, St. Genevieve, if he survived. He did survive, and commissioned the cathedral to be built. Construction started in 1757, and it was basically done by 1790 (economy sucked, so construction was slow), which was the early stages of the French Revolution. Then it was ordered to become a resting place of the great minds of France. This went back and forth for a while, so the inside contains murals about the life of St. Genevieve, Joan of Arc, and the angel of death, as well as statuary glorifying the revolution. It's an interesting mix.
   
   Revolution-themed statuary:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   A model of Foucault's pendulum was set up and going, so I took a little vid:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Apparently, they don't always have it installed. Foucault used his setup in 1851 to show that the earth rotated. Here are more details about the experiment.
   
   Included among those buried are Antoine de Saint Exupery:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   The Curies:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   As well as Lagrange, Condorcet (he has a voting method :)), Voltaire, Rousseau and others.
   
   I walked in right after the hourly group had gone up to the colonnade/exterior of the building, so I killed an hour wandering around. This was our first view when we went up:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   and then this:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Pardon the weird angle. I was trying to take pictures quickly, and there was a very short woman kind of jostling me.
   
   The Panthéon exterior, from its roof:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   The Eiffel tower and the skyscrapers off in the distance, sharing a skyline:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   I was actually very pleased to see the skyscrapers. I'm glad that they were kept away from the historical neighborhoods, and I also had this satisfaction that they existed.
   
   I have heard of certain tapestry-makers (historically?) that purposefully added defects to their work, so as not to anger the gods (something like -- making 'perfect' things would make the gods jealous). The skyscrapers were for me akin to this.
   
   I liked that the entire group of people I was with looked out at the skyline, saw what I saw, and turned away to take cheesy pictures of the Eiffel tower. I like that this was not Disneyland-Paris (there is, by the way, a Disneyland Paris, somewhere in the outskirts).
   
   
2. Walking around, mainly St. Germain:
   Once that was over, I walked around the area of St Germain. Lots of neat little stores. Saw this, which amused me:
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Also, meringues. I saw some as big as my head. The ones I took a picture of where only the size of a fist or two:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   I walked a bit too much, but I did consider trying to take the metro. I was just unclear on which to take and where to take them.
   
   
3. Hôtel des Invalides:
   By around 17:00/17:30, I ran into the Hôtel Invalides, and figured, hey, I'm here. I should probably look around.
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Turns out, the gold dome is the building built to house Napoleon's remains. Behind it is the 'hospital' proper, which is now the museum of the army. I paid the extra 2 euros to see the special exhibit, which was a lot of cool armor from various European countries. The best pieces were from Sweden, including full armoring for a horse and its rider (former King of Sweden, Eirik the something). This was a helmet nearby:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   There was a mini tank (one of the earliest tanks) on display in the corridor:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Done with that, I went to see the inside of Napoleon's tomb. There's a large floor and as you walk in, you see that there's a circular hole in the middle of it, containing a very large container and some creepy angels:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   Above the hole is the dome itself:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   
   Behind this hole in the floor is a gaudy and impressive altar, flanked by two orange-yellow stained glass windows which suit the gold quite well:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   There were rooms to the side containing various statuary or remains, with blue glass windows which gave awesome lighting:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   You take the stairs on either side of the alter down behind it to enter the downstairs/crypt proper. Above the entrance is the following inscription:
   
   

   From Paris 2

   
   I love this. I love that he asked to have his ashes spread along the banks of the Seine "to intermingle with the French people I have loved so much", and then, not only do they not follow his wishes, they flaunt it by putting the quote above where they stuffed his bones.
   
   
4. Dinner! For my last day, I decided to have a nice dinner. My friend's boyfriend asked the price, and referred to it as 'gastronomy' (fancy food). I walked around for a while, looking at menus, deliberating. I started reading a menu at one place and realized it was in English(with a French version adjacent)! Also, the food sounded tasty, so I was sold. The place was called "Le Doucet". I had the 'brick salmon', which was a nice salmon fillet cooked wrapped in a sheet of super thin pastry, over thin green beans and with a white sauce that tasted very faintly like tartar sauce. I also had a glass of rosé with dinner as well as dessert. In ordering the dessert, I had a little trouble with language. The waitress was trying to tell me in English what their desserts were. The first thing sounded like "Beurre" tart. I asked several times, and still didn't understand. She drew a picture on my placemat. "Ah! Pear!" There was also the choice of tiramisu, and I stopped her at creme brûlée. The custard part was very light, a shade heavier than whipped cream. Total cost of the meal was 28.5 euros. Hey, I'd had several meals of cheese and bread (a whopping total of maybe 5 euros), so I wasn't breaking the bank :).
   
   
5. Fête de la Musique:
   Turns out, for summer solstice, Paris/France throws a huge party. Bands all over the city, in some regions as common as on every street corner. Here's more on the history. Apparently, it's been going on since 1982.
   
   The banks of the Seine, filled with music-makers and people enjoying the Fête:
   

   From Paris-Fete-Musique

   
   Notre Dame was open and free to the public, so we went in. They had a projector running lyrics to some chant music being played. Think new age music:
   

   From Paris-Fete-Musique

   
   
   The metro was free that night, but heavily re-routed, so it took some work to get on a train to go back to the apartment. I don't think I could've figured it out on my own.
   
   
6. On getting back in to the states:
   I got up the next day and went to the Charles de Gaulle airport to fly home. I was there early (somewhere between 8:30 and 9), and our flight was 3 hrs late, with a very long and slow line to check baggage (since they had to re-book everyone with a connection).
   
   There were a lot of beautiful people in Paris, although I found this marred by the sheer number of them who were chain smokers. The worst dressed non-homeless non-tourist was still better dressed than all of my students, who are the main example of American 'fashion' I have as a reference point these days. Taking the El from O'Hare to Union Station, I noticed how most people had ill-fitting clothes, big and baggy, even the guy in a suit. A man got on the train who was, at his widest, at least 4x my size. This trend was even more pronounced at the Amtrak station. Last time coming back, I noticed the poor. This time, the morbidly obese.
   

A (parting) word on photography. People have commented on my photos, so I thought I'd say something about how I take them:

1. Camera: This is the camera I am using.
   
   Here are its main advantages:
   (1) it is very small (about the size of a deck of cards)
   (2) because it is small, I find it easy to take everywhere (just stuff it in a pocket), which encourages me to take pictures
   
   I went from rarely taking pictures to taking lots of pictures, and experience really makes all the difference in taking decent pictures.
   
   
2. Flash/lighting: I almost never use flash. I still take nighttime photos by holding very very still, and I try to make the best use of what natural lighting is around during the day. This has the added benefit of meaning I rarely have to charge my camera battery.
   
   
3. Post-processing: When I started using Picasa (Gmail's photo interface), I noticed that they had a few options of stuff you could do to photos, and I started playing around with the settings. When I got my laptop, I saw that iPhoto has a similar setup. A few small touches go a long way. For the photos of Norway, I mainly darkened them because the light was so severe. I have done some tinting, especially this trip---the photo I took of the lake in the fog was step 1 of the tinting process in Picasa, which wipes the color to some degree, but is not quite conversion to black and white. Etc.
   

Paris - Day 2 - Louvre

For the impatient, the whole album of days 0-2:

Paris 1

1. The Louvre:
   
   Taking some advice, I got up and got going early enough to make it to the Louvre at opening (9am). I was, as a result, one of the first 100-200 people in the museum, which was nice.
   
   Morning at the Louvre:
   

   From Paris 1

   From Paris 1

   
   Only other person in the sculpture hall was the security guard/person:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   I saw something recently, some arts rant/ mini-movie that talked about the backsides of statues, so I was inspired to take this picture (which I think turned out quite well):
   
   

   From Paris 1

   
   Also, this dude has a great eyebrow:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   Psyche and Cupid:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   

   From Paris 1

   
   Famous stuff I got to see:
   
   1. A quick glance at the Mona Lisa (sheesh. That room was *packed*!)
      
   2. The Nike of Samothrace
      
   3. Cupid & Psyche
      
   4. Probably other stuff that I had no idea was famous.
      
   I concentrated mainly on Greek/Roman/Etruscan statuary to maintain my sanity. I also gave up after about 2 hours, being parched, and a bit overwhelmed. The din didn't help. Everything is marble, so the noise of hordes of tourists became deafening.
2. Walking to Place de la Concorde
   My first view of the Eiffel tower:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   After leaving the Louvre and discovering that it had basically stopped attempting to drizzle, I decided to walk around, to the Eiffel tower, Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Trioumphe, which was about 3.5 mi total at that point, and then I kept walking.
   
   Views while walking:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   Cleopatra's needle and the Eiffel tower:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   The base of Cleopatra's needly bears a drawing/schematic filled in with gold that shows something of how they transported the thing to Paris.
   
   I enjoy that the Place de la Concorde also holds this gem:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Arc de Triomph, "eh, it's not that far..."
   

   From Paris 1

   
   When I arrived, I discovered that entrance to the underbelly wasn't free. Psh. So, I took a few pictures and kept walking.
   
   

   From Paris 1

   
   At that point, I could see the Eiffel tower, and figured 'Hey, why not?'
   
   
4. Eiffel Tower
   Voila:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   I decided that I did not feel like putting up with a 1-2hr wait in line to get up the tower and see possibly not much, and in poor lighting (see: it had been raining). So, I had an espresso and sat and looked at the tower for a while.
   
   
5. Etc
   Walking along, I stumbled into this in a random alleyway:
   

   From Paris 1

   
   
   

Some notes:

1. I really should have brought a bag to carry water in. I was parched.
   
2. I was kind of nervous about stopping at a cafe. I knew there were three different price schemes (at the bar (cheapest), inside, outside (most expensive)) and I also had experienced that despite everyone's claims, plenty of people in Paris spoke no English. And, as proven before, my ability to speak even miniscule amounts of French was laughable. So, I just didn't stop. Turns out, this was a bad idea.
   
3. Sunscreen. Wear sunscreen. Even if it's supposed to rain, and you have the (sorely mistaken) notion that you'll be spending 5 hrs in the Louvre/inside, out of the 12 or so hours you have to be out and about. I didn't, and was lobster-ish by the end of the day. This also didn't help my mood.
   

There's this quote about Paris being a moveable feast.
I'll comment on this.
Imagine a corridor heading off to the horizon, full of table after table of delicious-looking food, ready to be shoveled or tong-ed or slid onto your plate. The near-infinitude of this room should inspire you to reconsider the common buffet technique of sampling a bit of everything. That way lies madness. Your plate is of limited size, in contrast to the room. This is my feel both on the Louvre and Paris as a whole. There are a lot of beautiful, interesting things. Resign yourself to not seeing them all. Prioritize. Enjoy thoroughly what you decide to go see. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses, drink the wine, have a coffee, enjoy the breeze.

Paris - Day 1, with math people

Day 1:

The day got a late start, with me walking 40 minutes to the Bastille metro stop to meet two other people who are situdents at UIUC, but in Paris for a math school/program through next month.

Where the Bastille once was:

From Paris 1

We walked over to "the best felafel in town", which also happens to be endorsed by Lenny Kravitz for some reason. It *was* the best felafel I'd ever had. They have a good system. You walk up, confused. Guy walks up and asks if you want take away or eat in. We said take away, and got shuffled to Guy #2 who asks for our order "Felafel?" yes, 3. Ok, 5 euros. lhen we are handed our ticket and number, and told to wait in a line by the side. The line advances as people hand in their tickets and it doesn't take long at all before we're walking off with delicious food. We manage to find the one park in Paris where you can't drink, so we finish up lunch and head to the banks of the Seine to have some wine, look at the Notre Dame, and watch barges and tours go by.

The Seine:

From Paris 1

Notre Dame:

From Paris 1

We wandered over to Jardin de Luxembourg (Jardin = Garden) and enjoyed the grass that was for looking at instead of sitting on, for a while.

Garden for looking at:

From Paris 1

From Paris 1

The wine was putting us all to sleep, as was the mild sun.

Cute octopus logo we saw when walking around:

From Paris 1

Returning to my friend's apt, saw this micro gas station:

From Paris 1

After we parted ways,I bought some camembert cheese and italian lunchmeat and made a little meal of that.

On the train to Paris/ Day 0 in Paris

I chose the cheapest train to Paris, which also happened to be direct, unlike the others which had 1-3 stops. This was a TGV train, scheduled to take 3 hr 41 min. They announced (mid-tunnel) when we were entering France. As said to me before, the French countryside (so far) is pretty similar to rural Illinois, although a bit more wooded. In contrast, the Swiss side was full of rolling hills. Maybe part of it is that the buildings out here seem newer.

Yeah, if you removed the trees at the horizon, and replaced the wheat (I think it's wheat) with corn, I could be in Illinois. Well, and if you replaced my co-train-travelers with midwestern English speakers.

I made it out of Switzerland with only 4 (ish) CHF leftover. Not a bad deal. I ended up bringing all of my 'leftover' foreign currency with me (I have a little bottle of it I've kept on my dresser at home). This ended up working out well, allowing me to trade some Canadian currency to my friend (who's a postdoc in canada) for some more francs when I was running low.

I got in to Paris around 17hr, and then quite easily navigated the metro to where my friend lives. A french friend's advice on Paris was to start everything by saying "Je suis desole, je ne parle pas Francais" and then proceed with whatever questions/transactions necessary in English. I tried this, and the guy manning the info booth slightly snippily told me he couldn't understand me, and to just use English. Once I found the metro, the navigation was very straightforward, and the trains fast.

I met up with my friend and we went out for Senegalese food, which was super delicious. I was pretty exhausted when we were done eating (we headed out around 9pm), so called it an early night.

Lausanne, continued.

Two of the days of the conference were half-days (one midway through, and the other the last day). The midway day we had an 'excursion', which was mainly taking a short train (15-30 min) and then walking 4 hrs along the lake and through vineyards. I thought it might involve some wine tasting, but the grapes are still small, and all of the shops in the towns we passed through (say, 3pm mid-week) were closed.

Album from that trip:

Walk Lausanne to Vevey

View from train:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

View in the train:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

Near start of walk:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

As we walked, people settled into groups based on speed or preference. There was a nice lookout not too far in that was quite lovely. Nice breeze, random guy playing guitar.


View looking back from the overlook:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

Small white boat, blue water, blue mountains:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

Looking akin to Norway:

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

As we continued walking, we could see the forecasted rain moving over the
mountains and then the lake, towards us.

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

It overtook us close to our destination, which felt great after a sweaty hike (lots of up and down hills).

For some reason, I was discussing the funicular in Bergen, and how it'd be nice if there were one around where we were. The boys didn't believe me that it was a real word/thing. Funnily enough, the road we were walking along took us by a wall with hand-painted lettering saying "FUNICULAIRE -->", and there was an actual specimen. It was unclear if it was running currently, since there *were* ticketing machines, but no funicular operators. Also, a trip up to the first stop and back would have been 20 CHF.

Rather than put the fun in funicular, the group I was in decided to buy a few bottles of Swiss wine (~ 5-8 CHF/bottle, not the cheapest nor the most
expensive) at the grocery store and then find some place to eat. The most
reasonable place we saw was a restaurant which sold pizzas in the 20 CHF
price range (and bottles of water for 4.5 CHF :P ). We swapped slices so that everyone tried at least 3 or 4 kinds of pizza, then moved on to a sort of town square area, where we drank our wine and watched the rain really settle in to pour. It was very nice.

From Walk Lausanne to Vevey

Misc:
The only other 'touristing' I did was to attempt to seek out a cafe, which turned into a quest for iced coffee, and discover the/a Starbucks next to a McDonald's. We had our iced coffee, for a staggering 6.60 CHF.

Sebastien (or Sebastian) was the most common name at both conferences, with three people (not the exact same three) with that name at each conference (Norway, now Lausanne). Prior to this, I'd never known someone with that name.

Things I would have liked to have seen:

1. The Roman ruins along the beach
   
2. The beach, up close (although descriptions of loose metal lying around underwater was discouraging; I really wanted to go wading, to counteract the 'scorching' (rel Norway) weather -- temperatures around 26 C and up).
   
3. The Musee Brut
   

Next installment: Paris.